Any advice you could supply me with about freelance writing and what works for you or other leads you have noticed but haven't pursued would be much appreciated. Help a young writer out? Tips? Pointers?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2015 05:12PM by Cold-Dodger.

Even in the "internet age," the best way to find a writing job is basically the same way it's always been:
Find a company/group/publisher you want to write for, and send them samples. Write for them without an assignment. Write something that fits into their niche. Write something compelling. Then send it in asking for work.

Beware some of the "writing" jobs listed on Craigslist and similar places. Lots of them are frauds.

Good luck!

This.

Plus actively pursue non or low paying writing jobs, just for the experience.

I've written several book reviews where the only pay was a free copy of the yet to be published novel. And for a while I was getting authors seeking me out to review their books. Had a long stretch where I had to say no and that gig pretty much dried up lately, but things like that are out there. I've spoken with the editor at the local paper (SD Union Tribune) about doing reviews for them and he said to just do one, review a new book, and send it in as a wiring sample. I got really busy right after that and never did, but look for opportunities to get your foot in the door and practice practice practice.

Avoid content mills. Be cautious with sites like Guru, eLance, Freelancers.com, and Odesk, you can find a few decent jobs on there, but 90% of them are very low-paying.

While it's true that you can sometimes still get your foot in the door by approaching a company and doing some work for free, it's increasingly less viable and there's less of a payoff. There are, however, plenty of websites, ezines, and even traditional magazines that will consider your pitch for a particular article suited to their target demographic, and then contract with you to write the article. DO NOT just send samples, then write for free. That can go on for years before you get paying work, or they can simply drop you in favor of some other hopeful who will write for free.

The internet has radically changed writing and publishing. The way things used to be done is almost never the way they are done now. Get online and find sites where freelance writers congregate and share info. It also helps to network with local writers via writers groups and university courses.

icedtea Wrote:
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> Avoid content mills.

Agreed. Years ago, they paid crap and it was soul-destroying work. Now they pay many times less than crap and it is even more soul-destroying. Some stiff you altogether.

I write, test, document, and deploy code in my day job. The IT world has been good for some decades. While perhaps not as interesting as writing, but the return on investment is better. YMMV.

Submit op-eds to local newspapers. Keep submitting. There are plenty of on-line articles on the "how-to," and what editors like.

Keep clippings, both physical and digital, of any- and every-thing that you get published. Any agent, editor, or publisher who takes an interest in you will ask, "Just what have you done?" Even if you got paid little or nothing, it will be quite valuable if you can bring out published material which somebody considered good enough for their market.

A couple or years or so ago I did freelance writing -- mainly SEO articles and other web content. I found jobs on Elance and oDesk. I think the two combined and then were bought out or something. Now it's called Upwork.

Good luck!

I don't know anything about professional writing for the Internet, but I think you have an advantage that doesn't exist for many aspiring writers...

You undoubtedly have a local newspaper in your area (Idaho, right???), and maybe you have more than one if you widen the "area" you consider "yours."

Find a story that hasn't been covered in your area (could be a local person who actually has a colorful and newsworthy story...or a local kid growing up who is determined to be [whatever is most improbable in your area] and has [this at least vaguely newsworthy thing] to show for it...or a niche athlete (fencing, or something equally off-the-beaten track)...or some not-yet-told local history story that you've researched and can write up in an interesting way.

Go in to the paper, talk to the editor or assistant editor, tell them you want to write a local-themed story about [name your subject], and might they be interested in printing it?

Learn to write in newspaper fashion (the five "W's"---who, what, when, why, and where---plus the "H" (how), and make sure your story has ALL of them...how to write in an "inverted triangle" (most important facts at the top of the story, tapering down to the least important things)...and how to format the stories you submit (ask the editors how THEY want submitted pages formatted, learn that way, and then check with online sources to see if the evolving larger world has tweaked that basic template, because it probably HAS).

