by Pam Baker
On average I sell 63 news stories a week plus one feature story and I usually have a market study, brochure, or speech writing assignment in progress to boot. And, I have the clips to prove it. What’s even better is I have the checks too! So, what’s the secret you ask?
First you figure out how much money you want to make and how many hours you want to work per week to earn that amount. Personally, I rarely work more than 30 hours a week. I don’t believe in living to work; it’s much more fun to work to live!
You must start by calculating your money goal or you are going to be overwhelmed by your opportunities and you will end up working all the time for very little cash. So, do the money part first.
Here’s an example of a formula you may want to use: To gross $100,000 a year, you needto earn about $1924 a week. Assuming you only want to work 40 hours a week the weekly goal ($1924) divided by 40 hours gives you an hourly rate of $48.10. If you only want to work 20 hours a week, your hourly rate must be $96.20.
OK, hold it right there! If you don’t believe you can earn that, you won’t. So get your head and heart straight about that. DECIDE FOR YOURSELF WHAT YOU WANT TO EARN. I’ll show you how you are going to earn that in just a minute. But for now, don’t get all gobblygooked over the pay – think of it only as a number. It is your quota and it is defined solely by you. Now all you have to do is reach your quota.
Next, take inventory of both your skills and your assets as a writer. Do you have articles you can sell as reprints? Or, can you generate new articles with only a simple rewrite from another angle (as opposed to needing all new research and interviews)? Do you have notes from interviews and recent research you can leverage into related but completely new stories? Do you have contacts you can reach quickly to generate fast stories?
List them all. Write your inventory down.
Now list the topics you are most comfortable writing about or that you have “ins” to. Do you know a CEO in any industry? Do you have access to professionals of any kind? (Include your family doctor, school board members, local butcher, and anyone else you can call that is likely to actually take your call). Do these people match the inventory list you just made a moment ago?
If you have a match – great! If you don’t have a match –great! What you have is a good measure of the inventory you have to sell to editors. You have an understanding of your immediate options in turning fast stories and fast bucks.
Each of the people you listed as your contacts know other people in their fields on local, regional and national levels. Each can tell you who to call for your stories within their professional realm, where they are and how to contact them. Learn to leverage everything and everyone you know!
Now make a list of the editors you write for, or have written for in the past. Strike the losers. Don’t judge losers by the amount they pay – but rather how well they actually pay. For example, if an editor pays $1700 an article but you have to move heaven and earth to collect – that’s the loser, not the guy who pays you $30 an article but pays like clockwork.
Ahh, but you say you can’t make $48.10 an hour with a $30 assignment. Yes, you can. Your quota is really the hourly average for the entire week. It is not an hourly quota per se and it certainly is not a per article quota. The editor that won’t pay up will kill your quota. So will writing for clips only.
Start with your cleaned up list of paying editors and look for things in your inventory to pitch that actually fits the pub’s style, tone and audience. Now go pitch it!
But while you are at it, offer to produce sidebars or related short-pieces and cameo articles or teasers…for additional pay of course. Think of it as your version of McDonald’s “Would you like fries and an apple pie with that?”
Now that $30 article has grown to about $65 or more. And it’s really no more work. You are simply breaking the information in your story down into several pieces as opposed to one story. If you are doing this from your existing inventory, it will take almost no time at all to complete and you are well on your way to your hourly earnings quota.
Another good tactic is to let all editors know that you are a “pitch-hitter.” Tell editors via email, postcard or letter that you can “fill-in” for them should another writer (staff or freelance) fail to meet deadline due to illness, car wrecks and other accidents, vacations, holidays, maternity leave, etc. Never, ever put another writer down. Simply say you are a team player and you will be happy to fill gaps as needed for the good of the team.
Congratulations! You just created freelance positions for yourself that didn’t even exist ten minutes ago – and no one is competing with you for those slots because no one knows about them!
When you are done with that, make a list of publications you would like to write for. Study each publication’s editorial calendar (it’s often easier to get the editorial calendar from an advertising rep. You’ll find them listed on every periodical’s masthead and often online as well. Simply order an advertiser or advertising kit, which is always free and often contains sample issues as well. But be prepared to get pitched yourself, that ad rep wants to make a sale too). Look to see where your inventory fits in the editor’s grand plan. Tailor your pitch to the calendar and tell the editor where the piece would fit well according to his own calendar.
At the end of the week, do the math and see what your actual per hour rate turned out to be. Now do the math on the checks you are expecting to receive this month and figure your hourly rate average from that total. Drop the slow pays and really work the good pays. Build each sale into something larger than it was initially and you’re off and running.
But always watch your hourly rate average. If you are working 60 hours a week for an hourly rate average of $1.15, you would be better off taking a job at the grocery store. If you are earning an hourly rate average at or above your personal quota then you would be nuts to ever take a real job again.
By the way, those 63 news stories I told you I sell a week – they come off the wires (PR Newswire, Press Pass News from Business Wires, etc) for free and require minimal editing for “Off the Wire” sections of printed and online publications. It takes me about two hours a day, five days a week and earns me about $1200 a week total.
Find the money, skip the glitz and glamour. Then go live a little!
