I get lots of EMAIL's asking how to become a freelance writer so I have put this page together in order to help wannabe writers and to try and reduce the number of EMAIL's I receive.

This page considers how to write and sell magazine articles. A future page will consider how to write and sell non-fiction books.

Freelance writing is like almost no other business in that as soon as you send something to an editor you are immediately competing with the best writers in the business. Your manuscript could land on the editors desk at the same time as a writer who has been in the business for twenty years and been published in The Times and other prestige publications.

Therefore, you have to be professional. You have to give the editor confidence that you are a "real" writer and not just an amateur playing at it.

And to demonstrate that you are professional you have to actually be professional.

In order to write for a living you obviously need a magazine to write for. Most magazines published in Britain accept freelance material of one form or another. Therefore, you can target almost any publication. The real question is….

Most editors receive much more material than they can publish. They are therefore faced with having to decide what to publish and what not to publish.

A lot of the time the decision is easy. The material is simply unsuitable for the publication. But there really is no excuse for sending unsuitable material to a magazine. Not only are you wasting the editors time but you are also wasting your own time and as well wasting your money.

In order to decide what to write you have to analyse the magazine you are aiming to write for. In fact, you should analyse as many issues as you can (five or six is a good number).

When you look through the magazine you are looking for a number of things

• Who is the magazine aimed at? That is, who are the readers. In trying to decide this don't forget to look at the adverts, as this can tell you a lot. For example, are the items expensive, are they aimed at a certain age group? Advertisers spend a lot of money on market research so it is worthwhile making use of their efforts.
• What parts of the magazine are covered by "staff" writers? Or, to put it another way, what parts of the magazine look as if they are open to freelancers. There is no exact formula for deciding this but one method you can use is to look at the front of the magazine at the list of people who work for it. Then match their names up to the various articles.
• How long are the articles? If the average article length is 1200 words then it is pointless sending something to the editor that is 3000 words long.
• Do the articles have pictures with them? If they do then you had better give some thought as to how you will include pictures in your articles. It might be the case that the magazine will take care of it but I have been told by a number of editors that if you can provide a "complete package" your chances of success are greatly enhanced.
• Is there any supplementary material to the articles? For example, are there "fact boxes" or smaller articles that elaborate on a particular point from the main article?
• What type of language is used in the articles? Is it technical, easy to read, full of jargon? Are the paragraphs long or short? Are the sentences long or short? You must aim to write in the magazine style otherwise your masterpiece will come back on a boomerang.

Once you have studied the magazine you can now decide what you are going to write.

This is probably the hardest part. You need to find an idea that will interest the readers (and the editor). As well as the actual writing process, this is the where the skill of the freelance writer lies; coming up with ideas that will attract the attention of the editor.

There are two main ways of submitting work. You can either do it in a letter and try to sell the idea to the editor. The hope is that you will get a commission but, in the early stages of your career, the best you can really hope for is that the editor will ask to see the complete article.

The second method is to send the complete article straight away.

The method you choose is really up to you but it might be worth contacting the editor first to see how he would prefer you to submit work.

When you submit a manuscript it must follow a certain layout. This format will be specified in any decent book on freelance writing but the main points are these

• Use A4, white paper.
• The manuscript must be typed.
• The text must be on one side of the paper only and must be double spaced.
• Your name, some identification and page numbers must appear on every page. The identification and page numbers are used in case the manuscript gets dropped. It is usual to use the title of the article.
• At the bottom of every page, except the last one, type "mf". This stands for "more follows" and tells the printer that there are more pages. At the bottom of the last page type "ends".
• There should be a covering sheet. This has on it your name and address, the title of your manuscript, your pen name (if you have one), approximately how many words the article contains and the words FBSR. FBSR stands for First British Serial Rights and means the magazine can only publish the article once and that you can sell the article again. The second time you would offer Second British Serial Rights.

You must, when you submit an idea or an article, enclose a stamped addressed envelope.

Last Updated : 4th August 1999