Personal Essay Markets, Part II: More Publications That Want Your Stories

Give your story a universal angle to get published in one of these 15 outlets

Jenny Rough is a writer and former attorney with over 20 years of experience crafting stories for magazines, newspapers, and podcasts, and currently serves as letters editor for AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. She holds a J.D. summa cum laude from Pepperdine and a bachelor's in creative writing from Miami University.

8 min read • Originally published May 11, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Jenny Rough

8 min read • Originally published May 11, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Part I of this feature listed 10 personal essay markets. Now we’re bringing you more venues that love printing this distinct and accessible style of writing. We spoke with editors at pubs that focus on everything from sex and parenting to what those with a green thumb experience from the human, rather than how-to, side of gardening.

So get those great ideas ready and be sure to come back for our final installment of the print markets in Part III, as well as our digital guide in Part IV.

11. Elle

Elle uses personal narrative as a way to explore the gray area of hot-button issues, from health to culture, so timeless “chestnut” topics probably won’t get ink. An example of a past piece explored how one woman crossed the line from Facebook friends to a full-blown affair.
Length: 2,000 words
Pay: $2 a word
Assigning editors: Rachel Baker, RACHELBAKER at HEARST dot COM; or Ben Dickinson, BDICKINSON at HEARST dot COM
Dickinson’s advice: “They’re called personal essays for a reason, so please be as open as possible in your manuscript.” Elle editors say they hate getting submissions that read as if the writer is holding back.

12. Geez

Geez is a quarterly Canadian publication for social-justice-minded readers on the fringes of faith. With roots in the Christian tradition, it’s for the over-churched, out-churched and unchurchable. Geez is ad-free, feminist, post-colonial, LGBTQ inclusive, eco-conscious and class sensitive. Look for the magazine’s call for pitches on its website or send an email to STORIES at GEEZMAGAZINE dot ORG to be added to its writers’ email list.
Length: 650 to 1,300 words for creative nonfiction pieces; 50 to 350 words for flash nonfiction essays
Pay: $25-$75 or more, depending on length
Assigning editors: Aiden Enns and Kyla Neufeld, AIDEN at GEEZMAGAZINE dot ORG, KYLA at GEEZMAGAZINE dot ORG (send submissions to STORIES at GEEZMAGAZINE dot ORG)
Neufeld’s advice: “We look for stories of people subverting our assumptions of the North American way.”

13. Good Housekeeping — “Heart-to-Heart”

“Heart-to-Heart” is Good Housekeeping’s personal essay page that runs in the “Real Life” section. It seeks submissions on a wide range of topics (relationships, parenting, loss, aging).
Length: 500 to 750 words
Pay: $1,000
Assigning editor: Kristen Mascia, KMASCIA at HEARST dot COM
Mascia’s advice: “We’re quite open to ideas as long as they take readers on a little journey.” Writers who’d like to try out an essay will find it helpful to read BLESSINGS: Reflections on Gratitude, Love, and What Makes Us Happy (Sterling, 2009), a selection of Good Housekeeping essays by well-known writers who were invited to contribute.

14. GreenPrints

Known as “the weeder’s digest,” GreenPrints focuses on the human, rather than how-to, side of gardening. “After all, gardening is a relationship, not a recipe,” said editor Pat Stone.
Length: Up to 2,000 words
Pay: Up to $150
Assigning editor: Pat Stone, PAT at GREENPRINTS dot COM
Stone’s advice: None, other than his detailed (and humorous) writer’s guidelines.

15. Guideposts

Guideposts is an interfaith magazine that seeks uplifting true stories about how faith has helped you overcome an obstacle or changed your life. A past example includes a story of a lawyer who intended to go on a short missions trip to Uganda and ended up fighting for incarcerated youth.
Length: 750 to 1,500 words
Pay: $250-$500
Assigning editor: Rick Hamlin, RHAMLIN at GUIDEPOSTS dot ORG
Hamlin’s advice: “We are looking for narratives of personal change with vivid scenes. They must offer some spiritual help to the reader.”

16. Hemispheres — “Travel Essay”

Hemispheres is United Airlines’ in-flight magazine. Its travel essay column is open to freelancers. Rather than covering any specific places or travel experiences, the column aims to get at how travel can be a transformative experience or can challenge travelers’ notion about themselves or the world around them. One successful essay involved the author being forced to rethink his feelings about the human victims of wild animals after confronting a hungry lion on safari. Other successful essays included one about the joys of rediscovering your hometown through the eyes of a tourist, and another about the security that a wary traveler found in a hotel robe.
Length: 900 words
Pay: $900
Assigning editors: Jordan Heller and Chris Wright, FIRSTNAME at HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE dot COM
Heller’s advice: “Rather than pitch, just write the damn thing and send it in. If we like it, we’ll print it and pay you for it.”

17. Knit Simple — “Last Stitch”

“Last Stitch” essays should tie into either knitting or crochet. There are no other guidelines.
Length: 1,000-1,200 words; essays of shorter length will not be considered.
Pay: $150
Assigning editor: Leslie Barber, LESLIE at SOHOPUBLISHINGCO dot COM
Barber’s advice: “Writers should tell a story that will resonate with fellow stitchers.”

18. Literary magazines (see The Examined Life, Hunger Mountain, The Threepenny Review, Tin House)

Are essays for literary magazines different from those for consumer mags? “It’s not that literary writing is ‘good’ and consumer magazine writing is ‘bad,'” said writer Alle C. Hall, a teacher at Richard Hugo House. “Consumer magazines are looking to get information to the reader, so the writing needs to be good, but it’s not everything. In a literary magazine, the writing is the whole point.”
Length: Typically 3,000-5,000 words, though a few take up to 10,000. There’s also a category called the short-short for pieces under 1,000 words, as can be found in Brevity.
Pay: A few literary magazines pay a flat fee for essays, such as The American Scholar ($500), but many pay in copies only. Most of the ones that do pay, such as The Antioch Review and The Georgia Review, typically pay per printed page, and that can range from $1 a page to $50 a page.
Hall’s advice: “As everyone says, read the journals — but how, right? Follow two publications for a year, either online or through a subscription. If a writer can identify which publications make the most sense for his or her style and voice, the writer will spend far less energy on rejection.”

19. Los Angeles Times — “L.A. Affairs”

This first-person column in the Saturday section chronicles romance and relationships, and the essay should tie into Southern California. A past example is a woman who reunites with a college friend on an online dating site and finds love was there all along.
Length: 750-850 words
Pay: $300
Assigning editor: Assistant managing editor Alice Short. Please submit essays to HOME at LATIMES dot COM.
Editors’ advice: In addition to details outlined in our submission guidelines, we’re especially on the lookout for stories about new and recent relationships that give a sense of today’s dating scene.

20. Marie Claire — “Love + Sex”

Marie Claire’s “Love + Sex” section is looking for strong, literary writing and nonformulaic essays based on compelling personal stories about the ways that smart, empowered women are navigating relationships and romance, heartbreak and sexuality, partnership and singlehood.
Length: 1,000-1,500
Pay: $2 a word
Assigning editor: Lane Florsheim, LFLORSHEIM at HEARST dot COM
Editors’ advice: We’re happy to review pitches or full submissions. Writers should definitely review past issues to get a sense of our style.

21. Men’s Journal — “Essay”
This adventure-travel magazine publishes a first-person story in its “Essay” column each month. A recent example was a piece by a runner who suffers from a compulsive need to train.
Length: 2,000 words
Pay: Varies, depending on writer skill and topic
Assigning editor: Ryan Krogh, RYAN dot KROGH at MENSJOURNAL dot COM
Fischer’s advice: “Review past examples. Our favorite essays uncover meaning through action.”

22. More — “Attitude,” “Memoir” and “Second Sex”
More welcomes strong writing and a fresh point of view that targets the mag’s demographic (women in their mid-30s and above); that often means the writer is in that age group, too. “Memoir” essays range further and deeper than “Attitude,” mapping personal growth and relationships over time. “Second Sex” essays are written by men.
Length: “Attitude” runs 1,200 to 1,800 words; “Memoir” runs up to 3,500 words; “Second Sex” runs 1,200 to 1,800 words.
Pay: Roughly $2 a word
Assigning editor: Cathleen Medwick, CATHLEEN dot MEDWICK at MEREDITH dot COM; Nanette Varian edits Second Sex, NANETTE dot VARIAN at MEREDITH dot COM; Laura Sinberg edits work-related essays, LAURA dot SINBERG at MEREDITH dot COM
Medwick’s advice: “Parenting [topics aren’t] taboo, though our readers are likely to have older children.”

