COMM 337: Notes on freelancing -- wisdom from the Internet, from you guys

Thanks to Claire, Megan, Nikkie and Becky (so far, at 10 in the morning) for posting links. These last few days I want to focus on what you can do to get some articles in print, start getting clips that will land you jobs and/or freelance gigs. We'll look at some of their webpages, and I'll post some notes below ... in no particular order of importance.

1. IT'S ALL ABOUT CLIPS. Portfolio pieces. "Clips" are clippings. Today they're often electronic, but you need 'em so you can show editors what you've done.

2. Don't forget your friendly, local, neighborhood Bulldog right on campus. They need stories. You need clips. Does that help you connect the dots?

3. Research online opportunities.

4. Keep trying. Collect rejection slips. Glory in them! Develop a thick hide. It's not about you. It's about working the numbers, the odds.

5. When to work for free, when not to. If you're doing stuff for small publications, little not-for-profits, people you'd volunteer for in other ways (e.g. painting the cat loft at APL or designing a flier for a parish craft fair or youth recreation program), I think it's OK.

About.com has a very good article on breaking into the business ... getting those first clips ... by a freelancer named Allena Tapia. Link here: http://freelancewrite.about.com/od/breakingintofreelancing/a/startwrite.htm

Tapia suggests:

• Volunteer for a writing project with a local non-profit.
  
• Write up your most perfect, flawless article on a subject that interests you (and then turn it into a nicely presented PDF).
  
• Scrounge up a (short) paper from college, and make sure it's perfect.
  
• Use a piece that you've written for past employment. [Including internships!]
  
• Write a letter to the editor of your local paper or magazine that is passionate and informative.
  
• Start a blog.

Since you're in college, use a college paper. Or a three-fold brochure, creative brief, etc., from one of the "green-eyeshade" courses. Since one of your college teachers has been insisting you keep a blog on a commercial hosting service, post something to it.

Here's one that was linked to the About.com article ... it has some tips about querying by email:
http://aboutfreelancewriting.com/articles/howtosample/emailquery.htm
Including these: "Send your e-query to yourself first to get a reasonably good idea of how it will look. ... Avoid any special formatting like bold — you simply don’t know what it will look like on the other end. ... Never, ever use html. ..." Set your email program for plain text -- don't mess around with HTML, enhanced text, formatted text or whatever they call it. It looks as amateurish as little yellow blinking smiley faces.