If you live in a major city, odds are good that you have some awesome alternative/weekly publications at your disposal: the Chicago Reader, the Village Voice, the Stranger, CityPaper, and so on. Many of these publications are freelance friendly. So what do you need to know about pitching to the cooler cousins of dailies?

"I started writing for The Village Voice in the same way I've gotten many other gigs - by asking for some help from a friend," says Rachel Kramer Bussel, frequent mb contributor. "I had my eye on their annual Best Of issue, so asked a friend who wrote for the Voice for the editor's email address. I sent a polite query
with a link to my resume and clips. It turned out to be too late for that year's submissions (2003), but I got added to the Voice's freelance list and broke in later that year with a short holiday event preview. From there, I periodically got solicitations for other special issues, such as their Valentine's issue Sex in the First Person section. That piece is what later made my editor think of me to write a sex column. This year, when the Voice was looking for writers for their Best Of issue, they stressed that they needed many new writers and I duly passed along the information to my writer friends, several of whom are slated to be included (the Best Of issue is published in October).

"In my experience, these shorter sections are the best way for freelancers to break in, and are also fun and creative. From what I've observed as a reader, if they like you're writing, you'll probably have the chance to write for them semi-regularly - my friend Sloane Crosley has had several essays published in the Voice
on everything from TomKat to being (mostly) a vegetarian.

"In my opinion, the best thing to do is find out the specific editor for the section you want to pitch, and then write a polite, succinct email with your publication history, pitch and contact information. I
can only speak to my experience with the Voice, but everyone I've dealt with there has been prompt and polite.

"If your city has several alt weeklies, I'd suggest pitching to the one you most want to write for, and seeing what happens from there. If you get nowhere, pitch one of the other ones but don't necessarily let a non-response or rejection discourage you. If you have a niche, like food writing, or comedy, try to exploit that as best you can - write things that nobody else is writing, and you're more likely to get in. And if you see a lack in the paper's coverage - let them know, or better yet, suggest some topics.

"Comedy blogger The Apiary had been complaining about the Voice's lack of comedy coverage, and they've recently started a comedy blog by comedian Eugene Mirman on their site along with music and travel blogs, which could be another route into a paper depending on their interest."

I also spoke with Leonard Pierce, Chicago freelance who has contributed to the Reader and UR Chicago amongst other publications, about what makes alt-weeklies different from the dailies.

"Weeklies are such creatures of advertising, word count is a much bigger concern than it is in other situations, so you have to be tight. Also, since so much of their content revolves around entertainment and happenings about town, you have to be timely and diligent about getting your work in on deadline and following up your leads thoroughly.

"Make your pitches timely. If you're a music or film writer, familiarize yourself with who's coming to town, what's opening, what new releases are due, and center your pitch around that.

"Editors in the world of weeklies, I've found, value reliability over anything else. I certainly have a better relationship with my editors at weeklies than with the national magazines I've worked with -- usually they're local, and if you prove yourself reliable, they'll come to lean on you a lot more. You'll get more assignments and more choice ones. I get less feedback from them, as a rule, because they're on such strict deadlines, but I have found them, once I've established myself, as being a lot more receptive to pitches.

"Finally, remember that the pay is a lot lower, but the work is a lot more frequent, so writing for a decent-paying weekly can balance out over time to writing for bigger publications."