23. The New York Times — “Modern Love”
Everyone has an equal shot at this “human relationships” column that consists of unsolicited submissions, including the occasional book excerpt. All essays are read, and editor Dan Jones aims to respond to submissions within six weeks, but response times may vary due to volume and backlog. Review “Q&A: Modern Love” and the Modern Love Facebook page, where Jones has posted a bunch of tips and comments that writers might find helpful.
Length: 1,600 words
Pay: $300
Assigning editor: Dan Jones, MODERNLOVE at NYTIMES dot COM (read more of his tips on twitter @danjonesnyt)
Jones’ advice: “Although we seek to present a broad range of relationship experience, this range does not extend to a love of places, pets or books. And we receive far too many essays about the death of a loved one for how often we can cover that topic.” Both the Modern Love anthology and the book Love Illuminated give great insight into the column. Writers should also review submission guidelines.

24. The New York Times — “Private Lives”
These personal essays from writers around the globe share stories about the lives of individuals, such as family dynamics (“All Parents Are Cowards“), emergencies (“What Would You Grab in a Fire?“) or loss (“Giving Up My Small-Town Fantasy“).
Length: 900 to 1,200 words
Pay: Varies
Assigning editor: Honor Jones; send submissions to OPED at NYTIMES dot COM
Jones’ advice: Please review past examples.

25. Pacific Standard — “Life in the Data”
Here’s how editor Maria Streshinsky describes “Life in the Data” columns: “Our back page consists of a short personal narrative essay about the interaction between a big social or behavioral pattern — be it demographic, psychological, economic, geographical or cultural — and one’s own personal, lived experience.”
Length: 750 words
Pay: Generally $1 a word
Assigning editor: Maria Streshinsky, MSTRESHINSKY at PSMAG dot COM
Streshinsky’s advice: “We’re looking for personal narrative essays about the experience of being a number; of wrestling with facts; of the tension between intuitive, instinctual, emotional experience and cold, bloodless, sublime fact. We’re not looking for reporting stunts; we’re looking for first-person experience.”

Topics:

How to Pitch

Career Transition

Sound Off: How Superfans Land Gigs as Sports PA Announcers

Get off the bench and onto the speakers with these guidelines for breaking in as a stadium announcer

By Samantha Melamed

6 min read • Originally published May 16, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Samantha Melamed

6 min read • Originally published May 16, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Radio and TV play-by-play and color announcers may be the best-known personalities in the sports broadcasting business — but only as a public address announcer can you earn a nickname like the “Voice of God.” (That, of course, refers to Yankees P.A. legend Bob Sheppard, who retired last fall.) Those who hold P.A. gigs say they’re among the best jobs in sports, with all of the kinetic energy of stadium crowds and none of the wearing travel demands.

Announcers come to these posts from a broad range of backgrounds and day jobs, but they all have two things in common: Strong voices, and a driving passion for sports.

Public address announcers often start out in radio — especially local sports broadcasting — or in commercial voiceover studios. But just as often, they’re merely avid fans. Sheppard, for one, was a schoolteacher. New Jersey Nets announcer Gary Sussman is the team’s vice president of public relations by day. Philadelphia Eagles and Phillies announcer Dan Baker is coordinator of broadcast relations at Drexel University. Denver Nuggets P.A. man Kyle Speller is a pastor and a voiceover professional. And Boston Celtics announcer Eddie Palladino is chief of staff for Massachusetts’ state auditor.

The Gig

Virtually all P.A. announcers work on a part-time basis. But the details of the position, including the workload and pay grade, vary drastically depending on the size of the market and on the sport. At most stadiums, announcers must arrive several hours before a game to read through scripts that can include pages of pre-game acknowledgements, as well as learn the pronunciations of names and meet with their supervisors in the team’s marketing department.

The amount of support announcers have during games also varies: Dean has a spotter and a production assistant on hand at all times, whereas when Baker first started with the Phillies, he was doing double-duty by updating the scoreboard, as well.

Still, once the game starts, the responsibilities are fairly straightforward: announcing the outcome of each play in football, noting goals and penalties in hockey, and reporting at-bats and lineup changes in baseball.

But when it comes to basketball, announcers are sometimes expected to be unofficial cheerleaders. Speller, for one, sees pumping up the crowd as a key part of his assignment. “You’re informing the crowd of what’s going on, but you want to keep the crowd engaged at all times,” he says. So, he tries to come up with creative nicknames or vocal flourishes for each player to test out crowd-pleasing ways of announcing plays, and to elicit responses from the fans.

How to Break In

As with most jobs, there are two ways to land an in-stadium announcing gig: Work hard and network harder — or be incredibly lucky. While there are Cinderella stories of fans that scored jobs in open auditions based on sheer talent and passion, more often teams rely on word of mouth, networking or calling in a few known candidates to audition for a P.A. role.

To improve your odds, making your voice known in the local sports market is crucial. Mike McCartney, the stadium announcer for the Kansas City Royals, made his way by proving himself as a sports broadcaster on the Royals’ radio network. By word of mouth, he learned of P.A. auditions, landed a back-up announcing job and eventually became the team’s announcer. That, in turn, led to a second announcing job, for the University of Missouri-Kansas City basketball teams.

“To be successful,” says McCartney, “you need to be a fan first.” Therefore, you’re far more likely to succeed as a local. That’s even truer among baseball farm team announcing jobs in far-flung locations. There, being a devoted local fan could land you the gig, he says, “but I wouldn’t necessarily expect to move up the ranks to the big league club.”

Another way to improve your networking opportunities is to get involved with the team in some other capacity. Philadelphia’s Baker landed his Phillies job by networking through his sports broadcasting connections. But since he also had his eye on the Eagles P.A. gig, he began working on the sidelines as a spotter and statistician for visiting TV crews. Once he had gotten to know the marketing staff, he let them know that he wanted to be considered if the P.A. job became vacant — and he was.

Denver’s Speller got his start the other way. Although he was doing voiceover work, he had no sports contacts, so getting the Nuggets job “was like a miracle,” he says. He came across a call for audition tapes on the Nuggets’ Web site, went into a sound studio and put together his sample introduction of the team’s starting five, mixed with music. The team liked it enough to bring him in for an audition, and eventually hired him.

However you get your foot in the door, being practiced is key. Announcers recommend starting with low-paying or unpaid announcing jobs at college, high school or even Little League. Getting used to the rhythm of a sport and the anxiety of public speaking is important practice. Yankees announcer Paul Olden started out as a teenager announcing everything from cafeteria lunch specials to University of Southern California baseball. Whatever the venue, says Baker, you’re building a local reputation, so “treat every job like it’s an audition.”

Above all, says Olden, don’t forget the cardinal rule of P.A. work: “Never mispronounce a name.”

Other Opportunities

A stadium announcing job may not open doors the way a highly visible TV position could. But P.A. positions have led announcers to a broad array of other stadium gigs, from the World Cup to the Super Bowl, stadium concerts, racetrack announcing, college sports broadcasting and more. And for those with voiceover businesses, it boosts their visibility and credibility, As McCartney says, “It doesn’t hurt if I’m auditioning for a job, and the guy [doing the hiring] is a big Royals fan.”

For Baker, the Phillies post led to local TV and radio play-by-play jobs for college basketball, backup announcing for the 76ers and Flyers, and his current full-time job overseeing college broadcasting. And at the very least, most P.A. announcers do find opportunities to work additional events, ranging from fan fantasy camps to fundraisers on behalf of the team.

Reality Check

Beyond the obvious — rain delays and the possibility of watching a losing team self-destruct — there are a few drawbacks to the life of a P.A. announcer. Chief among them is the pay, which is variable, and the benefits, which are usually limited to getting the best seat in the house at every game.

