August 5: Society of American Business Editors and Writers Teleconference, “The Freelance Challenge”

Marci will join several other accomplished journalists in presenting a SABEW teleconference call about freelance writing (only open to SABEW members). Panelists will discuss developing story ideas, where and how to offer them, rules of the game and best practices, and life as a journalistic entrepreneur. For more information and to register, please visit: http://spj.org/blog/blogs/freelance/archive/2008/07/22/21179.aspx

How does an internship unfold when the work is in a home office?

This is a guest post by Vanessa Carr, who has been working with me on Facebook and some other technology projects

There has been a great response to Marci’s call for slashes on her Slash ‘/’ Careers group on Facebook.

One stand-out site was that of Katreen Hardt, an actress/freelance journalist living in Germany. Katreen boldly foregrounds her slash identity on her homepage with a colorful grid of images—half popular magazine covers for issues to which she’s contributed writing and half stills from movies she’s acted in (which include Henry Fool and The Book of Life—beneath an equally bold title: Katreen Hardt, Freelance journalist and actress.

Part of what is effective about her site is its simplicity. From the homepage, you can navigate to one of four sections: about (bio), portfolio (writing), showreel (acting), and contact. On her about page, Katreen summarizes each of her slash components, highlighting a few of her most significant accomplishments.

Read more »

A friend just asked me how she can start publishing her articles in newspapers and magazines. Since many people have come to me for advice about this, I’ve decided to answer her via a blog post so that it can help others as well. Below are the questions I’m most commonly asked.

How does the process work? In most cases, proposing an article for publication goes something like this. You have an idea for an article. You identify the publication you want to write for. You write a pitch letter (also called a query letter), trying to get the editor interested in your idea. You find the email address for an appropriate editor. (For magazines, Mastheads.org, is a terrific site for locating editorial email addresses. For newspapers, you can usually find email addresses on the company website or by calling the switchboard.) And then you email your pitch letter and pray for a response. Note what is missing from this description; you do not send the whole article. How you write the article will vary based on what the editor asks for after reading your pitch.

Does it always work like that? Pretty much, except when you’ve written a personal essay or an Op-Ed. In those instances, you should write the whole piece and send it in, following the publication’s writers’ guidelines. Writers’ guidelines are exactly what they sound like, guidelines for how the publication wants freelancers to behave. Often, the guidelines are available on a publication’s home page, or by contacting the publication and asking for a copy. These days, the best information on what publications are looking for is on Mediabistro.com’s “How to Pitch” series. You can also read writers’ guidelines for a lot of publications at Writersmarket.com. Both Writersmarket.com and Mediabistro charge an annual subscription fee. I use Mediabistro ($49 per year.)

How much work should I do when writing my pitch letter?
In the beginning, writing that pitch letter will feel as challenging as writing the article itself. This is normal. A good pitch letter should grab the reader from the start and it should answer these three questions — why this idea? why this writer? why now? Click here to read the pitch letter I used for the first story I wrote for The New York Times. And click here to read the finished article (note that they begin exactly the same way; that is not an accident.) I got the assignment even though I had no prior clips, probably because I answered those three questions.

What do I do after emailing the pitch? How should I follow up and how many times?
One of the hardest things about freelance writing is that many of your pitches won’t be answered. That doesn’t mean the pitches are bad. It mostly means that the editor hasn’t even read your email. Editors are drowning in email, much of it from colleagues and writers they already know. So it is hard to get their attention. Which is why your pitch should have an intriguing subject header (and mention that it’s a pitch.) Often, it takes a little nudging — an email or a phone call — to get an answer. And often, even with a little nudging you might not get an answer. I usually give it three tries in some combination of email and phone calls before I give up and send the pitch somewhere else.

Some of the books I have tell me to use regular mail. Should I ever pitch by regular mail? If you have any books that say that, they are out of date. Never pitch by regular mail. (One exception might be for obscure literary journals, but the overwhelming majority newspapers and magazines conduct all business by email today.)

What should I expect when/if the editor replies?
You’ll probably have a conversation or email exchange about how long the piece should be, when it will be due, and how much you’ll be paid. The editor will then likely send you a contract. If she remembers. (I’ve written many articles where the contract only shows up after the article has been published.)

What are some ways to break into a publication if you’re unknown?
At the beginning, you’ll do better pitching ideas in your areas of expertise. If you don’t have any published articles (a.k.a. “clips”), but you are the go-to person for pet-training tips, vegan restaurants, or nudist colonies, then start pitching articles about pet-training, vegan restaurants, and nudist colonies. Your expertise will help. Trade publications (publications that serve a professional community) are easier to break into than consumer publications (the glossies you see on the newsstand). Online versions of consumer publications are often easier to break into than the print version of glossies. Community newspapers and publications distributed for free are always looking for content. As are many web sites. Alumni magazines are also a great place to get started. Of course, with any of these outlets, if you know someone and can get an introduction, use the connection!

