Everything But Writing: The Rest of the Writing Business
Posted: September 20, 2011 Filed under: Everything but writing, freelance newspaper articles, freelance opportunities | Tags: Everything But Writing, Oregon Coast Today, The Scriptorium Leave a comment »So much of being a writer is not writing. For years, I wrote a column for The Scriptorium called Everything But Writing. You may still be able to read excerpts there. As with everything else, the columns need updating, and I plan to expand them into an e-book. But first, I’ll be trying it out here. So stay tuned for some posts that may save your writing life.
Meanwhile, I have been freelancing for a local newspaper, Oregon Coast Today, whose editor got herself a full-time job doing something else and suddenly needs copy. She previously wrote most of the articles. So far, she pays well, and she has started doing something I don’t see happen very often: putting out weekly lists of stories she’s looking for, with lengths and deadlines. You still have to convince her in an e-mail pitch that you can do it and share how you’re going to go about it, but it’s so great to have a list to choose from. She’s also open to other people’s ideas. Most of you reading this blog don’t live in the paper’s coverage area, but if you’re on the central Oregon Coast, write to Niki@oregoncoasttoday.com to get on her list.
I have talked about this here before, but the key to getting something into Oregon Coast Today is to offer something the reader can do, such as a good place to hike or an upcoming event to attend. If it’s past tense or not “actionable,” forget it. This is a good thing to keep in mind whenever you’re writing; what can the reader do with it?
Happy writing.
Job-seeking at Mediabistro.com and Journalismjobs.com
Posted: June 10, 2011 Filed under: freelance opportunities | Tags: freelance writing opportunities, journalismjobs.com, mediabistro.com Leave a comment »If you’re looking online for freelance writing opportunities, Mediabistro.com and Journalismjobs.com both offer lots of possibilities.
As with many sites, one must register to read the listings at Mediabistro.com, but it doesn’t cost anything. You will get the occasional e-mail from them, but you might also find some great jobs. Narrowing my search today to freelance work, I got 38 listings. They vary widely. If I were a food writer, I’d jump on the listing for a freelancer for CafeMom. They want a blogger and will pay $40 a post. It isn’t big bucks, but it could be fun, easy and a good way to get clips to find more lucrative work. You could write iPhone apps for UrbanDaddy or parenting blogs for an unnamed site. There are editing and PR gigs there, too. You can also find listings for patch.com, an online newspaper which is seeking writers from New Hampshire this week but has outlets all over the country.
Mediabistro.com lets writers advertise their skills for editors to see. They also offer courses and articles on job-hunting and a bulletin board to chat.
At Journalismjobs.com, some of the listings are a little older, but the offerings are more appealing to me than those at Mediabistro.com. For example, there are freelance listings for a Sacramento Correspondent for the Bureau of National Affairs, freelance reporters for The Houston Chronicle, college sportswriters for College Sportswatch, freelancers for Hamptons Magazine, patch.com reporters in Iowa, California and New York, and more. This site also has news and articles about the journalism business. As with Mediabistro.com, you can post your resume here for employers to see.
These two sites should keep you busy until next week when I’ll be back with more. Have fun.
>Newspapers fall behind
Posted: November 4, 2008 Filed under: breaking news, freelance opportunities, online media 2 Comments »>The daily metropolitan print newspaper is useless for breaking news. It’s time we longtime newsies faced that fact. By the time a paper publishes the results of today’s election, it will be old news for most people. It’s simply impossible to beat the online and broadcast media. For example, I knew yesterday afternoon that Barack Obama’s grandmother had died. My father, who reads the paper every day and watches the news on TV every morning and evening, had no idea. A bigger example: When the attacks occurred on 9/11, I found out on the Internet. Then I turned on the TV for details. By the time the paper came out, every possible nuance had been discussed to death on CNN.
What does this mean for freelance writers, indeed for all newspaper writers? First, ditch that movie fantasy of the hotshot reporter writing the big scoop and becoming famous via the next day’s headlines. Second, expect dailies to depend more and more on their online outlets to get the news out. In order to compete, most papers today have web sites and blogs where they can publish breaking news. Their only challenge is to get readers to look at them instead of turning to Yahoo, Google, AOL or CNN.
However, the news still breaks in print for small towns like the one where I live. We don’t have a local TV station, the Portland stations rarely cover the coast, the few radio news reports offer very little about what’s going on, and the only local online news outlet went under a couple years ago. We truly depend on our local semi-weeklies to find out what’s happening. That and word of mouth. Last weekend, a minister mentioned that he’d been up late dealing with a suicide. Someone at church mentioned a big truck accident on the highway. I will be scouring tomorrow’s News-Times for those stories.
Community newspapers cover the local news, along with features that aren’t big enough for the major media: the woman who wrote a book about fishermen after her son died at sea, the new Mexican restaurant on the corner, the construction of a new college campus, my book-signing next weekend. Freelancers can get into these pages by being present where news happens or producing local features that will interest the readers.
Likewise, freelancers can get into the big dailies by writing for sections that are not as dependent on the news, such as living, opinion, travel, food, business, and the arts. Last Sunday an enterprising freelance writer wrote for the real estate section about the increasing number of single women buying homes in the Portland area. It was a good example of a “trend story.” Women aren’t waiting around in their rentals for Prince Charming to buy them a house anymore. The writer took time to interview home-buyers, realtors, and mortgage brokers to produce a complete and well-written article.
I’ve prattled on long enough this morning, but here’s the point. If you want to write breaking world or national news, forget about newspapers and go online. But other opportunities remain in feature sections, community newspapers, alternative weeklies, and specialized rags. Don’t quit; adapt.