“It’s the best part-time job in the world,” as Baker puts it. The Yankees’ Olden negotiated a full-time salary by adding speaking engagements, photography work and other responsibilities to his position — but, remember, he’s working for the wealthiest team in baseball. Most other announcers have little choice but to hang onto their day jobs.

In general, McCartney estimates that pay ranges from $150 to $250 per professional sporting events, and $30 to $100 for college-level games — but it could be more or less, depending on the size of the market. (Most other announcers declined to discuss compensation.)

As for Dean, he takes home $500 from each Cowboys football extravaganza. “You don’t do it for the money,” he explains. “I do it because I’m one of 30-something people who get to do this. And because if the Cowboys win a Super Bowl, everybody from the janitor to the public-address announcer gets a ring.”

Topics:

Be Inspired, Career Transition, Get a Media Job

Journalism Advice

Pitch Perfect: 7 Steps to Landing Your Next Magazine Assignment

How to craft a can't-say-no-to-this pitch

By Kristen Fischer

Kristen Fischer is a freelance writer, journalist, and copywriter with over 20 years of experience, currently serving as a health writer for AARP with previous staff roles at WebMD and WW. Her work has appeared in Prevention, Healthline, Woman's Day, Parade, and Writer's Digest, and she is the author of four books.

6 min read • Originally published June 4, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Kristen Fischer

6 min read • Originally published June 4, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Think about all the assignments you had last year. Were there enough juicy, well paying articles to allow you to jet to the Bahamas, or did your pitiful word counts barely keep you from trolling Craigslist for a new 9-to-5?

No matter what stage your writing career is in, the difference between the former and the latter hinges on one thing and one thing only: a can’t-say-no-to-this pitch. And, while a “hey, let me write about xyz” sent through Google Chat might work on an editor you’ve known for years, such laziness (sorry, but that’s what it is) isn’t going to bring in any new business.

Luckily, with just a few tweaks, you can give your queries the additional one-two punch that will get editors salivating – and assigning – for years to come.

1. Get to the point.

Linda Formichelli, a freelance writer and editor of the Renegade Writer blog says it’s imperative to make your first paragraph more than stellar. She believes that many writers have wonderful ideas, but they don’t articulate them well in their opening paragraph, which dissuades an editor from assigning the piece.

“Don’t bury your lede. Don’t do a lot of throat clearing,” she explains. “Just get right into it, because you only have a few seconds.”

Editors want to grab the attention of their readers, so you have to do the same to them with your query, she added. If you need inspiration, try opening with a really surprising statistic, a good quote or an interesting personal anecdote, which can grab the editor and encourage her to dole out the assignment – today.

2. Rethink your angle.

“It’s very rare that a writer’s great idea alone will sell their pitch. Remember, editors and other writers read the same press releases, spot the same trends and recycle the same topics,” warns Dawn Papandrea, managing editor at The CollegeBound Network, which was formerly a print publication.

“What will set a query apart is when a writer figures out how to package a story idea in an interesting way.”

Whether that means choosing a certain side of a story or including a service-oriented sidebar, those are details that can separate your query from thousands others like it.

Abigail Lewis, editor at Whole Life Times, agrees that having a strong hook is key. “We [editors] can definitely brainstorm further, but give us a sense of how you want to approach the subject, and types of experts you might like to include.”

That brings us to the next tip…

3. Do your research.

Formichelli says a huge roadblock to landing an assignment is not doing your homework. So, interview a few key subjects in advance or simply list who you would like to feature in the article to show the editor that you have some direction and aren’t pitching a topic blind. (Bonus points for suggesting a companion sidebar or charticle based on your findings.)

“If she’s [the editor] going to take a chance on a writer, especially one she doesn’t know, she wants to know ‘What’s going to be in this article?’ She doesn’t want to have some writer tease her and say ‘Oh yeah, I have five great tips,’ and not know what the tips are and just hope that once she hires the writer, they’re going to be good,” Formichelli says. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Beef up a pitch with some specific, targeted details and examples,” suggests Zachary Petit, managing editor at Writer’s Digest. “It’s easy to overlook a brilliant idea if it’s a one-liner in a slush pile loaded with other queries. Make yours stand out.”

4. Pre-write the article.

Many writers are on the fence about how much research to do. After all, isn’t interviewing sources and partially writing the article in advance a lot of work to do without the guarantee of it getting published?

Formichelli, who writes regularly for consumer and women’s magazines, is careful to say that while trade magazines typically assign pieces with less detail, the big ones want as much as they can get their hands on.

“For the magazines that I write for, they’ve actually told me that they want the longer queries; they want to see the research. They want the quotes.”

Sending a quick query can be a waste of time if you know the type of magazine you are targeting wants a longer pitch. Formichelli says she usually writes most of an article ahead of time and pointed to one key benefit of the strategy: saving time. “If you do the research and then get the assignment, it’s already written,” she says.

Freelance writer Carol Tice adds that if you don’t have a lot of experience or clips in your portfolio, you’ll typically need to flesh out your query with more reporting.

“You’ve got to just totally prove to them that you can do it inside the query, because you don’t have the other [clips],” Tice says. “The less experience you have, the more you have to almost deliver the whole article in the query.”

“People resist doing that ’cause they think, ‘Oh that’s so much work,’ but that’s the only way you’re going to get it.”

5. Create a sense of urgency.

Tice says that writers need to specify in their query why the article needs to be written right now. If you don’t, you risk seeing your idea tabled indefinitely.

“Then it goes into a pile that editors have of, ‘I find this interesting but it’s not an emergency, but I’d do it,’ and then it never gets done,” she explains. “Really, only the urgent stuff gets done.”

Do some research on the topic to tie it into a timeline, she says. Reference a new study or note an upcoming related event to show why it is critical to publish ASAP. “You’ve got to give them that, ‘Why now?'” she says.

Tice points to a feature she recently sold to a prominent business publication about how to protect your business during a divorce. “I just made the case that, you know, with the down economy, the divorce rate’s probably up… there’s a lot of relationship stress out there right now… a lot of financial stress, and this is probably a great time to be thinking about that, and you know, they bought that,” she says.

6. Include your credentials.

Formichelli believes it is vital to show an editor you are qualified to write for them, either through a strong pitch or by mentioning your background.

“I think it’s good to include credentials just to assure the editor that you know what you’re doing. You either have experience on the topic or you’re an experienced writer,” she says.

Just keep it to a few sentences, urges Tice. “The more you blabber about yourself, the more suspicious the editor’s going to be that you don’t understand how this works,” she says.

7. Step away from the computer.

As writers, we’re sometimes too focused on our work. We fall so in love with an idea that we may not be able to see it clearly enough to really articulate and sell it.

“Sometimes you’re too close to it,” says Formichelli, who suggests sharing pitches with a friend or writing group for feedback before hitting ‘send.’

Go back through the aforementioned steps and make sure your angle, lede and research are as strong as possible. If the pitch still isn’t gelling, give it a few days so you can revisit it later with a fresh perspective—namely, the editor’s.

Topics:

Go Freelance, Journalism Advice

Journalism Advice

The Real Reasons Editors Reject Your Pitch (and How to Fix It)

Uncover the truth behind the "no" to land more assignments

By Kristen Fischer

5 min read • Originally published June 10, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Kristen Fischer

5 min read • Originally published June 10, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

“We’ll pass. Thanks.”

“Not right for us.”

“Thanks, but no.”

If you’ve received any of these as a response to a magazine article query, you’re definitely not alone. While many journalists are happy to receive some sort of response — some editors don’t acknowledge queries unless they want to assign a piece — it can be frustrating to figure out why your pitch wasn’t picked up.

Luckily for you, we’ve put together some insights on exactly why your query got axed. Use this information to soothe your ego and do better next time.

“We don’t cover those types of stories.”

Translation: You’re pitching the wrong publication.

Lisa Haney, senior editor at Fitness, says she receives plenty of queries that have nothing to do with what the magazine covers. “You really need to know the magazine you’re pitching,” she explained. In proposing an article on a topic that is so off-target from what the magazine covers, she noted, “It shows that you’re not prepared, that you really just don’t know the magazine and that you haven’t taken the time to really check it out.”

