The freelance challenge: A recap
The hot markets today for freelance journalists are online.
That was the consensus today of participants in a teleconference hosted by the
Society of American Business Editors and Writers, entitled The Freelance Challenge. The hour-long teleconference explored the advantages and challenges of freelancing in today's fast-changing journalism industry.
The panelists suggested exploring blogging both as a personal marketing tool and a paying journalism medium. One panelist, Marci Alboher, became a blogger for The New York Times after establishing a writing relationship with Times editors and then impressing them with her blogging and marketing skills. Another panelist, Ann Marsh, who writes a column for The Los Angeles Times, said she knew a friend who lives abroad and started out decades ago freelancing for newspapers. The friend now makes her living writing for several blogs.
Greg Daugherty, who has been a full-time magazine editor and part-time freelance writer for nearly 30 years, offered his advice on pitching.
- Understand the publication. Editors are so inundated, often they look for excuses to discard a pitch. Pitches from writers who don't understand a publication quickly are trashed.
- Emphasize your credentials. Perhaps more important than selling the story is selling yourself as the writer, he said. Why should you write the story?
- Emphasize the story's timeliness. Why do the story now?