Course Details

For a freelance writer, knowing how to pitch is every bit as important as crafting sentences and knowing where to find free wi-fi. Yet many freelancers are miserable salespeople and end up watching their brilliant ideas get scooped. In this crash course on pitching smarter, you'll learn to package irresistible article ideas, target the right editors, follow-up intelligently and get multiple assignments. This is a fast-paced, interactive, no-holds-barred evening that's not for the timid. Bring plenty of ideas and be prepared to talk and write your way through rejection to the pitching A-list.

In this class, you can expect to learn:

• How to write a compelling lede
• How to pitch in a voice
• When to pitch and how to know a magazine or newspaper's lead time
• When and how to include sidebars and pegs
• How to answer the "why you" and the "so what" questions

By the end of class, students can expect to have:
Workshopped one pitch letter (students must bring one to class, with enough copies for each student).

Instructor Bio

Sally Lehrman's Courses

Sally Lehrman is an award-winning reporter and writer on medicine and science policy who has written for some of the top names in national print and broadcast media including Scientific American, Nature, Health, Salon.com, and the DNA Files, distributed by NPR. Her honors have included the 1995-96 John S. Knight Fellowship; a shared 2002 Peabody award, Peabody/Robert Wood Johnson Award for excellence in health and medical programming, and Columbia/Du Pont Silver Baton (for the DNA Files). She is author of News in a New America, a fresh take on developing an inclusive U.S. news media, and two chapters for textbooks on covering the sciences. She serves as at-large director and national diversity chair for the Society of Professional Journalists and is a USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism Expert Fellow on race. She works in her home office with her assistant Daisy, a Saint Bernard.

Testimonials

Sally's course was extremely valuable. She helped me pitch an article to Wired!. Sally ran the course as a workshop, was very organized, and gave terrific feedback. -- Michael Chorost, author of Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human

From Sally's class, I sold three assignments! The class was a constructive idea-generating environment that honed my editing skills to boot." -- Narasu Nebbapragada, freelance writer and technology magazine editor

"Not only was Sally's course an opportunity to share my work with a group of passionate, colorful, and opinionated individuals, it also provided guidance for packaging and selling my work." -- Paul Lee Cannon

"Sally's class was phenomenal. She has a huge amount of experience, which she shares to help you successfully pitch to and write for magazines, as well as to simply run the business side of a freelance career." -- Liza Boyd

"Sally brings enthusiasm and focus to her classes. I look forward to taking more classes from her in the future." -- Marie Watts, Adjunct Business Professor, Brooks College

"The environment Sally created was comfortable and supportive. She fostered a truly interactive experience." -- Bruce Johansen

"Sally presented useful, practical steps to preparing yourself for a freelance career. I now have blueprint and reference materials while I get my freelancing career off the ground." -- Joy Buchanan

"Sally helped me strengthen my writing, which resulted in not only several freelance gigs but also a widely-read book and a great job as editor of a Bay Area monthly." -- Lori Hope, author, editor, and speaker, lorihope.co