Savannah Watson

As a writer, or non-writer (not making assumptions about who is reading this), you have probably heard the term “freelancing” at least a hundred times.

Freelance writing, for those who might not know, is basically contract writing. The author is “hired” to write just one piece, as opposed to a full-time staff writer. A freelance writer is self-employed and works on their own time (within the guidelines of the contracted job), and the jobs can range from a website, blog, or magazine looking for submissions to individuals looking for ghostwriters. In this post, I am focused specifically on the former.

If you do a Google search, a lot of websites have already gone to the trouble of compiling lists for us of the 14/21/91/250 best websites, magazines, and blogs that pay authors for submissions. Read through as many of these lists on as many different websites as possible; even though many of the same suggestions will show up, you will inevitably find a few that you hadn’t seen elsewhere.

One of the potentially stressful things about reading through these lists is just how many options there seem to be in virtually any genre or niche.

My recommendation when sifting through these lists – and what I do myself – is to create your own list with the jobs that fall into your “area of expertise”. Visit the websites, read the submission requirements, familiarize yourself with content they have published in the past, and make sure the job is something that you have both the skill set and interest in pursuing. We all want to enjoy what we are writing, right?

My own list looks like this:

1. Name of website, magazine, blog
   • Genre/Submission Types (i.e. short fiction, personal essay, lists, nonfiction research article, etc.)
   • Pay per accepted submission
   • Link to the submissions page
   • Any deadlines, important notes, or pitch ideas that I have that I think might fit this specific place

Organizing my own list like this helps me both prioritize jobs (based on deadlines), as well as feel less overwhelmed when searching for jobs I am interested in because I have already singled out the ones I want to attempt – or they wouldn’t be on my list.

Freelance submissions provide writers a chance to get their work out there in a different way than novel writing does and can also provide extra income (and, let’s be real, who doesn’t love that?), so in my opinion, it is worth trying. The worst that can happen is they say ‘no’ and you try again with a new piece somewhere else.

Good luck and remember to never give up! 🙂

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