There’s gold in them thar trade mags!
by Sandra Phinney As freelance writers, we often overlook trade publications as potential markets—largely because they are not visible. Rarely sold at newsstands, the majority of trade magazines are mailed directly to private audiences—usually to members of a particular trade or profession—be it doctors, pilots, bankers, bakers, embalmers, and truckers. In some cases, trade […]
Query smarts: how to increase your batting average
By Sandra Phinney I’ve heard editors say that upwards of 80 percent of the queries they receive are deleted without reading further than the end of the first paragraph. Why? It all comes down to three things: writers don’t know the readership of the magazine writers are not tuned into the content, tone and style […]
Tips for making it as a freelancer in Canada
Media workers meet in Halifax to discuss worker’s rights By Rebecca Hussman CMG Freelance and CWA Canada hosted an event for media workers at The Company House in Halifax last week, focusing on workers’ rights and making it in the industry as a freelancer. The event began with a brief presentation on building a sustainable […]
Tricks of the trade: clever tips for finding stories at conferences
by Lesley Evans Ogden How do you nab great stories at conferences? That’s a question I’ve been toying with a lot lately, because in late December 2015, I had the opportunity to attend The Society For Marine Mammalogy Conference in San Francisco. There, I was one of 14 COMPASS Journalist Fellows scouring the scene […]
Allie Wilkinson: A “how did you do it?” profile.
by Lesley Evans Ogden Allie Wilkinson is a Washington DC based freelance science journalist. I met her at a freelancer workshop called Courage Camp in Colorado in August 2014, and since that time, I’ve followed her online and seen her career flourish. Wilkinson is the founder of a blog called, “This is what a scientist […]
John Vaillant on high-impact non-fiction writing
by Rachel Sanders Master storyteller John Vaillant delivered a highly concentrated dose of non-fiction writing advice last weekend at a day-long workshop in Vancouver that was part of The Tyee’s fall Master Class series. The author of the award-winning and bestselling books The Golden Spruce and The Tiger took an intense dive into the processes and narrative techniques necessary to create stories that grab […]
Deadly sins of freelancing
by Lesley Evans Ogden Relationships. Every successful freelancer knows that healthy professional relationships are everything. So if things aren’t going so well, perhaps it’s time to take a close look at whether you might be doing something that is annoying your editor/producer/client. To dive into the pet peeves that drive these people nuts, I […]
How Many Hoops Are You Willing to Jump Through?
By Ann Douglas My friend Jen went through a series of 25 interviews before she was ultimately named editor-in-chief of a major consumer magazine. That’s a lot of hoops to jump through in the hope of landing a job—but, then again, it was a pretty nice job, complete with a rather droolworthy salary and a […]
Simultaneous pitching – views from the other side of the desk
by Lesley Evans Ogden For freelance journalists and producers, pitching is a make or break activity. And the traditional advice doled out to freelancers pitching their stories has been that simultaneous pitching – pitching the same story to multiple outlets simultaneously – is a no-no. Recently, this blog post by Scott Carney suggested that simultaneous […]
Good news from the magazine industry: business media’s thriving
by Rachel Sanders Good news about the publishing industry is rare these days. So when Don Genova heard some, he came straight to Story Board to share it with his freelance colleagues. Genova, a freelance food and travel writer and president of the Canadian Media Guild’s Freelance Branch, had run into an old friend – an editor […]