Linda Hamilton, health editor at Woman’s World, agreed. She said she’s hesitant to take on new writers, because they often don’t take the time to understand her pub’s style, voice or the type of content it runs. For example, Woman’s World doesn’t like health stories that use scare tactics in the reporting. “It’s going to be a real turn-off if a writer doesn’t keep that in mind,” Hamilton added.

Another reason Hamilton uses a small base of writers that she can count on is that time is of the essence when running a weekly publication; the content has to be on point and need minimal revisions in order to meet deadlines. If a writer has a great proposal that’s well-written, she said she may take a chance on it, but admits that doesn’t happen too often.

“I need somebody that knows the magazine so well that they can come up with ideas,” Hamilton said.

“We’re not taking pitches at this time.”

Translation: No, really. The magazine isn’t accepting article queries right now.

Keep in mind that the media world has been shaken up in the past few years. As such, some publications don’t have the budget to pay freelancers, use them much less or have moved all writing operations in-house. If you keep up with publication guidelines, you’ll know which magazines are accepting freelance work, so you don’t waste your time pitching those that aren’t.

“[This is] all the more reason to do your best to cultivate as close-knit a relationship as you can with the publications and media outlets you most want to write for,” advised Michelle Goodman, a writer and author in Seattle.

“We’ve already run that.”

Translation: You pitched an old idea or the angle isn’t specific enough.

Magazines typically publish stories on the same topic, but the key is to approach these concepts with an angle the publication hasn’t used before.

“You might have checked the publication’s database to make sure they haven’t done the story yet, but maybe it’s already assigned and in the works with another writer and just hasn’t appeared in print or pixels yet,” noted Goodman. “Try to take that as a positive sign. At least you’re on the right track.”

Haney says that when writers pitch an evergreen topic without a creative angle, the pitch may be passed up. “It needs a really cool, new study or packaging device… that we’re like, ‘Oh wow! That’s a new take on it.”

Dawn Papandrea agrees. The seasoned freelance writer and magazine editor from Staten Island, N.Y. says that packaging counts more than the idea itself at times. “If you can work in ‘surprising’ or ‘newsy’ hooks to tell the editor why it’s worth reading right now, even better,” she advised. “Try to think in terms of ‘Would I click this headline if I saw it online?’ or ‘Would I buy this magazine if I saw this story on the cover?’ That’s what editors are looking for.”

Papandrea added that writers should query their timeliest topics to websites over print pubs. “Magazines are six months out sometimes, so watch out if you’re pitching seasonal ideas,” she said.

“We’re not assigning features at this time.”

Translation: You’re low on experience, so pitch front-of-book pieces instead.

It may very well be a fantastic article idea, but if you do not have much of a track record as a freelance magazine writer, you’re better off breaking in with a shorter, front-of-book (FOB) piece.

“[Pitching FOB articles is] a really great strategy, especially if you haven’t had national magazine experience yet,” Haney said. This gives you the chance to cultivate a relationship with an editor, who then may be more likely to take a chance on you when larger assignments become available.

Hamilton says that editors at the larger titles also want to see clips from national publications. Specifically, she wants multiple samples from the same publication. That tells her that the writer does a good enough job not only pitching and selling him or herself, but writing and revising.

“They’ve gone back to you, so obviously you’ve done a good job,” she said.

No response

Translation: The editor is consumed with deadlines, or your pitch flat-out sucks and was deleted (on purpose).

Editors are busy and sometimes they don’t have time to let you know the pitch isn’t right. When the response is nonexistent, it’s all right to check in to make sure he or she got your query. In other cases, sometimes an editor just doesn’t have the heart to tell you that your query doesn’t make the cut.

So, to increase your odds of staying out of the slush pile, make sure your copy is — you guessed it — free of typos, grammatical errors or plain old goofs. Examples: spelling an editor’s name wrong, including the name of the wrong magazine in the letter or sending hefty attachments with an email.

“Make it easy for the editor to love you,” advised Goodman. “They really do need good stories. Yours just have to be better than everyone else’s to get an assignment with a new-to-you editor or publication.”

So, where do you go after rejection?

Look, rejection happens; it’s not the end of the world. The key to longevity as a writer is to just do your best to learn from the experience.

“I never scrap pitches that I believe in. I usually tweak them for a different publication and send it off,” Papandrea said. “I take rejections as an opportunity to open up a dialogue with an editor to find out what their current needs are so I can pitch accordingly.”

Topics:

Go Freelance, Journalism Advice

Networking

How Freelancers Can Meet Editors When They Don’t Live in New York

Develop editor contacts, even if you live off the island

By Celeste Mitchell

Celeste Mitchell is an editorial writer and editor with nearly 30 years of experience creating consumer lifestyle content for publications including Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and SELF. She previously served as Deputy Editor at Cosmopolitan and taught journalism courses through Mediabistro.

3 min read • Originally published June 12, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Celeste Mitchell

3 min read • Originally published June 12, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

In order to be a successful freelance writer, you need two things—sellable story ideas and contacts at publications. Non-New Yorkers have it easy with ideas: You’ll know about things your Manhattan editors won’t. But it definitely is tougher for you to get to know editors—tough, but not impossible.

Here are some ways to develop new contacts with editors when you don’t live anywhere near Manhattan (and even if you do):

Find editors

This first step is to make contact—ideally face-to-face contact—with any editor you can. A good opportunity to meet them is when they’ve traveled outside the city for a specific work-related event. It’s a chance to say hello—even if only to shake a hand and ask for a business card.

When might you be able to do this?

1. Attend conferences for writers and editors. New York editors are often invited to speak about their publications or industry issues. Make a point of introducing yourself and getting their contact information.

2. Take continuing-education courses taught by professional journalists. Bigger names are often brought to town, especially if it’s a onetime lecture or seminar. And in ongoing classes, the teacher—who will likely be a significant local journalist—will often bring in guest speakers who are working editors. Again, take time after class to shake hands with a lecturer or guest speaker and introduce yourself.

3. Ask family and friends if they know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who is on staff at a New York publication. Sending an email is an efficient way to cast a wide net for help.

4. If you already write for a local publication, it’s not a bad idea to ask your contact to put you in touch with anyone they know in New York.

Stay in touch

Once you’ve befriended an editor, do what you can to stay on his or her radar screen—without being a pest.

1. Send news about yourself. Write a synopsis of your background that highlights your expertise and writing skills.

2. Whenever your work is published, update your editor by sending a copy of the article.

3. Send serious pitch letters via email or snail mail. (Find out from your contact how he or she prefers to receive query letters.)

4. If you happen to see an editor you’ve met on a TV show or if you hear her speaking as a guest on a radio show, send a complimentary note or email.

5. Pass along interesting articles from newspapers, magazines and websites on industry news.

6. Follow up with an email or phone call a week or two after sending a query letter. Try to confirm that the document was received and offer to provide additional information should it be required.

Finally, come visit New York

Once you have a few contacts, one of the best things you can do for your freelance career is to make an annual or biannual pilgrimage to New York to say hello. Get the most out of your trip by planning your visit to coincide with a writer’s conference or other event at which you can meet more editors.

1. Email and/or call your contacts a month or so in advance to make arrangements. Give them the specific dates you will be in town and ask to meet for lunch or coffee to discuss story ideas.

2. At your meeting, pitch your ideas verbally (bring reference notes) and listen carefully to your editor’s feedback. Take notes. Ask questions. Don’t get defensive. She’ll either love or hate your ideas, but usually she’ll explain why they do or don’t work for the magazine. Listen carefully to these suggestions, which are valuable insight into the personality of the magazine. Also, if one of your ideas shows potential, she may spend time brainstorming with you to find a way to turn it into a sellable concept.

3. Plus—who knows?—if you’re really lucky, this meeting may include a visit and tour of the publication’s editorial office, which is yet another chance to meet even more editors who you’ll stay in touch with once you return home!

Topics:

Climb the Ladder, Networking

Journalism Advice

6 Expert Tips for Landing Competitive Journalism Fellowships

Breathe new life into your career with the right program

By Meena Thiruvengadam

5 min read • Originally published June 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Meena Thiruvengadam

5 min read • Originally published June 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

For a working journalist, a fellowship from a university or foundation can be the best thing to reinvigorate your career, providing funding and other assistance for reporting projects, study and travel.

