How a Freelance Writer Works

If you’re new to PR, you might be wondering how a freelancer works. You’ve come to the right place. After working with freelancers as an editor for about seven years, I’ve been on the other side of things for the past two years—and learned a lot. Here’s what to know about how a freelance writer works to help you better pitch and work together with them.

Most of the time, we pitch ideas to editors.

Our ideas are our livelihood. When you are new to freelancing, or trying to break into a new publication, your entire workday revolves around coming up with fresh angles that could be a fit for that audience that they haven’t covered before. Pitches have to be timely, relevant and fresh—so that means we have to be on top of the news cycle and what’s coming up, aware of exactly who the publication’s audience is and reading that publication as often as possible to know what they’re covering (and what they’re not covering).

We constantly work on perfecting the art of the pitch.

Different editors want different things in pitch emails, but the basic template I use includes “Freelance writer pitch: XXX” as the subject line, followed by a three-paragraph email: a brief introduction to who I am and a few relevant clips, my idea and how I’d cover it, and a note on why it’s timely and relevant. The more you work with editors, the more you learn what they do (and don’t) want in pitches and adjust your style accordingly for each.

We ask for information to help with pitches.

I need to do some upfront reporting to inform my pitches, so often I will reach out to PR teams to get information before I even send out an inquiry to an editor. When I do, I frequently get asked what publication it’s for and when it’s running. I understand your client likely really wants to know this information, but I don’t feel comfortable sharing those details until after I’ve gotten the story confirmed. This is where trust comes in—being willing to provide information to freelance writers ahead of confirmed assignments is a good way to foster that relationship. I’m more likely to reach out to PR teams who’ve been generous with their time in this way before when I’m needing sources for top-tier confirmed assignments.

We have to follow up—a lot.

Just like PR teams follow up on their pitches, even established freelance writers must follow up on pitches, sometimes three or four times. Editors inboxes, especially at top-tier publications, are flooded with pitches, so your email can easily be missed. I’m constantly trying to learn the best time and day to pitch each editor, based on when their editorial meetings take place. A few editors I work with send out regular calls for pitches, providing a specific deadline and topics they’re looking for. Those are very helpful—but not common from editors right now.

Sometimes we get assignments.

Once I’ve established myself with a publication, I will get SEO-based assignments sometimes from editors. For example, I rarely pitch Real Simple, as they mostly assign me content based on topics they’d like to build out in SEO for their site. The good news is, assignments take the waiting and guessing out of pitching; the not-so-great side of it is they often come with urgent deadlines and short notice.

 We continually practice patience.

I wish I could tell you when a piece is going to run, but the majority of the time I simply don’t know. Some editors post a piece the same day I submit it; while others sit on it for a few months before running it. Print assignments can usually be confirmed to an issue, but I had a story for a top-tier travel publication that was written to run in July that’s been pushed to February 2020 for space reasons.

There’s a lot more to freelance writing, which includes being your own accountant, salesperson and marketer, but before I continue further, I’d love to know: What questions do you have about how a freelance writer works?