In Search Of Profitable Freelance Writing Jobs With Magazines
With the way the digital world is shaping up, you can easily get a freelance writing job with a magazine. You have two options, either you can write for a digital magazine or you can write for hard copy magazines.
Digital magazines or e-magazines are those that are only available in digital form. These magazines can only be read on digital devices such as computers, smartphones, and tablets. Hard copy magazines are the traditional ones you see around when you walk along the streets. If you can do a good job, writing for either digital or hard copy magazines will earn you a lot of money and may even promise long term work.
Here are 11 tips to consider as you search for a magazine to write for;
- Study your target publication - you need to be fully aware of the kind of articles usually accepted by the target publication.
- Find story ideas – this should be the exciting part. Stories can be friends’ conversations, local events, your local newspaper, competing magazines, etc.
- Find the news hook – after the story idea is the news hook. What’s the reason for this story and why now?
- Leave enough time – if you didn’t know it, magazines leave a lot of time between the time a story is pitched and the time it is published. So, start pitching summer ideas in winter.
- Learn to write query letters – in order to write for a magazine, you need to query the editor, pitch a story idea, and get an assignment. Check out this service to learn about query letters.
- Start small – magazine writers always start small. Don’t start with an entire-page story. No. Instead, consider short, 300-word or 500-word articles and grow slowly.
- Start with trade magazines and custom publishers – while these two aren’t considered main newsstands, they still pay very well. If you’re starting out, they make perfect sense because they don’t usually get many pitches from writers.
- Know how to write a good LOI – A Letter of Introduction basically introduces you to the publishing company telling them who you are, what you do, why you are interested in writing for them, and what story you have in mind.
- Find sources – after covering the nine steps above, you’re almost done. Now, you need to find sources of information, do researches, and conduct interviews.
After that, get down to the actual writing.