Unfortunately, applying for them is kind of like dating: lots of different options, some with longer-term commitments than others and rejection is almost inevitable.

“We’re impressed by applications that are sincere, that show there’s been a lot of thought put into the essays and where the applicant demonstrates a genuine passion for their work and for learning, because that’s really what this [year’s program] is about,” says Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

The Nieman Foundation awards several fellowships each year, including its flagship Nieman Fellowships, which allow journalists to spend an academic year studying at Harvard while receiving a healthy stipend in addition to tuition and other benefits.

Meanwhile, John S. Knight Fellowships give journalists the opportunity to study at Stanford, Knight-Wallace fellows study at the University of Michigan, Knight-Bagehot fellows study at Columbia, and several organizations, including the International Center for Journalists and East-West Center, offer shorter-term fellowships as well, often focusing on subjects or geographical regions.

Regardless of the program you’re applying for, here’s how you can stand out in an increasingly competitive crowd.

1. Find the right fit

Micheline Maynard, a former New York Times correspondent and author who has held Knight-Bagehot, Knight-Wallace, Japan Society and Hoover fellowships and is a Reynolds visiting professor of business journalism at Central Michigan University, describes journalism fellowships as “part of the learning continuum.”

Fellowships should build on the work you’ve already done in your career and provide you with new knowledge or skills for future endeavors.

Maynard has used her experiences to study at an Ivy League university, work on books and to develop a more international perspective by living abroad. “I would not be the journalist I am without the fellowships I’ve done. Every one taught me something and opened my eyes,” she says.

2. Plan ahead

For many journalists, the path toward a fellowship can begin years before an application is submitted. “I had been thinking about it for a couple of years by the time I finally sat down to write my essays,” says Lipinski, who did a Nieman fellowship in 1990.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to spend months tweaking your essay, but you should put time and effort into seeking strong letters of recommendation and making well-researched and realistic proposals.

You also shouldn’t wait until the last minute to get started or to figure out the quirks of online application systems.

3. Consult former fellows

Aisha Sultan, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch parenting columnist and Knight-Wallace fellow, recommends asking former fellows how they made themselves stand out in their applications and interviews. “Don’t discount anyone’s experience,” she says.

Depending on your relationship with the person, you could also ask for a letter of recommendation or an email to the program director. “Directors and selection committees are impressed with big names, but they are just as likely to appreciate a letter from someone close to the program,” Maynard says.

If you don’t personally know any fellowship recipients, NPR consultant Doug Mitchell, who has been both a Fulbright Scholar and Knight International Fellow, suggests using social networks to figure out which of your contacts might have an “in” to a program and ask for introductions.

He also recommends looking closely at the backgrounds of past fellows, which are often readily available online.

“There’s usually some kind of guiding principle to the acceptance of fellows, and you can usually ascertain at least some information about what that is by looking at a list of fellows.”

4. Do your reporting

Sultan sees the fellowship application as one opportunity for journalists to showcase their reporting skills.

“You have a lot of opportunities to highlight what you can do as a reporter from the people you talk to, your knowledge of the institution you’re applying to and the amount and quality of research you put into your proposal.”

She recommends being specific about classes you would take and professors you may want to work with as part of a fellowship. “The more that you do to set up your own path, the better it will look to a selection committee,” she says.

5. Craft a strong essay

Maynard suggests telling a personal story. “Don’t write your personal essay as if you’re summing up your resume,” she says. “Choose an instance when you did or learned something that affected the rest of your career.”

Patrick Butler, vice president for programs for the International Center for Journalists, urges applicants to proofread closely. “These are journalism fellowships. If you’re sloppy, and if I as an editor wouldn’t want to run your work, I will take that into account in deciding whether you should receive a fellowship,” he says.

Birgit Rieck, assistant director of the Knight-Wallace fellowship program at the University of Michigan, recommends getting the opinion of someone who knows you well but isn’t your best friend.

“You want to know how you’re coming across, because you want the selection committee to get the right idea of who you are when they read your application.”

6. Come up with a doable project

Some projects sound great but are far too ambitious, dangerous or simply not feasible to pull off within the confines of a fellowship program.

“We look for applicants that are both ambitious and realistic,” says Jim Bettinger, director of the John S. Knight journalism fellowship program at Stanford. “We look for evidence the person can actually do what they’re proposing to do.”

That can mean having technical or language skills. “Sometimes people have this idea that if they just come to Stanford there’ll be computer science geeks falling over to work on their project, but that’s not necessarily the case,” Bettinger says.

“You have to show in your application that you have the skills to do what you’re proposing and that you are the right person to carry it out.”

It can also mean being able to safely carry out the project being proposed. “Some regions people are proposing reporting on are tightly controlled, and applicants aren’t fully taking the dangers or required resources into account,” ICFJ’s Butler says.

Sometimes it isn’t you, it’s them

Don’t let a rejection letter stop you. Sometimes all it takes is a second or third try.

It also may not be the quality of your application that’s holding you back.

“I’m looking to put a class together that’s going to form a really dynamic year for each of them,” the Nieman Foundation’s Lipinski says. “We don’t want everybody coming from similar backgrounds. We want a rich diversity of experiences and interests.”

That’s something applicants can’t sway, so Sultan suggests accepting it instead. “You can’t take it personally if you don’t get picked,” she says. Sometimes it’s just completely outside of your control.”

Topics:

Go Freelance, Journalism Advice

Business Basics

4 Pitch Letter Must-Haves That Get Editors to Say Yes

Simple tips for writing a killer pitch letter

By Amanda Layman Low

@AmandaLaymanLow

Amanda Layman is a B2B tech content writer and strategist with over 15 years of experience creating content for startups and enterprise brands. She founded Tigris, a content agency serving leading tech companies, and authored The New Freelance: A Book for Writers.

7 min read • Originally published June 28, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Amanda Layman Low

@AmandaLaymanLow

7 min read • Originally published June 28, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Every seasoned writer has a pitch letter or two that they regretted sending off. I’ve probably committed every pitching no-no in the book: failing to address the correct editor, sending off a half-baked idea, even overlooking a grammatical error or two (cue my cowering in shame). The truth is your pitch letter is even more important than the first draft of your piece.

Why?

You only get one chance. You have to sell both your idea and your credibility as a writer in roughly 250 words. Fortunately, there are only a handful of must-haves for your pitch letter— and if you master these elements, you’re on the road to earning a readership and getting that check in the mail.

Ready? Here’s what your pitch letter needs.

1. A hook.

A good editor will know at the beginning of a pitch whether she’s interested in the story or not.

Author and book doctor David Henry Sterry says the beginning of your pitch letter is “like when you walk in the grocery store and there [are] those little pieces of cheese with toothpicks in them, and you pick one up and you eat it and you go, ‘Damn, that’s some good cheese. I’m gonna buy me some of that cheese.’ That’s exactly what you want in the beginning of your pitch.”

I like to get right to the point in my pitch letters: “You probably think bobby pins are just a hair accessory, but I have 20 more uses for the basic bobby pin that will blow your mind.”

Or how about, “I nearly drowned on my first attempt at scuba diving, and I can’t wait to get back in the water.” A shocking statistic, a new perspective or a turn of phrase are all great ways to start your pitch letters and convince that editor to buy the whole chunk of cheese.

2. An angle.

Now that you have the editor’s attention, it’s time to show him your angle. Your angle can be any variety of things, but it has to be easily explained in about a sentence.

It’s like your thesis statement (did I just bring back memories of writing term papers at 2 a.m.?). For instance, my angle on this article would be: “You need four essential things to craft a killer pitch letter and land a paying assignment.”

On the other hand, here’s an example of something that wouldn’t work as an angle: “Writing a pitch letter is a grueling process.”

Think of an angle in terms of your readership. What will my readers learn from this? How will this piece make them think differently? How will this piece entertain, infuriate, or enrich them?

For the first article, Maria Guido (blogger at Guerilla Mom) sold, her goal was to entertain her readers. She reflected it in her angle, which was to write “about how not reading Fifty Shades of Grey made me feel like a total prude. And I think that I just got my voice across… I know what my strength is, and my strength is I’m a storyteller.”

