Write you are…

Following on from part 1, here are some more tips I picked up in my freelance career.

Write about what you know

As I explained in this post (scroll down to grumbling), your traumatic life experiences, grumbles, opinions and weird health issues are all freelance pitches in the making. Some people are nervous about the idea of letting it all hang out in print, which is fair enough. Trust me, anything you write WILL get back to your friends and family, so be prepared for your mum and dad to read it, whatever it is. And for their friends to come up to them in the supermarket to say they’ve read it.

That said, don’t let those nerves stop you. For starters, first-person pitches are often easier to sell in, because they’re something only you can write and a lot of publications love them (they often pay better, too). I often pitched ideas based around talking to a number of different people, only to be told they’d prefer a first-person piece on the subject.

Few publications will take anonymous pieces, though I sold anon first-person pieces to Sunday Times Style, Guardian Weekend and Guardian Family (though two of those were case study interviews, not about me, I should add), so for the most part you’ll need to be willing to put your name to it. But that’s the other point I want to make about first-person pieces: you’ll often find the response is far more positive than you might expect.

Some people talk about first-person pieces as ‘selling out’ or ‘selling your soul’. I’ve never understood this. How is sharing an experience with people who might learn from it and/or identify with you ‘selling out’? If your story is of interest to other people, it’s worth selling. If you have a moral issue with this, or anything that’s not long-form political journalism, stop and ask yourself why you became a journalist in the first place.

One last word about first-person pieces: don’t assume they’re piss-easy, especially when it’s someone else’s story. As anyone who’s ever tracked down an interviewee, persuaded them to tell their story, interviewed them and turned it into a publishable piece will know.

That said, don’t be afraid to write about what you don’t know

I have a few areas of particular expertise, but I’ve written or subbed material about plenty of others, from product descriptions to features. Here’s the thing: not everyone has the basic skills journalists need. Not everyone can chase down contacts, extract interesting quotes, write decent copy to brief and deadline, and so on. Some outlets will value a good journalist above the specific subject knowledge involved.

With some of my most regular clients, I started out being relatively clueless about the subject matter, having landed work through a word-of-mouth recommendation, or because I’d found some common ground I could cover for them only to be offered more commissions. The longer I freelanced, the bolder I got, pitching ideas to both existing contacts and new ones about subjects where I knew I’d have to do some research.

And you know what? That’s fine! Being a good journalist doesn’t mean knowing everything about everything, it means knowing who to ask, what questions to ask them, and how to ensure they give you all the right information. For example, a good journalist will ask follow-up questions and won’t ever say: “Oh, I don’t know, they didn’t say.” (Why? Because a good journalist knows it’s never a case of “they didn’t say”, it’s only ever a case of “I failed to ask them”.)

Chase your pitches

It takes a lot of guts to do this when you start out, especially if you encounter an editor who doesn’t like it and sends an irritated, scathing response. That will happen sometimes, however politely you chase.  But it’s worth doing anyway, because a lot of the time, silence doesn’t mean no, it means they haven’t seen your email or haven’t had a chance to read it.

I found I got more responses to emails with the subject line “Just chasing up a pitch…” than I ever did to my initial pitch emails, and I also found I got a surprising number of yeses after chasing. Remember: editors are busy, and they get a lot of emails. So it’s worth chasing a little.

Get clued up about your finances

I cannot stress this strongly enough. I’ve heard so many freelancers say: “Oh, I’m clueless about tax,” or “I don’t know about all of that.” Well, more fool you, because you’re probably paying too much tax. It’s not difficult to learn the basics. Go on a decent training course, pick the brain of another freelancer, get an accountant, whatever works. Just don’t stick your head in the sand and expect it all to sort itself out. That’s how you end up paying more tax than necessary or, worse, in hot water with HMRC.

So learn about what expenses you can claim and when, how to write down the value of assets, the pros and cons of being paid gross or on PAYE (including Class 1 NI and holiday pay), what records you need to keep, what you can save on (e.g. how to get a small earnings exemption form, what it’s for, and when to give it back) and what to save for (e.g. payments on account).

Learn what you will/won’t be entitled to in times of need, especially if you live with a partner (if one of you is unable to work for some reason, you may come in for a nasty shock if you haven’t already looked into what benefits self-employed people, and people with working partners, are and aren’t entitled to). Also, learn about the pros and cons of things like VAT registration, business banking and registering as a limited company.

If you’re confused by accounts and tax returns, consider getting an accountant. I’ve never seen this as a waste of money because my accountant is reasonably-priced, I could earn far more than her fee in the time it would have taken me, and I would have made a pig’s ear of it and ended up completely stressed and miserable in the process. The key is to find one who’ll provide ongoing advice and support, answer questions, and so on.

Oh, and I don’t just mean get clued up about your relationship with HMRC. Understand commercial debt legislation, too. Understand what terms you should and should not agree to, what the default terms are if nothing is discussed, how to chase late payment, what fees and interest you can add, and how to start small claims proceedings. Because even if you see writing as a hobby…

Freelancing is a business

So treat it like one!

There’s some more good tips and links over at The Renegade Writer and Diane Shipley.

As some of you already know, I recently swapped homeworking and shifts for a new full-time job. So I’ve left freelancing behind for the most part, although I write for a few other magazines within the company that employs me. I learned a few things in two and a half years as a freelancer, and I’ve already learned plenty more from being on the other side (i.e. recruiting and managing freelancers, rather than being one).

