ALT-9 Freelance Writing Advice and Encouragement
With the explosion of the Internet and the corresponding increasing demand for information, the occupation of freelance writer has opened wider. Never before have there been so many different writing opportunities journalism, online blogging, magazine writing, book writing, technical writing, advertising and script writing all provide opportunities for freelancers to show their stuff.
Freelancers who work hard to sharpen their skills will find many opportunities to explore and use their creative writing and to develop well-rounded abilities. Unlike some of my colleagues who stress the importance of building credentials as a freelancer, I believe it is more basic to encourage new writers to devote time to learning their craft. But first realize this: You must have something to say and you must be patient enough to wait for people to hear it.
Before you can succeed at writing, you must write. You must have an area of interest, even if it only serves for the one article you plan. If you have an expertise in a particular area, it is even better. Increasingly today, freelancers must be able to convince editors and publishers that they know more about the subject they desire to write about than just about anyone else who is likely to write about it. The easiest way to prove this to an editor is to go through other articles on the same subject, and compare them to what you will write and tell why your idea is better.
The strongest advice I give is this: You must be fascinated by the subject yourself, if you are to have any chance at all of convincing others to read what you write about it. Since you are a new writer without that backlog of previously published clips, it is best to try topics with which you are most familiar. You need ingenuity. You need to have that feeling in your gut that you will write the story or article and that you will allow nothing to stop it from happening!
It all starts with ideasIdeas come many ways. They may arrive in your mind while idle at a traffic stop; or even while you are sleeping. There is a deluge of possibilities for your subjects but you cannot write all of them. After carefully evaluating your first or second idea for your article, you may learn there is no market for it or that someone else has covered the idea with even more depth than you planned.
You must listen to yourself and to the world around you, always remembering that your primary objective is to be a successful freelancer. Do not let other distractions of getting published, money, etc. keep you from concentrating on putting together that project you have in mind.
I can advise you on how to submit your finished work to a publisher correctly and professionally. I can even forewarn you of problems ahead. But in the end, you must sit down and do the research and writing. It is your job to do. You learn how to write by writing. You learn the business of writing by researching the subject.
Even after you decided on a topic good enough for you to write about, it will not be enough to sell the idea. As a professional freelancer, you are expected to have the tools you require to make an excellent presentation: You must demonstrate creativity, originality, and your writing language and skills must push the editor to recognize you as a freelancer with abilities even if they do not like this particular idea for an article! If the editor is impressed with your presentation, they may suggest a topic for you or even a totally different way to explore that idea, even if they do not want what you propose this time.
If you are planning to submit an article to a trade or consumer magazine, first read articles in the magazines. Read the Guidelines furnished by the editor. Note the point of view of the magazine: Are the articles in first-person or third-person? Are they factually based? Do they contain lengthy interviews? Are the articles positive or otherwise?
From whose perspective are the stories told? In other words, notice the POV. Think how this changes a story tremendously. If you tell a story from the POV of the doctor in the emergency room, you have a different slant entirely than if you tell the story from the POV of the patient!
Along this same line of advice, I suggest you define, as closely as you can, your target audience, choosing from: Adults, young children, teenagers, retirees, professionals, tradespersons, etc. This must be known before you write a word.
Select your market from "Writer's Market" or the Internet or from publications you read. Follow the suggestions in "Writer's Market" or those in articles published here on Helium as to method of making article submissions.
