Newer freelancers or those who are just thinking about venturing into freelance writing might be afraid they will run out of ideas to pitch. If that’s the case with you, you can always restock your idea well by brainstorming, and I’ve got the post to help you with that: Finding Article Ideas & Writing About Them: 30 Inspiration Tips for Writers
But for many of us, the problem is usually matching the idea to the right market. So I went ahead and wrote an article about this for WOW! Women on Writing: How to Find the Right Markets for Your Ideas,where I interviewed fellow experienced freelance writers and included their tips as well as my own. I also talked about how long you should keep pitching after your idea has been rejected. After all, two of my ideas found homes in about two years.
If you are however in a too-long-didn’t-read mode and want me to just give you some useful links, here they are:
–wheretopitch.com: Wheretopitch is an amazing free tool run by Susan Shain. You put in a keyword, and the website suggests where to pitch for you.
–whopayswriters.com Whopayswriters is another free website where writers list how much they were paid for an article, how long it took, and how easy/difficult it was. If you do a little digging, you will see many magazines you haven’t thought or known about. And you will have a great idea on what you will be dealing with when it comes to payment terms.
– Contently’s Rates Database: This database is much smaller than whopayswriters.com, but you can still go through the list to get ideas on where to pitch.
– *Your writer friends: When I’m stuck on where to write pitch a given piece or if I need more alternatives, I turn to my writer friends. I try to return the favor as much as I can. Writers are busy. We don’t all have assistants (though we really need one), so make sure you are not just receiving favors all the time. The goodwill will dry up. Don’t leave a bad impression.
If you are bad at coming up with places to pitch, you can offer to do other things for your friends such as proofreading or brainstorming ideas with them.
-Funds for Writers: Funds for Writers is an amazingly helpful resource website run by C. Hope Clark. An established writer herself, the website offers submission guidelines for markets, information on grants and contests as well as articles on all aspects of making money from your writing. I strongly recommend subscribing to the free newsletter.
–Writer’s Weekly: Writer’s Weekly is also a great free resource featuring market guidelines and articles. Both Funds for Writers and Writer’s Weekly are paid markets for writers, should you think you have an article idea for them. However, as with any publication, read their guidelines very carefully before pitching anything.
– Paid Publishing Guidebook by Freedom with Writing, as well as their newsletters. Freedom with Writing website offers a free book of markets to their newsletter subscribers. You also get markets suggested to you in the newsletters.
– Paidwrite.com. Kristy Rice’s wonderful website offers comprehensive lists of freelance writing markets. Make sure you hang out there a while to make the most of it.
– Jennifer Mattern’s All Freelance Writing website.In addition to answering most (if not all) of your questions about freelance writing , the website features a markets directory.
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And yes, you will encounter markets you have seen elsewhere, but the more you internalize them, the better. Nothing beats knowing at least five markets an idea might be a good fit for from the top of your head. It’s a wonderful time and sanity saver.
How about you? How do you find markets for your ideas?
