Freelancing has always been an option for journalists, but with the continued turmoil in the industry, it’s becoming less an option than a necessity for many of them.
So on June 23, the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) convened a panel of experienced independent journalists to give out practical advice.
The panelists included Mallika Mitra, a business and financial freelance journalist, Chris Morris, a contributing writer at Fast Company, Inc., Moneywise and AARP, and Chris Taylor, a personal finance journalist. Ellen Sheng, the founder and principal of Sheng Media LLC, moderated.
The practical tips
The panelists focused on strategies for building bridges in the industry, especially by maintaining a positive reputation and connecting with editors.
When pitching to publications, the three panelists agreed that it’s best to tailor a pitch to a specific editor or organization. Mitra advised pitching yourself to organizations with a specific niche over a narrow idea, as the editors will have an idea in mind of what they want.
“I’ll just pitch them like myself and be like, ‘Hey, you know, these are the places I write for. If you’re looking for more freelance reporters I would love to chat,’” she said.
Taylor recommends getting comfortable with at least one social platform to have a strong online presence, saying it’s helpful for publications if you broadcast your work. He shares both professional and personal developments online, including a recent post about his son’s graduation, saying that the engagement gets people to feel invested in his personal life.
He also stressed the importance of not pitching the same story to multiple editors at the same time, calling it “a recipe for trouble.”
“If you get multiple people saying yes and then you have to choose between those publications, you’ve just burned a bridge. And I think in this business, you know, it’s not that big a community,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody. You don’t want to burn any bridges. You need every bridge you can get.”
Mitra also advised frequently and periodically reaching out to new editors and publications to get on their radar. Over time working in the field, she says she learned to think and plan long-term with her assignments, to ensure she always had stable work.
“Think: ‘Okay, I have a lot of work right now but who knows three months from now,’ and sometimes it can take three months, six months, a year [or] two for that first email to actually turn into an assignment,” Mitra said.
Morris, who has several regular freelance gigs, sees his role as putting his clients first rather than overt marketing, but echoes the idea that building relationships and fostering a good reputation is key.
“This is a small business. People move around all the time. Maybe someone that has worked with you will move to a different publication and then will reach out to you and say, ‘Hey, can you write some for me here?’ And then you’re exposed to other people and it grows from there,” Morris said. “I think the most important thing that you can have as a freelancer is a good contact list and a good reputation.”
The business side of freelancing
Aside from active career-building tips, the panelists also had advice for how to handle the administrative side of being self-employed. They covered how to deal with taxes, retirement savings, and what tools they use to keep track of everything.
All three recommended freelancers set up a business banking account and figure out taxes as soon as possible. Mitra says early on she hired an accountant to help plan, and she makes a point of setting aside enough money for quarterly estimated taxes, a sentiment Taylor echoed saying he’s “pretty religious about getting that done.”
In the United States, people who are self-employed are required by the IRS to file estimated taxes to pay Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes, as they do not have an employer automatically withholding those figures on their behalf.
“Freelancers typically do not have a ton of money coming in and it’s easy to kind of let that slide to the end of the year and then all of a sudden you have a huge bill that you just don’t have enough to cover and then you’re in real trouble,” he said. “So I would say do whatever you have to do to get those estimated taxes in every quarter.”
They also discussed invoices and how to ensure you get paid, with Morris recommending that whenever you start working with a publication, you should ask their billing department what time period you can expect to be paid in, and be persistent.
“There was one publication I wrote for, [and] it took me over a year to get paid just because they were dragging their feet,” Morris said. Sometimes, he added, some employers don’t pay up at all, but there’s often a sense in advance that something is going wrong.
Final tips
Fundamentally, the panelists said it’s crucial to meet deadlines and have clean copy, as that’s the first thing editors look for when hiring freelancers.
“Freelancers need to realize that editors have thousands of people to choose from right now. There have been so many layoffs of outstanding journalists in this business, so there’s a lot of talent out there that you’re competing against,” Taylor said. “There’s no room for error. You need to do the work, you need to do it well, and you need to do it on time.”
More broadly, the panelists all agreed that perseverance, flexibility, and foresight are necessary to make it in the industry.
“Determination is something that you’ve really got to have in spades,” Morris said. “You’ve got to be able to sort of push forward when your instinct might be, ‘Oh, the hell with this.’ You got to have patience for the exact same reason.”
