ASJA Handout: Tips and Resources for Freelancing at a Younger Age Moderator: Kira Peikoff TIPS: Hit your deadlines. It’s more important to be good and on time than great and a week late. Getting a no on a story idea isn’t the end of the world. And it doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer or that the idea was bad. There are a million reasons why an editor can’t assign you a story; you’ll hear no a lot. Don’t get discouraged or take it personally. Move on. Don’t be afraid to email an editor out of the blue with a story idea. More often than not, you’ll get a no. But not all the time. They can’t say yes if they don’t know about the idea. Find a freelancer friend with whom you can complain about editors and vent your freelancing frustrations. Your friends with real jobs won’t understand the specifics of your frustrations. Go running in the middle of the day. Go to an afternoon movie. Go to a bar at 2pm on a Friday. Take a morning off. There are plenty of drawbacks to freelancing, so you have to take advantage of the benefits. Don’t be a jerk. Be nice and be available. Think in terms of relationships, not individual assignments. An editor who can assign you steady, ongoing work is more valuable than an editor who assigns you a one-off story. Nurture those relationships with anchor clients by pitching lots of relevant ideas, delivering on time and being easy to work with (respond to revision requests, pay attention to the house style guide, etc.) Build your referrals. Referrals from editors or other writers are golden. Refer other writers when it's relevant (and you feel confident in their abilities), and don't think of them as competition. Sharing information on leads and markets benefits everyone and leads to more referrals! Pick a few outlets you’d like to write for and read them obsessively. The more you understand the tone and point-of-view of publication, the better you’ll be at pitching it. If you’re having trouble writing for your dream publication, don’t be discouraged. You may not be able to write for the New Yorker right out of the gate. Think strategically about what outlet you might pitch instead, one that will get the right eyes on your byline. Do good work for whomever you write, and it’ll be a building block for bigger and better assignments. If you’re pitching cold or pitching a new editor, pitch specific, fleshed out ideas. If an editor hasn’t worked with you before and you pitch a convoluted or vague idea, she’ll be less inclined to take a chance on you. Once you have a relationship with an editor, however, it’s fine — great, actually! — to throw her the grain of an idea and ask for help developing it. That’s part of an editor’s job, and a good editor will take the time to do it. Don’t Tweet all day if you are late on a deadline. And don’t complain about an editor on Twitter. Have ideas. Ideas are an editor’s currency. We trust that our freelancers are out there talking to people and finding out what’s going on while we’re hanging around in offices not knowing what’s going on. When it comes time to fill a magazine or a website with cool, current stories, we’ve got to come up with them, and if you bring us ideas that we don’t have to go find, we will love you. Cold emailing an editor with a great idea that really fits his or her publication is a great way to get an in. Start small. Some of the best advice I ever heard as a freelancer was that it takes a lot of trust to start working with a freelancer, so pitch some little 250-500 word front of book pieces before trying to get an assignment for a 5,000 word feature. RESOURCES: Who Pays Writers mediabistro.com’s How to Pitch section My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire by Michelle Goodman This book is not specific to freelance writers, but it has a lot of funny, insightful advice on the business of freelancing. The Renegade Writer's Query Letters That Rock by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell Includes examples of successful queries for a variety of markets and commentary from the writer and editor on what made the query work. Also check out Formichelli and Burrell’s book, Renegade Writer: A Totally Unconventional Guide to Freelance Writing Success. Six-Figure Freelancing by Kelly James-Enger James-Enger includes lots of tips on repurposing ideas, managing your time, and increasing your income. The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman Bowerman offers tons of practical advice on the business of writing, covering everything from creating a list of leads to cold calling. Geared more towards copywriting than journalism, but it includes good tips for all. Virginia Sole-Smith’s side on the freelance life: http://virginiasolesmith.com/2013/02/the-freelance-life-on-getting-paid-and- knowing-your-worth/ On Writing by Stephen King (which every professional writer should read) Storycraft by Jack Hart PANELISTS: Jacqueline Detwiler, Senior Editor at Popular Mechanics Patti Greco, Entertainment Director, Cosmopolitan.com Cady Drell, Culture Editor, Newsweek Noah Davis, Freelance Writer, The New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ Susan Johnston Taylor, Freelance Writer, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, DailyCandy.com .