How to be a Freelancer: Freelance Writing Essentials

Sometimes my ruminations over how to turn my passion for history, research, & writing into a paying job lead me to think about pursuing work as a freelance writer. Naturally, my brain follows this idea with a question: "How do I become a freelance writer?" On Friday, I attempted to satisfy my brain with an answer by attending a daylong workshop called: Freelance Writing Essentials.

Throughout the day, Ethan Gilsdorf took me and the other participants on a whirlwind tour of the freelance writing world. We learned what resources we need, about the commitment we must make, how to find stories, identify markets, pitch our stories to those markets, and what we can expect to be paid (not much).

The following represents the quick and dirty version of what I learned from this class.

3 Must-Have Resources

1.     [amazon_link id="1599635933" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Writers’ Market[/amazon_link]: Ethan described this book as “the Bible for freelance work.” He also noted the importance of having the most up-to-date edition because each year there are new markets and editors.

2.     Mediabistro.com Avant Gild Membership: $55/year or $89 for 2 years. Membership has its privileges, which include great articles on how to pitch certain publications, a publication calendar, e-mail addresses for editors, opportunities to purchase health insurance, invitations to social events, and more. (Click here for full perk list)

3.     [amazon_link id="B0012SMGQA" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Get a Freelance Life [/amazon_link]by Mediabistro.com: Billed as “the complete guide to all aspects of a freelance writing career.”

The Commitment/Disclaimer

Ethan loves working as a freelancer and would like others to join him. However, he did not allow his enthusiasm to overshadow reality.

Aspiring freelancers will need to invest 2-7 years before they will find regular freelance work.

New freelancers will need to devote a good amount of time to ideas, research, writing, & pitching (20+ hours a week) for the first 3-6 months to get going.

Rejection will become a part of every new freelancer's life, especially in the beginning.

Freelancers do not get rich. (According to [amazon_link id="B0096823KM" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Get a Freelance Life[/amazon_link] freelancers in the Boston area make somewhere between $10,000-$50,000/year.)

Great Markets for Beginners

Beginners should look to publish at small publications before they move on to bigger ones. The more publication credits a freelancer gets under their belt the more work they will receive.

Great places to start: Alumni Magazines & Local publications and small newspapers.

Finding Ideas/Stories

Who do you know? All freelancers should take advantage of their connections to find subject matter. We often know interesting people who work at interesting places. Frequently, the people we know can point us towards other fascinating people.

Freelancers need to think about “Why Now?” “Why You?” & “Why the Topic or Story” as they mull over their ideas and flesh them out. They will need to answer all 3 questions when they pitch their ideas to editors.

Identifying Markets

Freelancers must research publications and what their needs are.

[amazon_link id="1599635941" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Writer’s Market[/amazon_link], Mediabistro.com, & physical copies of publications play a crucial role in market research because they allow freelancers to see what publications are out there, what kinds of stories periodicals publish, and the name and contact information of a person to pitch to.

These resources also help freelancers save time and energy as they inform freelancers which features and columns are available to them.

Honing Ideas for Specific Markets

Before freelancers pitch a story, they need to research whether or not a specific publication has already printed a similar story. Serious freelancers will obtain the last 2-3 issues of the publication that they want to pitch to and browse its website to see if a market exists for their story with a particular publication.

Writers who wish to pitch stories related to travel, food, or current events need to be timely. Their trip or take on a given topic must be current or they need to add updated pieces to make their dated experiences current.

Making the Pitch

Pitches have a life cycle. Freelancers should look at each rejection as an opportunity to tweak and hone their pitch and story idea.

All pitch letters should be tailored to a specific publication and must contain 4 pieces of information: 1.Hook 2. Idea 3.Details 4. Author Bio

All of the above should answer the “Why Now?” “Why You?” & “Why this Topic/Story?” questions.

Pitch letters should be no longer than 1 page. They should be written in the body of an e-mail. Most editors prefer to see pitches that take up no more space than their e-mail screen.

Conclusions

I really enjoyed Ethan's class and encourage anyone in the Boston area to go to Grub Street and take it (Ethan will offer the class again on August 23). You will learn more than I could ever post here and receive his 5 packets of notes, tips, and examples.

I came away from the class with a great deal of knowledge about freelancing and the confidence that I can make it as a freelance writer.

I view freelance writing as an opportunity to earn a bit of money by writing about my historical work and my other interests. I may not get rich, but it seems like I could create a career where my part-time freelance work helps support my full-time historical endeavors.

What Do You Think?

