In 2012, I pitched 22 editors of magazines, newspapers and websites that I haven't worked with previously and two that I work with sporadically. Some of these contacts were sent several ideas, so we're probably talking about 30-something potential columns, features...
My first ever paid byline was bread and butter local news about a local artists display in a local newspaper. It appeared in a bilingual community newspaper in Montreal, Canada, Le Journal De Mont-Royal.
The brilliant fleet street fox, Nialler9 and Jonathan Frost, editor of Wannabe Hacks, give their thoughts on how to launch and promote blogs to show case work, help build your client base and even generate additional revenue.
Skype can offer freelance journalists cheaper calls, allow contacts to reach them anywhere in the world on a local number and make it easier to record calls. If you’re a freelance journalist that moves around a lot it’s worth thinking about whether the software would work for you.
A quick look at my Twitter-based narcissistic feedback loop of self promotion and how I try to get my work in front of various journalists and publications, including Brooker, Greensdale, Peston, Robinson, McManus, the Poke and Cracked.
There’s plenty of good guides on how to write cover letters out there already (and I’ve included a few of my favourites in the post), but here’s a complete cover letter from a successful application to the Financial Times’ newsroom internship.
Larry Elliot, The Guardian’s economic erudite, gives his thoughts on column writing, including the type of language to use, the financial topics readers are interested in, and the importance of sentence length and article ledes.
The Daily Telegraph pays London Mayor Boris Johnson a quarter of a million pounds per year to write a weekly column in what it describes as “irrepressible prose”. As someone who regularly works on a pre-word rate, I’m intrigued to see how this sum breaks down…
A feature lede is one of the hardest things to write in journalism. The first few paragraphs are the difference between captivating your audience and losing them altogether. Here’s three examples of how to do it right from Rolling Stone, The Guardian and Miami New Times.