How does one go about becoming a freelance writer?

Question

Do you just call newspaper and magazine editors and pitch stories or do you send them stories and they buy them (or not)? Where do I start?

Answer 1

you are one right here...lol
http://www4.courseadvisor.com/site/1173990002

Answer 2

Spend the $30 for a Writer's Market Guide that has taken the guess work out of calling editors. As one, I do not like getting cold calls from people pitching ideas. The Writer's Market Guide has a listing of every magazine in the country, what their policies are in accepting freelance work, their rates of pay, their deadlines and tips for writing successful query letters. This guide is updated every year and is WORTH every cent. Good luck.

Answer 3

Go to Barnes & Noble and/or Borders and look for a book or books titled "The Writers handbook", or "Freelance Writers Handbook" and other books which tell you where to possibly sumit articles, "queries", to magazines, newspapers etc.

theres also this website called

http://www.writersweekly.com/

which I subscribe to for some freelance writing and getting some stuff you write published.

They send you a list of places through e-mail thats looking for submissions and articles :)

Now remember its not going to be easy, some places ask for "Queries" only, some places take anything, some places pay by word or by each "letter" you know like "a" "b" etc etc, some places don't pay a thing but the experience is nice. :)

good Luck :)

Oh and another thing.. Don't call newspapers..and editors..they're really busy..most of them don't have time for anyone..wanting to call to bug em because you want to submit something they may or may not be interested in..chances are slim..instead..

Try looking in the books I gave you first so you know for sure who's accepting stuff from freelance writers before you submit something to other places who receive stuff from people who want to submit articles daily.

good luck :)

Answer 4

You have already supplied the answer - call and pitch stories. Publishers, for fear of plagiarism suits will send unsolicited manuscripts back unopened.