You could volunteer to write obituaries ("obits"), engagement and wedding stories, baby and adoption announcements, and whatever store openings or local community service announcements they have in your area, or maybe do a series of reviews of films at your local theatres, perhaps in conjunction with those theatres (bring in this coupon attached to the story and get your popcorn for $1.00 off)---realizing that your reviews are going to have to be POSITIVE reviews so that you're actually bringing in admissions to those films...

The object is to get credits: actually published pieces (which you are VERY unlikely to get paid for, but which, in the real world, count as legitimate professional writing credits).

Past my first actual credit (a sale to Archie Comics for $25 when I was ten), I went in to our local newspaper (the Woodland Hills REPORTER, which no longer exists) and began writing MANY articles about my Camp Fire group's activities, about things interesting to our local community re: the junior high the Woodland Hills kids went to, and then the senior high Woodland Hills kids went to. Add in one extremely bad poem about the beginning of the school year, and a few additional articles about things of interest to Woodland Hills (I learned all about our community history, and did a brief history series for awhile, with file photos of "the way [a given place] USED to be" (like the park, then in ruins, which was part of the original attraction to our community when it was called Girard...and some human interest profiles of actually interesting people who had lived in Woodland Hills since those early "Girard" days).

I had an adult-sized portfolio of published credits by the time I was in the last couple of years of high school, so I then began publishing at our regional newspaper, the DAILY NEWS---and I kept trying to break into the Los Angeles newspapers (I kept calling the copy desks and they DID take down my stories as I dictated them, but I never actually succeeded in getting them published, either at the Herald, or at the Examiner, or at the Times).

Didn't matter, though, because by the time I was graduating from high school, I had enough credits to ALSO graduate into smaller, but national magazines, starting with PREVENTION (which I had grown up with), and a human interest article about my paternal grandmother (one of the original "health nuts," who raised me on PREVENTION, and how she got SO rejuvenated now that she had changed her diet that she went to college in her 60s and became a teacher all over again, something she had been forced against her will to give up when she first became a mother), and once I got that first PREVENTION credit, I was then able to sell them a few other articles on healthy regional cooking (New Mexico cooking, Native American cooking, etc.), and then I took THOSE credits to LET'S LIVE (published "over the mountain"), and got a whole series of cover articles published on celebrities who were "health nuts": Clint Walker, Glenn Ford, etc., etc....

...and then, using THOSE credits, I got my first job as a staffer at a company which published three regular fan magazines a month (plus about six "specials" a year), where I was writing one-third of each of those three magazines every month (plus miscellaneous articles for the "specials")...

...which led to me being able to write some popular-market books for a small niche publisher (I think I got something like $500 per book, and I sold all rights to the publisher for that $500, but they were legitimate book writing credits by way of a legitimate commercial publisher).

Most of the writers I know have, in their own unique ways, done some variation of the above...and THEY (the writers I am speaking of) went on to write internationally-famous classic books and films (but they were males, and being a male COUNTS---even today).

I don't know how this synchs in with Internet writing, but I do know that you probably need those initial credits to get "in" wherever those Internet assignments are being made.

So my advice is: Start local, and do WHATEVER will get your work published by a legitimate publisher---and your local newspaper emphatically counts. Keep a careful, printed out, list of all of your credits (date of publication, title, approx. number of words in your article, photo credits if any, name of publication), and a file of all of your published articles so you can Xerox any of them on a moment's notice to take to an interview, etc.

At the same time, try to find a "way in" to the Internet market (which, as I said, I don't have a clue about). If you do both at the same time, when you DO find a "way in," you will be ready to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Good luck!!!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2015 10:09PM by tevai.

A good entry point used to be in porn.

Some friends of mine have gotten rather good at it dealing mostly with Amazon and Kindle.

Tougher times have reduced the per word stipend, alas.

Gotta admit it does sharpen your skills once you become a mastur of words that make people horny.

Shummy Wrote:
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> A good entry point used to be in porn.

Absolutely...many of the "name" writers I know used to pay their monthly "nut" (this is what they actually called it :D : their rent, food, utilities, etc.) with porn paperback writing (as they worked with their "legitimate" writing part-time, trying to break in to the "legitimate" markets)...

