Freelancing is more than a pitch. It’s a business.
1 min readImage: Shutterstock. Article by Molly McCluskey.
Becoming a full-time freelance journalist requires the mindset of a small business owner. Here are 5 important things to consider before you start.
I always knew I wanted to be a freelance journalist.
While my classmates were looking at internships and dreaming of large newsrooms in cities across the country, I was poring over magazines, reading bios to see which sections were written by freelancers, which editors had reputations for being gracious with emerging journalists, and creating stacks of SASEs (self-address, stamped envelopes) in which to mail my clips, which in those days, consisted mostly of articles in my student newspaper, and the occasional reader submission to my local paper.
Over the years, I’ve had many people reach out to me for advice on freelancing. Some have been journalists who were transitioning from staff jobs and already had the credentials to make such a leap. Others were people who had never worked independently, in media or elsewhere. […]