How much do publications pay for articles?
Pay rates for freelance submissions haven’t gone up in decades. The “standard” for years has been a dollar a word, but many publications (especially newspapers) don’t pay more than .50 a word. Glossy mags can pay more than $2.00 a word, but I know very few veteran freelancers who are earning more than $1 a word on a regular basis. Many publications don’t pay at all. At the beginning, don’t write for the money. Write for the experience. Eventually, if you’re good, you’ll start to get paid. Meantime, you’ll hone your skills.

Note to any publicists reading this:
Now that I’m on the receiving end of lots of pitches for my “Shifting Careers” column, I’m noticing that the same principles of successful pitching apply for publicists as for freelance journalists. I’m not sure if all media folks would agree, but I am partial to pitches that show someone has read my prior columns and has customized the pitch letter to appeal to my interests. It helps if it is an idea I haven’t heard before or a new take on an old idea. Following up once or twice is nice. Any more than that starts to feel stalky. I seldom write an article based on a press release, though I do read them.

Keep in mind that this is a pretty basic overview. Once you start writing and publishing articles, you’ll hit a whole new set of issues. I’ll tackle some more advanced questions in another blog post.

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New freelance writers always worry whether someone will steal their ideas.
Whenever the question of how to protect against idea theft comes up in a class or a workshop, I always say some variation of this:

So what if someone steals your idea. If you couldn’t execute it better than anyone else, someone else should write it. And if you are really the best person to write it, you’ll still be able to write it. That’s why I loved this description (from The New York Times, Tuesday, April 3) of surgeon/author Atul Gawande’s sharing a bunch of his ideas for future writings with a reporter:

Pulling out his Blackberry, he said, “It seems like there’s a story in every nook and cranny of medicine,” and scrolling down a list of 106 ideas he’d saved, he picked a few. “Itching,” he said. “Nobody really understands what it is. Chernobyl. Twenty years on, what really happened there? Why weren’t there as many cancer case as once predicted? And here’s a good one: why, if we have so many health-policy experts in this country, do we have such bad health policy?”

Btw, I tried to interview Gawande for my book. He politely declined, saying that his slashes were just keeping him too busy.

Below is a sample pitch letter. I am pretty proud of it since it is the letter that resulted in my first article assignment for The New York Times. You can read the finished article here.
Notice that the first two paragraphs are identical to the pitch.

April 5, 2000

Dear Mr. XX,

You have had a bad week. After telling your wife you were laid off, she breaks the news she’s that filing for divorce. Then, driving away from the bar where you went to sulk, your car is rear ended by a taxi. When you get home, your teenage daughter tells you she was arrested for drunk driving. In your depressed, self-pitying state you gravitate to the computer where you find yourself cruising the web. Suddenly, materializing on the screen before you is some comfort, a site that actually addresses all the newly acquired legal issues in your life. You decide to do something productive with your time and educate yourself a bit.

While most of us will never face this many disasters at once, we all encounter times when it would be great to know more about the law – just enough to let us know when it’s time to get to a professional. With do-it-yourself sites like Nolo.com, Findlaw.com, and Lawyers.com sprouting up as quickly as you can say “billable hours,” lawyers may find those hourly rates harder to sustain.

I propose a roundup story for the Circuits section reviewing the handful of sites providing legal advice and resources for the layperson and small business owner. By way of background, I am an attorney with an expertise in consumer issues and have recently left the practice of law (after nine years) to pursue a career as a freelance writer. I am also an Internet junkie who spends endless hours doing research online. I have watched this space develop with keen interest and frequently use many of these sites to research issues both for work and for personal legal issues.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Marci Alboher

My friend Ted has had a string of successful careers, starting with a bang when fresh out of Harvard he began writing for the David Letterman show, and within a few months won an Emmy. He left comedy writing to explore other corners of the world.

Legend has it that he’s driven a hack cab, worked at a hedge fund and researched suicide at an Ivy League university.

Now he’s back at comedy.

Recently we had lunch and started talking about the similarities between our careers: both of us working at home, writing by ourselves and then putting that stuff out in the world. Ted said that one of the challenges of comedy is that it’s a young person’s business (Ted is a bit out of his twenties). I suggested he see his age/experience as an advantage. At a comedy club, it will often be Ted and some twenty-something making jokes about sex and farts. But there are venues where Ted could capitalize on his many slashes, in a way that would appeal to sophisticated — and often high paying audiences.

I was imagining Ted at the partners dinner of a big law firm or hedge fund delivering jokes that no twenty-something sex and fart joke-teller would be able to deliver.

A few weeks later, I got this note from Ted:

I’ve developed a customized product for corporate events. If you’re
interested, let’s talk. If you’ve wanted to see me live and had trouble,
contact me and I’ll set up a club date to accommodate. In the meantime,
please enjoy my clip on myspace (TedGreenbergcomic) and on my website (TedGreenberg.com).

Bravo Ted. I can’t wait to see this act. But I probably can’t afford it.