Play to your strengths. If you’re an entertainer, your angle should be entertaining. If you’re a muckraking journalist, your angle should reveal some dark secret.

3. Interesting stats.

Season your pitch letter with statistics, sound bites from experts, and bold statements informing the editor about your piece’s essence.

I like to put my supporting information in bullet points. Here’s a real, concise example of a personal essay pitch that I sold recently:

It took me a year and a half after having my child to realize what I needed most out of life: The sense of purpose, influence, and creativity I could only get from pursuing my abandoned career. My essay will cover:

The societal guilt I felt in transitioning from the “perfect stay-at-home mom” to the full-time worker
The hellish months it took to acclimate my daughter to daycare during the peak of her separation anxiety
The steady building of my confidence through work, creative endeavors and a new, intense hobby—rock climbing
The sense of fulfillment I have now that I’ve put myself first and how it has nearly eradicated my postpartum depression and strengthened the mother-daughter bond

My goal with this piece is to help other depressed women stop martyring themselves and to really pause and reflect on what’s missing in their lives.

I want to remove the stigma from the term “putting yourself first” when it comes to being a mother because the only way you can love your child fully is if you take care of yourself first.

Now, if I had been writing an informational piece detailing a new study that has proven that PPD women can overcome depression by going back to work, I would have included an expert quote and the basic conclusions of the study. My supporting information would’ve looked something like this (this is all invented, of course):

According to 2013 University of America Research, 85 percent of PPD moms saw improvement of their depression symptoms over a two-month period of going back to work.
Dr. Jane Doe, the leader of this study, states that “For these particular women, their depression has to do with feeling like they’re missing something in their lives… and some of them actually responded better to a lifestyle change than an increase in medication.”

4. Market knowledge.

Sending a stellar pitch to the wrong publication or editor won’t get you anywhere. Before pitching a publication, freelance writer C. Hope Clark studies the masthead to find out who does what.

She also reads archives of articles. “I will also glance at the advertising in the publication or online to get a strong feel of the readership,” she says.

I’ve had the best luck selling articles to publications that I read regularly. But getting a feel for the tone of a publication is only half the process. The other half is being aware of how much of a magazine or website is freelance-driven.

There are both large and small pubs that rarely accept submissions from freelancers—and many from which the majority of their writing comes from freelancers.

Email or write (don’t call!) an editorial assistant at the magazine to find out if it takes pitches from freelancers, what the guidelines are and to whom you should address your pitch.

Subscribe to magazines like Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers to stay informed on publishing trends and changing technology. There are plenty of websites and newsletters that alert you to paying markets in need of stories, like the ones found at FundsForWriters.com, WritersWeekly.com and WritersDigest.com.

5. Tailor-Made Pitching.

Let’s dive into the art of personalizing your pitch – because, let’s face it, one-size-fits-all is for hats, not for pitch letters. When you’re wooing an editor, think bespoke suit, not off-the-rack.

First, know your editor and their publication like your new BFF. Stalk them (professionally, of course!) on social media, and devour their publication’s content like it’s your favorite flavor of ice cream. Get a feel for their style, their likes, their dislikes. Is the editor all about hard-hitting investigative pieces, or do they lean towards quirky, light-hearted stories?

Next, let’s talk about crafting your pitch. This isn’t about flattery but showing that you’ve done your homework. Mention a recent article from the publication that resonated with you. Something like, “Your piece on urban beekeeping was the bee’s knees, and I think your readers would love to dive deeper into the world of rooftop gardens.” Maybe that’s a little cheesy, but you get the point.

Now, let’s get personal – but not too personal. No editor needs to know about your childhood fear of clowns (unless you’re pitching a story about it). What you want is to forge a connection. Maybe you’ve got a background in the subject you’re pitching, or perhaps you’ve noticed the editor’s penchant for stories that challenge the status quo, and your piece does just that.

Remember, the goal here is to make the editor feel like this pitch is crafted just for them and their publication. It’s like you’re saying, “Hey, I see you. I get what you’re about and have something that fits your style perfectly.”

So there you have it. Personalize that pitch and make it as unique as your story. After all, in a sea of generic pitch letters, yours should be the one that sparkles with a little bit of you and a whole lot of them.

Pitch perfect.

The format of the pitch is up to you. While a couple of plain-text paragraphs is often all you need, sometimes it helps to incorporate bullet points for your content ideas below an emboldened headline and dek (the little summary of a piece you might see on a website) to help the editor visualize what the live article might look like.

And always adhere to a publication’s specific guidelines: some require you to fill out a form rather than email them directly, while others would rather you include your finished piece rather than sending a pitch letter.

Whatever your story, go forth and sell it—and when you do, turn around and pitch them again!

Topics:

Business Basics, Go Freelance

Business Basics

How to Keep Track of Your Freelance Work Without Losing Your Mind

Organize your freelance career into one spreadsheet

By Paula Vasan

Paula Vasan is a four-time Emmy-winning investigative journalist and communications strategist whose reporting has influenced legislation and reached millions across broadcast and digital platforms. Her career spans Wall Street reporting at Yahoo Finance, senior investigative roles at TEGNA, and communications leadership at TEDx, with bylines in The Atlantic, CNBC, and The Boston Globe.

3 min read • Originally published June 30, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Paula Vasan

3 min read • Originally published June 30, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Freelancers need to keep track of dozens of moving parts from day to day. Stories are at different stages of progression, being worked on at the same time. Various editors have specific preferences of how articles are styled and submitted. And while you’re working on assignments, a countless number of other story ideas are likely percolating in your head. So how do you manage it all — and maintain your sanity?

A few months ago, when I started freelancing full time, I would scribble a story idea on an index card and tape it to the fridge. I’d email myself ideas or write them as notes in my iPhone. I was waiting to be paid on a couple of articles and needed to submit an invoice to be paid on another. Eventually, I felt severely disorganized. There had to be a better system! I talked with a handful of successful freelancers about their methods and incorporated some of my own ideas to create a more thorough story-tracking method for myself, and to write this article.

Writers have their own individual systems of keeping track of assignments, but I’ve learned a good-ole spreadsheet, using Google Sheets, for example, is a standard essential. It’s just a matter of finding a format that works best for you.

Freelancer Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who now has contributor writer contracts with The New York Times Magazine and GQ agrees. On her Excel spreadsheet, a basic approach, the columns are labeled as follows: Story Idea, Editor, Pitch Date, Follow Up, Assigned?, Word Rate and Word Count. And once the story is handed in and Brodesser-Akner has been paid, she italicizes the line to indicate that assignment is complete.

Full-time freelancer Ann Friedman said she formats an Excel spreadsheet into four main groups, which are: Pitched, Assigned/In Progress, Filed/To Be Invoiced and Invoiced/Waiting on Payment. A particular story will progress from the top of the spreadsheet to the bottom from start (as an idea) to finish (a published story with a check deposited into Friedman’s bank account). See sample below.

According to Ann, this method helps her to keep track of each story’s status, a necessary process because there are a variety of stories she’s working on at once for various publications, all in different stages of development.

As for me, the more detailed spreadsheet I use with Google Sheets tracks each story’s different elements and ideas. Following the progression of each story helps me make sure I’m not repetitive with any specific editor or publication, and allows me to pay attention to the ideas that worked and those that didn’t.

To replicate it, use four tabs for your document, and create columns for the following bulleted items:

Tab 1: Assigned Stories

• Publication

• Title of story

• Point of contact

• Section

• Words

• Rate

• Date published

• URL (if applicable)

• Payment date

• Notes (feedback/preferences from editor)

Tab 2: Pitches

• Story idea

• Working title

• Submitted (Yes?/No?)

• Pitched to (list publications you pitched)

Here’s a sample sheet:

The last two tabs can help you for accounting purposes:

Tab 3: Amount Earned

Use a pivot table to automatically calculate the amount earned per month (or whatever time periods you want to look at), based on the rate information from Tab 1. You can do this in Excel or in Google Sheets. (Here’s how to create a pivot table in a Google doc, which will allow you to access your information wherever you are logged in to your Google account.)

Tab 4: Write-offs

Finally, here’s where you can keep track of anything you can write off as a business expense. Include costs associated with networking lunches, money spent to work and use Wi-Fi in coffee shops, home Internet bills, office supplies, etc.