Do you have tips on how to be a freelancer? Please leave a comment for all to read or send me a tweet.

How to Network: My Interview with Jennifer Polk, Ph.D.

This week I had the good fortune to interview Jennifer Polk, Ph.D., founder of the blog From Ph.D. to Life. Since December, Jen has written about her transition from academia to real life and her quest to find a fulfilling (and paying) career. Jen’s website serves as a valuable resource for anyone who is thinking about how to apply their historic skills to other history-related work or about transitioning to a non-history career. When you visit Jen’s site you will find that many of her posts are the Q & A sessions she has conducted with educators, researchers, writers, project managers, career coaches, and public speakers. These sessions are the result of Jen’s quest to learn more about different careers as well as how others with advanced degrees have found jobs that they love.

As I am also transitioning from Ph.D. to life, I reached out to Jen to find out more about her transition and how she has managed to network with so many different people.

How does Jen Network?

When I asked Jen about networking she stated, “The challenge of networking is that you are asking people for help and seeking help is difficult.”

After graduation, Jen wanted to learn about what other people do for a living. Her friends helped her ease into networking by introducing her to spouses and colleagues with interesting careers. These friendly interviews gave her the confidence to interact with strangers.

Jen uses the Internet to research different career possibilities. When she finds an interesting position or company, she searches their webpage to find a person who might talk to her. In one instance she found an advertisement for a museum consulting firm in her city. She went to the firm’s website and clicked through the employee bios. Jen found that she and a V.P. of the company shared a common link: They both held doctorates in history from the same university. Jen believed that this common connection might induce the V.P. to help her with information, so she sent him an e-mail. Jen admitted that “it is intimidating to reach out to someone you don’t know,” but she also stated that “the worst that can happen is that they say “no” or ignore you.” Jen’s instincts about the common bond proved correct. A week after she sent her e-mail, the V.P. replied that he would by happy to sit down for a conversation. (Click here to read Jen’s interview.)

After months of networking, Jen is still pleasantly surprised by how positively people react when she reaches out to them for her blog Q & As. She has found that people are excited and eager to help, “people like to help and they like to talk about themselves and give advice.”

Why Historians Make Good Networkers

I enjoyed meeting Jen and hearing about her transition experience. She taught me a lot about how to network and convinced me that I shouldn’t be afraid to ask people for help. After all, the worst that can happen is that the person says “no.” However, that outcome seems unlikely. The people Jen has contacted have been eager and excited to help.

My conversation with Jen also helped me to realize that historians are well positioned to network; we possess all of the skills needed to reach out and connect with other people. Historians know how to research and we like to interact with people. Okay, so most of the people we interact with are long since dead, but we seek them out anyway in the papers and works they left behind. We seek them out because we want them to help us answer questions we have about the topics, periods, people, thoughts, and cultures we study. We receive their help when we read, interrogate, and contextualize the papers and possessions they left behind. This one-sided engagement allows us to better understand and connect with our historical people. Networking with the living is not so dissimilar.

The best interactions take place when you find another person who shares something in common with you. Jen conducts research before she initiates contact. When she reaches out to someone she leads with what they share in common: an alma mater, an advanced degree, interests, an experience. After establishing this common ground, Jen asks for help. Historians study people and know that most people will respond favorably to requests for assistance when they feel connected to them. Moreover, historians are capable of making the most out of each networking opportunity because we know how to ask questions of our sources.

Networking will play an important role in my quest to turn my passion for history, research, and writing into a career that pays. I am grateful for the wisdom Jen imparted and I look forward to following and learning from her career journey at From Life to PhD.

What Do You Think?

Do you possess helpful networking wisdom or have you had a networking experience that you would like to share?

Do you use or know of other skills that historians possess that we can use to find or further our careers?

Design Your Own Destiny: How to Open the Door to New Opportunities

Today, I would like to discuss what I am doing to design my own destiny and how I am working to open doors to new opportunities. I see my blog as a practical history blog: A resource for independent and post-academic historians who want to surmount the obstacles we face because we are unaffiliated with academic institutions and a discussion forum where we can explore different ways of working and how we can turn our passion for history, research, and writing into careers that pay. In support of this forum, I plan to post more about how I am trying to create new opportunities and how these experiences unfold, for better and worse, in the hope that we all might learn from them.

Please contact me if you have a helpful experience that you would like to share or an issue that we independent historians face that you would like to discuss.

I am almost 18 months removed from graduation and I am still in transition, trying to figure out what I want my career to be. I am a historian and I want to continue working as one. But how can I turn my passion into a career?

