Ed Girl's Freelance Life...
I’m not an expert freelancer and actually just started doing it about three months ago when I graduated and realized I didn’t have many good clips to put in my portfolio. The way I see it, there are two kinds of freelancing: writing for clips and writing for money. Hopefully, as I get older and more experienced, they’ll some how combine and I’ll be able to write fabulous features for fabulous magazines but for now, there’s still that division.
Sadly, I’ve been freelancing for money a lot more lately and am basically using elance.com to help accomplish that. Don’t hate, it’s almost December and the holidays are quickly approaching. I’ve got to make some extra dough somehow. The site is pretty simple to use and I’ve made quite a bit on it since I discovered it about a month ago. I’ve been basically doing a lot of web content writing, specifically for products or certain topics. For example, I just finished up writing a bunch of 300-word articles about marketing and made $400 doing it. I probably won’t use them for clips, but it’s cash.
I’ve been writing two or three clips a month for a Boston newspaper that I get paid a lot less for but can use in my portfolio. If you haven’t freelanced yet, I think you’ll find that the clips you can use are often ones that you wrote for very little or free. I got pretty lucky and have found a lot of freelancing gigs through craigslist but I’m hoping to eventually be in a place where I can pitch story ideas to my favorite mags. If you’re trying to build clips, though, I imagine you’re not in a place where you’ll be hired to write a feature for Glamour, so I’d suggest writing about what you know and love for smaller publications.
I hope this kind of helps some of the people who have been in touch with questions! Again, I’m definitely no expert and am learning all of this too so if anyone has any fabulous freelancing tips, please share them in some comments!
<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt
PS - I have an interview for my DREAM entry-level editing job in a few hours so wish me luck! EEK!
Sadly, I’ve been freelancing for money a lot more lately and am basically using elance.com to help accomplish that. Don’t hate, it’s almost December and the holidays are quickly approaching. I’ve got to make some extra dough somehow. The site is pretty simple to use and I’ve made quite a bit on it since I discovered it about a month ago. I’ve been basically doing a lot of web content writing, specifically for products or certain topics. For example, I just finished up writing a bunch of 300-word articles about marketing and made $400 doing it. I probably won’t use them for clips, but it’s cash.
I’ve been writing two or three clips a month for a Boston newspaper that I get paid a lot less for but can use in my portfolio. If you haven’t freelanced yet, I think you’ll find that the clips you can use are often ones that you wrote for very little or free. I got pretty lucky and have found a lot of freelancing gigs through craigslist but I’m hoping to eventually be in a place where I can pitch story ideas to my favorite mags. If you’re trying to build clips, though, I imagine you’re not in a place where you’ll be hired to write a feature for Glamour, so I’d suggest writing about what you know and love for smaller publications.
I hope this kind of helps some of the people who have been in touch with questions! Again, I’m definitely no expert and am learning all of this too so if anyone has any fabulous freelancing tips, please share them in some comments!
<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt
PS - I have an interview for my DREAM entry-level editing job in a few hours so wish me luck! EEK!
posted by Ed intern at 1:33 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks so much for the tips, this is definitely just the kind of advice I needed right now! Good luck on your interview!
I have a full-time mag job at a regional pub but freelance on the side (and have been for about 5 years). I've found some assignments on Craigslist (one to write a city guide for a website that paid $1000, $1 a word for 1000 words) and I mostly freelance for newspapers and smaller mags, which don't pay a ton but let me write about interesting topics. Newspapers are a good place to hit up now because a lot of them are cutting staff writers and need freelancers to fill that void.
I started freelancing with Citysearch, so if you have one in your area, I'd suggest sending them your resume. I got that gig pretty much right out of school. It paid ok and since I was doing bar and restaurant reviews, I got to eat and drink for free.
Because I'm an editor now, I deal with freelancers on a regular basis and my best advice is to follow up on pitches because we get bogged down sometimes and need reminders.
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