Many full time freelancers say their job requires a certain amount of entrepreneurial spirit — they treat their freelancing as a business that they must grow and take ownership of. Keeping track of your work as a freelancer, from publish dates to word counts and pay, will help you analyze how you progressed over weeks, months and years.

Topics:

Business Basics, Go Freelance

Business Basics

Bookkeeping 101: A Freelancer’s Guide to Better Business Finances

Get organized on your own terms

By Amanda Layman Low

@AmandaLaymanLow

7 min read • Originally published June 30, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Amanda Layman Low

@AmandaLaymanLow

7 min read • Originally published June 30, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

So you’re a super-talented writer able to weave concepts into compelling narratives, interviews into stories of interest and ideas into novels. But how are your bookkeeping skills?

We spoke with three freelance writers at various stages in their careers, all of whom have totally different approaches to bookkeeping. Below, check out their tips and glean some insights from their spreadsheet wisdom.

Use an organization system that works for you.

When you’re thinking about your approach to bookkeeping, it’s good to look deep inside yourself and figure out how you stay organized in other areas of your life. For example, do you store all of your music and books on physical shelves? Is everything digital? Do you routinely alphabetize and rearrange, or are you more likely to have a major spring cleaning session once a month, or once a year? Whatever you do in your ordinary life is likely to impact your professional approach, so keep that in mind when you’re developing a bookkeeping system and routine.

Freelance writer Carie Sherman speaks fondly of her “piles” system. “I’m not a naturally organized person, but I just kind of have to go with the way I work, and the way I work is that I put things in piles,” she says. That means she keeps her receipts, contracts and tax information in different physical piles so she knows where to access them later. On the other hand, freelancer Davina van Buren keeps a folder for just about everything. “I have folders of receipts, folders for any equipment I buy or newsletters for my profession,” she says. She adds that she does this, in part, to make things easier on her certified public accountant (CPA). But the process also saves her time and money: “I want to maximize my time in there with him… so they don’t end up charging me for organizing my things!”

My approach to bookkeeping, like my approach to life, is sort of all-or-nothing. I’ll passively dump all of my stuff throughout the week into its general spot, whether on my computer’s desktop or directly into my Google Drive, then I’ll inevitably get a burst of motivation that carries me through the remainder of the organization process and delivers a clean series of numerically ordered electronic folders. I don’t keep much paper anymore because I’m somewhat of a minimalist (my physical office fits in a backpack).

So think about it. Are you more of a “files” person or a “piles” person? You may even be a little of both, like me. Either way, you’ll be the most successful if you do what feels natural to you.

Track items in these three basic categories.

Whether you’re a newbie freelancer or you’ve been grappling with this stuff for years, it’s better to keep things as simple as possible. Here are the basic things you’ll need to keep track of:

• Assignments
• Payments
• Tax stuff

Seem simple? It is. Of course there are plenty of subcategories to each of these, and depending on the type and quantity of work you do, there are plenty of other things you may need to integrate into your system. But if you’re just getting started as a writer, these are the three most important things. Let’s dive into each.

Assignments: First, you need some method for tracking the status of your assignments. This includes the pitch letters, queries and job applications you’ve sent out, in addition to important dates like assignment deadlines, project timelines and scheduled interviews.

I like using my Google Calendar to track all of my deadlines and interviews. I also use a spreadsheet to track my submissions, pitch letters, job applications and other “outreach” types of actions. I keep it very basic: just a description of the item, the date I submitted something and the current status of it. I recently added a “Follow up by” column to remind me to check back with editors or other professionals after a week has passed. Whether you track these things with an old-fashioned wall calendar or have a complex database in your computer, follow the golden rule of freelance bookkeeping—do what works for you!

Payments: Next, you have to have a solid system for tracking payments. This includes a place to keep all of your invoices, and a list or spreadsheet detailing the status of each invoice. Don’t even know how to create an invoice? Try downloading a template from MS Word, or using one of the many invoicing sites like Invoiced, Zoho or Freshbooks (AG members get $20 off this service with a paid subscription) to generate them for you.

Sherman emphasizes the importance of sending an invoice as soon as the work is complete. “If I say I’m going to do it later, I won’t! I really will forget about it. Nobody can pay you if you’re not doing your invoicing,” she says. When Sherman was starting out, she forgot to send an invoice to a client and she didn’t have a solid bookkeeping process in place. “I didn’t enter [the invoice information] into my online system, and they said that they paid me—but in my heart of hearts, I believe I wasn’t paid, but I don’t have any way of proving it.”

Adds Betsy Farber, editor of an online trade mag who’s planning to return to freelancing soon: if you’re waiting for a payment, “it’s so easy to take it personally… [but] you just have to follow up with these people.” Although there are times when processes get delayed by the editor or by accounting, she suggests you do everything you can as a writer to keep things moving. “When a pub or editor sends you the paperwork, I would just get that back to them as soon as possible, so when it does come time to be paid you’re accounted for… they’re not waiting around for you to send your W9 or a contract,” she advises.

It may seem silly when you’re getting started and you have just one client or maybe all of your work is unpaid, but believe me, developing a system now will save you from serious migraines later.

Taxes: The third major requirement for solid bookkeeping is tax stuff. Just the word “tax” still gives me the heebie-jeebies, but if you’re a full-time freelancer, you’re far better off paying taxes quarterly or monthly than getting slammed with a massive bill at the end of the year. Van Buren doesn’t take any chances when it comes to Uncle Sam. She’s been working with a CPA for two years, and though she may venture out and begin doing them on her own, she says, “for now, I feel more comfortable having a professional do it so I don’t leave anything out, and so I can maximize my final deductions.”

However, if you like the idea of handling it yourself, there are a variety of ways to manage it. I use QuickBooks: I like how I can link my accounts to the app and mark my income and outgo as either business, personal or both. Based on my entries, the platform automatically calculates about how much I’ll owe in taxes to date—and gives me the option to pay them now if I want.

However, you don’t have to use a computer program. Farber has her own system that works for her: “I have a folder for each publication on my desktop, and I’m really diligent about invoicing and naming them, and when I get paid I always keep the paystubs so that come the end of the year, I’ll have all that in order,” she says. You don’t need anything fancy to track your freelance income and expenses. Many writers still use the old shoebox method, in which you toss all of your paystubs and business receipts into a box and sort them out at the end of the year.

Run a better business with better bookkeeping.

The bottom line is that the more reliable and functional your bookkeeping system is (files or piles), the easier time you’ll have with running your business overall. It’s especially helpful to know where everything is in case you run into a problem with a client.

Sherman shares her recent story about handling a client who won’t pay: “I’m far more organized now, I have the estimate, I have the approval of work, all of those things; it’s just a matter of a client not paying.” She may wind up taking this situation to small claims court, and if she does, she has all of the supporting paperwork to prove she signed a contract and performed the work.

Strong bookkeeping skills will also make your day-to-day life easier. I’ve had countless instances in which clients need me to conjure up an old draft, an invoice, something someone said in an email, or the exact date that something occurred in the past. It’s much easier on the brain and the nerves when everything’s in its place—and as you know, functioning brains and nerves are essential to survival as a freelance writer.

Topics:

Business Basics, Get a Media Job, Go Freelance

Resumes & Cover Letters

7 Red Flags on Your Resume (And How to Fix Them Fast)

Make sure your resume is free of these transgressions

By Brittany Taylor

Brittany Taylor is an enterprise marketing manager and content strategist with over a decade of experience in B2B content marketing, brand building, and ghostwriting, with bylines in SELF, Teen Vogue, and Mediabistro. She currently leads content and branding across multiple brands at HireQuest Inc.

7 min read • Originally published June 30, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Brittany Taylor

7 min read • Originally published June 30, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

You’ve been sending out applications left and right and yet there’s been nary a nibble. It’s not you—you’re great. You match all the job requirements (and quite a few of the “nice to have” skills, too). You wrote an engaging cover letter. Your background itself is on-point. So what gives?