Naturally, I have been researching some possibilities.

Public History

I have some experience in public history. I worked for the National Park Service as a seasonal interpretive ranger as an undergraduate. I learned how to develop and present interpretive programs and how to interact with the public. As a graduate student, I volunteered for a couple of historical societies and museums where I conducted research, built finding aids for collections, and developed educational programs.

Even when combined with my Ph.D., this experience is not enough to land me an interview for a public history job. Times are tough. Public institutions want people with history backgrounds who also possess social media and digital humanities skills, curatorial experience, and an understanding of the inner workings of a non-profit organization.

Over the last month I have applied for internships. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear anything. I worry that my Ph.D. hinders me; I get the feeling that many think, “she has a Ph.D., would she really intern for free?” The answer is “YES!” I am anxious to learn the skills needed to work for a public history institution and will work for free to acquire them. (Of course, so would many others.)

I am also trying to create my own luck. I have reached out to my local history society contacts to see about creating an experience. Hopefully between my applications and contacts I will be able to garner an interview and internship.

Freelance Writer

Freelance writing would allow me to do what I love, make some money, and still leave me with time to work on my historical projects.

I have signed up for a workshop called Freelancing Writing Essentials. This daylong seminar will supposedly serve as a crash course on where to look for freelance writing opportunities, how to come up with ideas, and how to pitch stories. It will take place next Friday. I will post about it later this month.

Networking

Okay, so this isn’t a career, but it is important. Whenever I meet another historian, I always ask them about their work and how they obtained their job. With regards to the latter I overwhelmingly hear: “Luck” and “I knew someone."

Over the last several months I have pursued two avenues that have, and will, help expand my network of contacts beyond the academy.

First, I have engaged in social media. I have found Twitter to be a great way to network with other historians, writers, explorers of alternate and post-academic careers, and, yes, other Boston sports fans. I have had meaningful conversations with other Twitterers and they have shared links to helpful information, job postings, and events that I would not have found on my own. (For more on Twitter see my 3 part series “How to Twitter.”)

Second, I have volunteered to be a docent at Boston by Foot, a non-profit, volunteer tour group that gives history and architectural tours of Boston. I pursued this opportunity as a way to get my head out of my work, to meet other people, and to reconnect with the public; I want to be reacquainted with why and how non-academics appreciate and learn history.

I am still training, but I have already met several interesting individuals and made a few new friends all with different professional backgrounds. Best of all, everyone there loves and appreciates history. Perhaps one of them will open the door to a new career opportunity that I never thought of.

What Do You Think?

If you would like to share your experiences working in public history, with freelance writing, networking, or some other career path that allows you to pursue your scholarship and earn money, please contact me.

Leaving the Academy: How To Become an Independent Historian

Do I want to be an academic historian? I began having doubts about my career path during my last three years in graduate school. I had applied to grad school to become professionally-trained version of David McCullough. However, in my first quarter I replaced that goal with a desire for an academic career. No one forced this ambition on me per se, but my seminars, department workshops, and training were all geared towards preparing me for a tenure-track job. After imbibing on this academic dream for seven years, I found it difficult to confront the fact that I did not want to be a traditional academic. At first, I pushed my doubts from my mind by focusing on my dissertation. As my dissertation neared completion, I turned my attention to academic job applications. I told myself that getting a job would vanquish my fears about an academic career. Last year, I opened rejection letters and e-mails from nearly every university I had applied to. Even the two campus interviews I went on did not pan out. Through it all I remained surprisingly upbeat. Rejection, my positive attitude, and a job opportunity for my partner in Boston made me address the fact that I was pursuing an academic job for all the wrong reasons.

It took me over a year to admit that I really wanted a non-academic career. With all of its promises for intellectual stimulation, I found my decision to leave the academy a hard pill to swallow. Moreover, I want to be a historian. I yearn to produce original, high-quality scholarship that will be accessible to a broad audience. I also desire the opportunity to earn the respect of my academic peers. Although all are lofty goals, the latter will be the most difficult to achieve; many academic historians shun outsiders and view non-tenured or non-tenure-track historians as amateurs little deserving of their time. Still, I am up for the challenge.

Presently, I am working as an independent historian. I am revising my dissertation into a book, writing articles for academic journals and popular history magazines, and working to improve my writing and editing skills. I plan to use this blog as a forum: a place to share my successes and failures in figuring out ways to get paid for my work, methods for getting around the various barriers that come with being unaffiliated with an academic institution, my passion for history, and any tools and/or techniques that improve or hamper my ability to research and write.