Here are the things I think every freelancer should know. Some I wish I’d known at the start. Some I think are blindingly obvious, but experience tells me that isn’t the case.

Misplaced snobbery will do you no favours

There are two types of misguided snobbery that won’t help anyone’s freelance career.

1. Being snobby about niche titles. Take, for example, the wannabe columnist who told the Guardian she was going to “try to sell pieces to Parochial Weekly and Boring Things For You magazine” and anyone who has ever hooted with derision when I’ve mentioned writing for a magazine about some obscure subject or other.

Newsflash: very few people make a full-time living from writing; fewer still make theirs writing purely for big-name consumer publications; and niche publications often make very pleasant clients who pay well – and quickly. Yet too many people see trade and industry titles as nothing more than a stopgap. If you want to make a good living as a freelancer, don’t be one of them.

2. Being snobby about tabloids. I was hugely irritated by Wannabe Hacks’ post on being too proud to write for the Daily Mail, which basically says that writing for the Mail may sometimes be necessary, while perpetuating the snobbish view that it can only ever be necessary, not desirable. Sure, it recognises that you can’t just write for, say, the Guardian all the time, but it discusses the question of whether to write for the Mail as a debate between paying the rent and changing the world.

Right, because writing for an audience of millions is completely pointless. There’s no value in writing for a tabloid, ever. It’s much better to preach to the choir (and a comparitively small choir at that) all the time. What particularly pissed me off about the Wannabe Hacks post was the insinuation that there was very little good journalism to be found on the Daily Mail site. Which just isn’t true. Yes, there’s plenty of dross on there, but there’s some excellent writing, too. Whereas presumably we’re supposed to think everything in the Guardian is Pulitzer-worthy?

Writing for tabloids isn’t as easy as a lot of people think it looks. They are often far more demanding than broadsheets. It’s not easy to sell in and write a story for the Mail. It’s fo0lish and misguided to be snobby about writing for tabloids. And, oh yes, they often pay better (the best rates I ever got as a freelancer were around 65p a word, from News of the World’s Fabulous and the Daily Mail) and more promptly. I have never yet had a payment wrangle with a tabloid, as it happens.

Read adverts properly and tailor your CV accordingly

I picked up several high-profile gigs by responding to adverts on Gorkana (including a part-time job at a Sunday paper and production shifts at a weekly). A number of people told me I wrote good CVs and covering letters. Why? I kept them concise, and tailored them to each individual advert, contact or opportunity.

You wouldn’t believe how many people send long, rambling CVs stuffed with irrelevant details, and/or fail to re-nose them appropriately (e.g. sending a CV focused on writing experience to a production editor/chief sub, or failing to mention online experience when approaching a website).

Not only is sending out the same blanket CV just plain lazy, it’s also foolish. Big-name publications may scan for certain terms or phrases – if your CV doesn’t contain them, it may well get binned unread. How do you find them? Er, duh, they’ll be in the advert.

Personally, I made what I thought of as a master CV – one document that contained all my experience and skills – which I could edit and rejig as needed. I then put together a few tailored CVs for different areas (writing, online, production, copywriting). So whenever I needed a CV, I could just tweak one of these existing documents.

Keep in touch with clients – and treat them like human beings

You are more likely to get work from existing clients than new ones, so court repeat business – wisely, that is (so don’t beg for work, and don’t bug people). In other words, don’t let client relationships go off the boil.

I sometimes left it too long before checking in with people, only to end up regretting it. Because, if you want to build up a really good, ongoing relationship, and if you want that editor to start coming to you with commissions, or at least to always respond to your pitches, you shouldn’t just be talking to them when you want work.

Thanks to the internet, it’s easy to keep in touch. Which could just mean checking in by email once in a while or, if they use social media, adding them on Facebook or Twitter (if, and only if, they use those to chat to writers and work contacts). Try to meet up in person if possible, e.g. for coffee.

Don’t be a stalker, obviously, or ignore their personal boundaries. You should be able to take your cues from them, e.g. if they clearly hate people phoning them for a chat, or don’t have time to write long emails. If you can’t read their signals, well, you kind of need tips on more than just freelancing.

One last note on this subject: if an editor is made redundant, don’t be a dick. Stay in touch with them. Offer help, advice about freelancing, contacts, whatever. People have long memories, and if you stop talking to your contacts when they stop being useful, they’re probably not going to forget it. That, and freelancing is one big circle of karma and word of mouth. Which brings me to…

Don’t be afraid to help other freelancers

I’m not saying you should hand over all your contacts or spoonfeed new freelancers. But remember that other freelancers aren’t just your competitors. They’re also your colleagues, and they can recommend you for jobs they can’t do.

I once passed a gig that paid around £600 for a day’s work to someone who’d helped me out loads. I started freelancing for the magazine that now employs me full-time after another freelancer passed on some shifts she couldn’t do. And round and round it goes.

Some people think recommending someone else may do them out of future work. Well, perhaps, especially if you fail to maintain that client relationship. But here’s a story for you. A new client once rang and asked me to do an interview at very short notice. I just couldn’t do it. Rather than just say no, I asked them to give me half an hour and I’d find them someone else. The client was delighted because I’d helped them out of a hole and taken away the stress of finding a freelancer at short notice – and went on to give me around £7k of work.

You’ll find part 2 here.