It might just be your resume. What looks perfect to you, your school’s career adviser, or even some of your colleagues can come off as gimmicky, careless or unhelpful to the folks doing the hiring. So what are they really looking for? We chatted with four hiring managers and recruiters: Aimée Starck, recruiter at Creative Circle; Sandy Pinos-Chin, director of human resources at About.com; Yair Riemer, chief marketing officer at HR tech company CareerArc; and David Waring, cofounder and editor at FitSmallBusiness.com, who has used Mediabistro’s own job board to hire writers and marketing executives. Here, they reveal applicants’ biggest resume blunders.

1. Easily avoidable mistakes.

Typos, misspelled words and grammar errors are at the top of all four experts’ stop-reading-right-now lists. And it doesn’t matter if the role you’re applying for is content- or editorial-related—no mistakes.

“[Whether you are] applying for a coding job, a writing job, a design job, if you are not spell checking and making sure that content is correct on your resume, I am really not interested,” Starck says. “Don’t tell me you’re detail oriented but you can’t pay attention to your grammar on a one-page resume.”

For those getting creative, aim for consistency above all. “Make sure the bullets are the same size and they’re indented the same amount of space from the margin,” Starck says. “If you’re using periods at the end of your bullets, make sure that every bullet has a period.”

And don’t think you can get away with widows just because you’re not an InDesign pro. “If you have a couple of lines that flow into the next page, there’s a way to make it shorter,” Pinos-Chin says. “I know that’s a pet peeve of recruiters, to have to print out empty pages or a page with one line is annoying. I’ve had resumes that come in and it’s like, ‘You couldn’t delete the extra space? I just printed out 13 pages of nothing.’ It comes across as careless.”

Finally, for the love of all that is aesthetically pleasing, save your .doc as a PDF. If it’s a huge file, compress it.

2. Confusing chronology or formatting.

We know, it’s boring, but the general format for resumes hasn’t undergone a huge evolution—so don’t go crazy manipulating yours.

“We’re still looking for a bulleted itemization of the major types of responsibilities you had at each of your employers,” Pinos-Chin says. “One of the things I see a lot is that instead of organizing their resume chronologically, they’ll organize it based on their skills and then make a short list of their employers. That, for me, is a turn-off because it’s hard to understand the progression of the things you worked on. It’s also hard to understand if you used a skill at your first job or more recently or across the board.”

Sometimes resume experts suggest using skill-based formatting to hide employment gaps. However, recruiter Starck urges applicants to just be honest. “They’re going to get to the bottom of it regardless, so I would be up front about it,” she says, whether [the gaps are] due to family obligations, illness or unemployment.

Employers do want to make sure you’re not out of the loop, so be sure to stay informed about your industry. “It’s important to… make sure that if you’re trying to get back into the industry that you can talk intelligently about [trends],” says Starck.

And in case you were wondering: Comic Sans MS? Still a no-no. Graphics? Keep them in your portfolio. Head shots? Save for your dating profile. While Riemer is willing to make exceptions for art directors or graphic designers, he says it’s still best not to take risks that may distract your resume’s reader.

3. Exceeding one page without years of relevant experience to back it up.

“You don’t have to include all of your work experience—only the relevant work experience,” says Riemer. “If you worked as a lifeguard or summer camp counselor five years ago, but since then have interned at three Internet startups in the marketing department, and you’re applying for a full-time, entry-level job at an Internet company, it’s probably OK to leave out that your summer camp group won the annual kickball tournament.”

Starck echoes the sentiment of brevity. “I have 10-plus years of experience under my belt,” she shares, “and I still have a one-page resume. You should really be curating and tailoring your resume to reflect the job you’re applying for.”

In the same vein, there is such a thing as sharing too much work history.

On the decade cut-off, Waring is in agreement. “However,” he says, “if you have experience that is particularly relevant to the position that you are applying for that goes back further than this, I would include it.”

4. Padding for length (or any reason).

We’ve heard the one-page rule so many times, it feels like an absolute. And while most of the hand-wringing comes from folks trying to squeeze their life onto a single sheet of paper, applicants who are fresh out of college or who are looking for internships have the opposite problem: what if there isn’t enough to fill a page?

“I would personally rather see a resume that is less than one page than a full-page resume that is full of fluff,” Waring says. “If they are applying to a position they feel might require experience they do not have, then why they are still a good fit should be in the cover letter.”

Waring suggests that students and recent grads include the following areas: education, relevant coursework, leadership and interests, achievements and skills. Think: Adobe Creative Suite, Tweetdeck, fluent in Spanish, not soft skills like “is a team player” or “possesses meticulous attention to detail” —Starck says these are things you have to show, not tell.

“Academic accomplishments are key,” Riemer emphasizes, “specifically if you have studied or researched any of the elements required for a job. Something as tangential as a research project or paper in school can separate you from someone else with little practical experience because it at least shows an interest in the role.”

5. Obvious objective statements.

Some recruiters love seeing objectives, Pinos-Chin says, while others loathe them. However, the objective as a whole has transformed from the redundant “I’m looking for a fulfilling career in children’s publishing with growth potential where I can build on my leadership skills” to more of a value statement about yourself.

“I am a self-motivated leader with a knack for problem-solving” might work for a developer position, Pinos-Chin offers as an example.

“Tell me something that’s useful to me,” Pinos-Chin adds. “What’s useful to me is an elevator pitch about why you’re awesome.”

6. Getting too personal.

Should you include the hours you’ve clocked at the homeless shelter? What about your love for Korean barbeque? Waring says he likes seeing a smidgeon of personal information in a hobbies or general interests section, but “no more than one or two lines, unless the experience is particularly relevant to the position.”

Riemer says that in some cases, “if you’ve done research on the company culture and see that volunteering or team-building activities are core to the specific firm you’re applying for,” adding a section that highlights your interests there can give you a boost.

Pinos-Chin agrees that understanding your audience is key. She cautions applicants not stray into TMI territory, however. This means avoiding anything politically charged or divisive. “It’s about mitigating the prospect of, ‘What if I’m applying and the person who reads my resume happens to be somebody on the complete other end of the spectrum,'” she explains. “Just be aware and consider that it might not be the distraction you want to add to your resume.”

7. Forgoing keywords.

You need to include keywords, and not just because some large companies use programs to pick and choose applicants that check certain boxes. Put them in your bullet points, not just in the bottom “skills” section.

“As recruiters, we don’t have time to look at every little thing. We’re going through hundreds and hundreds of resumes and LinkedIn profiles and all kinds of things,” Pinos-Chin says.

“I judge [the lack of keywords] more harshly on content-related people, especially in the digital space,” Pinos-Chin adds. “Being able to optimize content for the Web and for search is so essential. Keywords should be a natural part of how you think. You need to make that association—and not making it shows a lack of awareness.”

Riemer agrees. “This is an important point,” he says. “Keywords matter, but you shouldn’t write your resume for a machine. If you have expressed the key components of the role and industry, then that will kill two birds with one stone—and also take care of any algorithms looking for those keywords.”

The bottom line is your resume isn’t a task list; it’s a sales sheet.

“An effective resume markets you and identifies your accomplishments and strengths,” Riemer says. “Hiring managers want to see that you’ve achieved success, not just shown up and completed tasks. Consider the document an opportunity to really impress and craft a strong introduction about yourself, rather than just a summary of work history.”

Topics:

Get a Media Job, Get Hired, Resumes & Cover Letters

The Gig

How to Break In

Other Opportunities

Reality Check

1. Get to the point.

2. Rethink your angle.

3. Do your research.

4. Pre-write the article.

5. Create a sense of urgency.

6. Include your credentials.

7. Step away from the computer.

Find editors

When might you be able to do this?

Stay in touch

Finally, come visit New York

1. Find the right fit

2. Plan ahead

3. Consult former fellows

4. Do your reporting

5. Craft a strong essay

6. Come up with a doable project

Sometimes it isn’t you, it’s them

1. A hook.

2. An angle.

3. Interesting stats.

4. Market knowledge.

5. Tailor-Made Pitching.

Pitch perfect.

Use an organization system that works for you.

Track items in these three basic categories.

Run a better business with better bookkeeping.

1. Easily avoidable mistakes.

2. Confusing chronology or formatting.

3. Exceeding one page without years of relevant experience to back it up.

4. Padding for length (or any reason).

5. Obvious objective statements.

6. Getting too personal.

7. Forgoing keywords.

Mark Hudson