How to Become a Freelance Writer

Video Transcript

"Becoming a freelance writer in one sense is the easiest thing in the world. You write something and you send it out. Getting paid for it is another matter. You have to write something that somebody wants to publish. That means you have to write something that no one else is ready 'cos there's going to be tremendous amount of competition. Everybody is a freelance writer or wants to be. So, you have to find your angle on the subject. You have to be able to tailor that angle for what the editor wants. This means tremendous amount of market research. You can get some help from this the American Society of Journalists and Authors. If you become a member of that, we'll provide a certain amount of guidance and we'll provide contacts. But know what the magazines want. If you want to get an article into guns and ammo, you have to know what they're looking for. What kinds of articles they already won? So, if you want to sell them an article about how sad you are that your dog died, they're not going to be interested. You're never going to sell them that one. Maybe if it was a hunting dog and you talk about your experience with the dog and how you trained it not to be surprised when the gun goes off, you might conceivably have a shot. But it's magazine has it's own editor. Each editor knows what he/she is looking for and you have to basically read their minds. It's not as impossible as it sounds because you read their minds by reading their magazines. Doing research, get your writers market the writer and have the other market guidelines and market listings and then you have to read the magazines. Find out what they want and give it to them."