So far, I’ve been freelancing mainly as a ghostwriter, which is akin to writing a friend’s paper in school for money. You get paid but you don’t reap any of the glory/notoriety. It’s becoming a source of distraction for me lately. Honestly, I am getting bored with the work and am I am finding myself less than ambitious.
This leads me to deciding to spend more time writing about things I enjoy and have a genuine interest in, with the hope that at the very least they are appropriate for Suite101, best case scenario is to start querying print publications with my ideas for articles.
Do you remember the first article you ever pitched? What was it? Who published it?
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February 29, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Christine
Hi,
yes, this is frustrating. Years ago I just submitted articles to newspapers.Then I was still writing in German – my native language. I sold about half of what I submitted. It wasn’t bad at all.
Then I stopped because I had my kids…
I usually contacted someone at the paper and said I had this article about xxx and I thought it would really fit in xxx section of the paper.
This worked. I wrote about the US. because I was living here already.
I also made a point of personally meeting the editors at the papers I wrote for. I would make a short phone call, introduce myself and say that I was in town for the day, could I come by briefly…. this helped. Then I would visit with them and pitch my latest ideas: would you be interested in a,b,c…
Right now I just got started again with Suite101. So we will see, where this leads me.
C.
March 2, 2008 at 7:36 pm
blueeyegirl
I am so glad that you shared your story. As I wrote, I really want to start querying magazines with article ideas, but I think you gave me a new idea. Maybe starting smaller would give me more confidence and experience (which I really need). I am going to look into submitting articles for local newspapers. Sounds like it worked well for you and gave you lots of useful experience.
P.S. Great job with your Suite articles by the way, I’m glad to see you’re getting the hang of it. Let me know if you decide to start writing for newspapers/magazines in the future. I definitely think you could produce some really good ideas about your experiences coming to the U.S.
-Lisa