By Jessie Kwak
If you’re just starting out as a freelance writer, breaking into new magazines can seem like a chicken-and-egg scenario.
You’d love to write for Redbook, Psychology Today or Popular Woodworking, but editors want to see clips in the field. How do you get clips in your target niche before you’ve broken into it?
I started out as a travel writer, but I wanted to branch out into better paying markets – so I started figuring out how I could use my travel writing to do so. Using a combination of strategies, I slowly began building a portfolio that has helped me break into some of my dream niches, like personal finance, business, cycling and beer.
How did I do it? Here are my tips:
Pitch a topic you’re an expert in
My first sale outside the travel writing niche was to a regional parenting magazine, ParentMap. It was, of course, an article about travel with kids, but now I could add “writer for parenting magazines” to my skill set.
To break into personal finance, I pitched a piece about how a 6-month backpacking trip taught my husband and I to talk about money. The editor loved it, and now I’m writing another piece for them on how to budget for travel.
The plus side of these articles is that they’re not just travel pieces – I can use them to break into writing about personal finance and relationships, too.
Say you have a few clips writing business profiles, but you’d really like to break into food writing. Take a look at the magazines you’d like to write for – could you pitch one a profile of the new sustainable sushi restaurant down the street?
Almost any beat from accounting to technology can be slanted to fit a variety of other niche magazines. It’s a great way to break into a new market.
Pitch new topics to your current editors
After I wrote a few travel pieces for ParentMap, I pitched my editor a piece about teaching your kids to ride a balance bike. That earned me a clip I’ve used to attract clients in the cycling industry (another major dream niche of mine).
If your editor at the local home and garden journal likes your regular container gardening articles, try pitching her a piece on the latest crop of hi-tech gardening gadgets. If she assigns it, you’ve just landed yourself a clip writing about technology that could help you break into another great-paying niche.
Pitch articles that combine niches
I keep a wish list of magazines I want to write for, and whenever I’m pitching a new piece – whether it’s to a current editor or a new market – I figure out how to make it slant toward multiple niches.
Wanting to break into writing about beer, I pitched a travel piece to Beer West Magazine. With the ability to say I’d written for a beer magazine under my belt, I pitched the Brewer’s Association trade magazine a piece about getting startup capital for your brewery through crowdfunding.
Voila! A clip that shows I can write about breweries, small business startups, and crowdfunding, and now I’ve cracked writing for trade publications.
This isn’t hard to do, but the trick is to do it consciously. You need to make every hard-earned clip count, especially in the early stages of your writing career. Don’t sell yourself short by only pitching ideas that can be used in a single niche.
How have you broken into new niches? Tell us in the comments below.
Jessie Kwak is a freelance writer in the Pacific Northwest. She writes about the good life: travel and the tourism industry, outdoor adventures, food and beverage, and (of course) cycling.
