Help! I Want To Be A Freelance Writer

Author: Alyice Edrich

While some publications may require you to have a bachelor’s degree in English or Journalism to gain a position as their star reporter, you won’t find yourself needing one to become a freelance writer. In fact, you don’t even need a college degree. You just need persistence and a good understanding of the English language: grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, word usage, and use of quotations—to name a few.

I’ve pinpointed the key elements in getting started as a freelance writer below.

Develop Thick Skin

Not only will you receive rejections from editors, but you may receive backlash from readers. Writing can be fun, exhilarating, and very emotional, but it’s also work—hard work. You’ve got to understand the style, tone, voice, and feel of each publication you are writing for. You won’t always get it right the first time and changes are inevitable.

Writers often put their heart and soul into their pieces and it stings when an editor comes along and wants changes made, or feels the tone of your piece doesn’t fit the publication’s voice and needs to be modified. But if you take a step back and look at the changes with an open-mind, you may just find that the changes were in the best interest of the publication and made your work a stronger piece.

Understand The English Language

When was the last time you stepped foot in an English class? What were your grades like? Do you have a complete understanding of how to weave together an article or essay? If you don’t, it’s time that you return to the basics. Once you familiarize yourself with the basics of weaving together a piece of literature that has a natural flow, you’re ready to take the next step in becoming a freelance writer.

Determine Your Niche

The world of freelance writing is very competitive. There are literally thousands of writers querying the same publication with the same or very similar idea. Becoming known as an expert in a certain genre, market, or field is a great way to gain leverage over all that competition.

What do you really like to do? What do you know the most about? What do you want to do for others with your writing? What kind of business can you build around writing for a particular niche?

Study Your Market

Once you’ve determined your niche, it’s time to study your market. What types of articles do those publications want? What have they covered in the past? While you don’t want to write on a topic they’ve recently covered, you could take something they’ve already covered a few months back and re-slant it: offer a new twist, offer an update, or contradict what was said with back-up facts. What are the editorial calendars like? Are there any topics you can cover in the way of an article, interview, or essay?

Stay Updated

Keep yourself abreast to industry news in your niche area. Watch television shows, listen to radio stations, read newspapers and publications all geared towards your industry. Staying “in the know” will give you a jump-start over your competition and allow you to write killer pieces of literature.

Network

Networking is a great way to keep in contact with potential resources for future articles. It’s a great way to keep your name in the inner-circle, thus helping your chances of landing assignments in the future, it keeps you abreast changes in editorial standards and staff, and finally, networking with other writers is a great way to hone your writing skills.

Query Publications

It doesn’t matter if you’re querying a publication for the first time, or the hundredth time, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve met the editor before or you’ve never come in contact with the editor, a good query letter is essential.

A query letter is your calling card. If you want editors to pick up the phone and call you, you must produce a high quality query letter. Your query letter should be unique, detailed, attention grabbing, and show the editor that you’ve not only researched your topic, but that you have the means to further the research and produce a quality article. Finally, your query letter should be about a specific topic, and not written to meet the masses: not general.

Have Patience

While you may be ready to write that article today, editors have schedules to follow and deadlines to meet. Once you shoot off your query letter, it can be weeks—even months—before you hear back from the editor; if you hear back at all.

If you don’t hear back from an editor within eight weeks from the time you submitted your query or article, it’s a fair assumption the editor wasn’t interested. Take your piece and submit it to other publications.

Be Persistent

If you don’t hear back from an editor within the time allotted in his/her publication’s writer’s guidelines, pitch your query letter to a new publication. It may take 10, 20, even 100 pitches before you receive a single, “yes.”

Write Your Article

Once you get the "go ahead" to write your article, don’t expect a polished first draft. Start out by writing down whatever information pops into your head. Follow that with research information and interview sources. Organize your article, rewrite unclear or choppy parts, and move things around until you have a natural flow. Once you’ve completed your article let it sit for a day before you send it off to the editor.

Proof Your Article

After your article has sat for a day, go back to it with fresh eyes. Print your article out on a piece of paper, read it out loud, and red-line anything that needs to be corrected, changed, or clarified. Then go back into your desktop copy, make the changes, and do one final proof. Once your article is ready, send it off to your editor.

Prepare For Rewrites

While you may believe your article can’t get any better, the editor you’ve submitted it to may require changes to meet his/her editorial style. Sometimes, the changes requested seem ridiculous and petty, but do them anyway. It’s important to be professional and open for change. Editors don’t like working with “Prima Donnas.” And who knows, you just might find yourself in “awe” at how marvelous those changes made your work look!

Don’t Be A Prima Donna

It doesn’t matter how many publishing credits you have to your name. Editors know what they like and what their readers want. Writers must conform their writing styles to fit the publication’s audience, not your audience—the publication’s audience. If you don’t like the changes the editor made, discuss the changes and seek a compromise. If you can’t agree on the changes, pull your article, but NEVER insult the editor. Insulting the editor will only blacklist you from the publication in the future, and may even blacklist you with other publications as well—yes editors do network!

Follow Through

If you accept an assignment and then later cancel, you may never have another chance to write for that publication again. Editors turn down other writers in order to give you an assignment; don't make them regret their decision.

Get Paid

If you don’t receive payment within a timely manner, send the publication a friendly reminder in the form of an invoice. Your invoice should include the date you were assigned the project; who gave you the go ahead to write the piece; the title of the piece, when and where the final piece was delivered; if it was already printed, what issue it was printed in; how much you were to be paid; and when payment was supposed to arrive.

Keep Records

Freelance writing is still a business and as such, it’s important that you keep proper records of all your transactions. Keep acceptance letters, rejection letters, copies of your completed articles, copies of your printed articles, to do lists, and calendars. Also keep receipts for training materials, supplies, and expenses.

Believe In Yourself

Realize that you are a freelance writer the minute you set your mind out to become one—whether you’ve written one article or a hundred articles, you ARE a writer.

Every writer starts out with a dream to see their name in print, but not everyone actually sees that dream to reality. The only way you can become a successful freelance writer is if you believe in yourself and NEVER give up.

The life of a freelance writer is not an easy road. A rejection doesn’t mean the editor rejected you or your writing, it simply means your article didn’t fit the publication’s needs.

Never Stop Learning

And finally, never stop learning. Hone your skills. Don’t just dream about sending out a query letter, actually send it out. Respect editors, learn to understand their needs, make the necessary changes to your draft, and always follow-through with your assignment.