Monday, September 15, 2008

Getting started as a freelance writer: Tutorial introduction

A lot of people ask me how I got started freelance writing. I had worked in a newspaper office as a reporter, photographer, and editor for 16 years, so when the time came to freelance and work from home, getting started with newspapers was the next logical step for me. I learned some things along the way about how to break into writing from home for the print market and would like to share it.

The print market pays much better than online work and I highly recommend looking into that avenue. I'm doing newspaper feature writing right now along with producing a few newsletters for nonprofit organizations. My background is in the newspaper business and that is what I know, but of course I'm not limited to that. There are tons of publications out there -- newspapers, news magazines, newsletters, and even advertising publications -- that cover all manner of subjects.

When in the freelance job market, many people don't consider the print market because they think they can't do it, or they don't think of it at all. Any writer looking to make a career in freelancing would do well to seriously consider print.

In the next few days I'll share the steps I took to get started as a freelance writer, and I hope that some of the pointers will help you. Please check back frequently as there are several steps, and I'll be posting them one at a time.

Let me know if you have any questions. I am glad to help if I can. Happy writing!

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