...until PLAYBOY began, when many of them began writing for PLAYBOY (short stories, plus articles, plus features). Then, using their PLAYBOY credits (which were honored pretty highly in the various industries), they worked to break into TV and film.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2015 10:17PM by tevai.

Interesting. I know "back in the day", many writers got started writing for the pulp raunch books. I'm at a little surprised Amazon is in on this market these days. I could see smaller outfits producing digital content for this market.

I got my first paid assignment through a listing in "Writer's Market." I found a topic I knew (Mormonism!), and began writing an article on an area of the faith I thought was little known at the time. I tracked down and interviewed Mormon authors and even got a brief interview from a church spokesman. I did all of it on the phone from the dumpy little apartment we lived in at the time. Once I had a good amount of data, I put some of it in a proposal following the instructions provided by the publisher in "Writer's Market." A couple months later I got an acceptance letter. I continue to buy the annual Writer's Market most years. If nothing else, it's encouragement that there's actually work out there.

I make ongoing income through weekly blog writing for a couple of companies. My relationship with them, however, started through other work I did for them: specifically photography (my primary income) and web programming (occasional income).

If I were to start from scratch today, I'd quickly become an expert on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and launch a WordPress site. I'd target local businesses with neglected websites and write a couple of sample blog entries for them on my website. You may be able in short order to forward a Google search to them showing your blogs are rating higher than their own websites. Offer to make this happen weekly from their domain. This is what I'm doing for my blog clients currently. They pay me well because I consistently create blogs that drive traffic to their main site.

If you have a background in computer science, engineering, or any technological field, you may be able to find work as a technical writer. This is a very different skill set than journalism. If you have good writing skills to begin with, take a couple of college courses in the finer points of technical writing and you might be able to find work there.

You will also need some specific technical skills. Search job postings for technical writer positions on any job-seeker website and pay attention to the required skills. You may be able to learn a lot of software packages on your own, and the rest you can get at a decent community college.

Good luck!

Firstly, build up a good portfolio of published work by creating a blog at www.blogger.com. But not Wordpress.

Why not Wordpress? On the "Free" version you aren't allowed to have adverts, but with Blogger if you have an Adsense account, you can place adverts on your blog and, hopefully, generate some income.

Newspapers (like most print publications) are a vanishing market -- actually, they're pretty much dead. Writing obits and op-eds for free (even if you can somehow score a "job" doing that) is not the kind of "experience" that will get you paid jobs. Pursuing low-paying and free work to get experience is, no offense, kind of a 30-years-ago strategy that will get you... more free and low-paying work -- with a couple of exceptions.

Some (unpaid) guest blog posts on well-read and well-respected blogs, website articles (especially for niche/special interest sites), listicles, online journals and magazines, vlogging... the possibilities for resume credits are endless and more impressive than writing obits for the Podunk Daily Journal. Potential clients and buyers want to see what you have written that directly connects to their field of interest. That is what will get you jobs. The more of a professional online presence you have, the better.

Get online and research whatever it is you're an expert at and have a passion for (ungrammatical sentence, I know). You'll find out where to go. I write particular kinds of non-fiction, often for women's markets catered to by sites like Bitch media, xojane, sheknows.com, and several others.

Some of my favorite places to find out what's going on and where:
writerscafe.org, thewritelife.com, absolutewrite.com, and janefriedman.com. If you're female, shewrites.com. Oh, and Emma Johnson, one of my favorites, has this: http://www.wealthysinglemommy.com/how-to-launch-a-blog-in-1-hour-and-get-10000-page-views-in-1-month/

icedtea Wrote:
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> Newspapers (like most print publications) are a
> vanishing market -- actually, they're pretty much
> dead. Writing obits and op-eds for free (even if
> you can somehow score a "job" doing that) is not
> the kind of "experience" that will get you paid
> jobs. Pursuing low-paying and free work to get
> experience is, no offense, kind of a 30-years-ago
> strategy that will get you... more free and
> low-paying work -- with a couple of exceptions.

This could well be true... :)