Writer, journalist and editor James K. Walker shares his top ten tipes for pitching an article as a freelancer.

How to pitch an article is one of the most frequent questions I’m asked when holding journalism workshops. As is often the case within this industry, there’s no magical solution. But here’s my top ten tips:

1. Be direct and to the point. They want to know the genesis of your idea not every single detail. This can be done in 3-5 lines. Remember they have to trawl through hundreds of these enquiries a day.
2. News desks are run off their feet and poorly staffed. If you can make their job any easier, do it. Explain exactly where you see the article fitting into the publication. Suggest a relevant word count. Give a realistic date for copy. Pitch features in advance e.g. Summer festival guide in spring. If you can provide photographs do it. This saves them time and earns you extra dollar. (Note: Just because you have a digital camera built into your phone doesn’t mean you can take photographs…)
3. Have a unique angle, something that sets your idea apart from others. In my experience this comes from finding unique correlations and juxtaposing them together. This is an impossible trait to teach people and comes only with being well read and informed, a skill which inevitably improves with age. No wonder the government have put up the age of retirement…
4. A brief biog under the pitch reassures the Editor that you are competent and reliable. Alternatively this can be done in your email signature, with contact details and links to your work. If you are starting out then stating why you are so passionate about this feature and perfectly suited to write it may be enough to lure them in. Never underestimate enthusiasm because it tells an Editor that you’ll deliver the goods.
5. Picking up the phone is far more effective because you get to talk to someone directly which means you don’t become an anonymous email clogging up an inbox that will probably get erased due to time constraints. But you need broad shoulders for this. You may well encounter a gruff almost monosyllabic response simply because you are the hundredth call they’ve taken on the bounce. Remain calm, polite, enthusiastic and articulate. It works every time. With this in mind, print out your pitch and rehearse it.
6. When you ring up, mention your name in the first sentence. ‘Hi. I’m Arthur Seaton, a freelance journalist based in Nottingham’. Even if they don’t take the bait, at least your name has been stored for future reference. On a similar note, try to find out the name of the person you want to talk to before ringing up. And it goes without saying to check you’ve been put through to the right department before delivering your spiel. A lot of publications are owned by larger organisations and so numbers can occasionally be generic.
7. Whether email or phone, timing is pivotal. Make sure that a UFO has not landed or a madman has gone on a shooting spree because this will take up most of their attention. For example, this can account for up to 50% of all news feeds on a website as they have to keep up with developments.
8. More esteemed publications are likely to go for established writers, which isn’t very helpful when you’re trying to break into the market. But fear not, take a look around at who falls into this category and get them to pitch on your behalf. A good starting point is a university lecturer. They have regular contact with the media due to their specialised knowledge and if not, will know someone within the department who does. Of course this means you must be achieving high grades for them to risk their reputation.
9. There is of course the distinct possibility that an Editor will steal your idea and get one of his staff to follow up the article. Get over it. You probably stole your idea from a mix of articles you’d read online. But rest assured if you keep ringing up with great ideas, eventually they’ll cave in and you’ll experience that wonderful feeling that comes with seeing your name in print.
10. This one’s down to you. What advice would you give readers based on your own experience? Do you have a magic formula?

James K. Walker is the Literature Editor at LeftLion magazine. He’ll be hosting a free spoken-word event called Scribal Gathering at Nottingham Contemporary on August 4th, 7pm. For more info, please see http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001244726246

James K Walker shares his experience of life at the frontline of community journalism, and how to make it pay.

At the recent Writing Industries Conference I chaired a panel on Community Journalism and Blogging. Many attending hoped this would impart a magical formula for turning words into cash. When this was not forthcoming – or at least not in the traditional sense of print journalism – the inevitable disappointment was palpable. It’s my intention in this blog to reinstate hope or rather, encourage people to think differently about how to make money. But first a brief history lesson.

Listen to the WIC 2010 Community Journalism podcast

The 1980s saw an explosion in magazine journalism and a world in which you could ring up an editor, pitch an article, and then get paid for it. But that world doesn’t exist anymore. Endless cuts in print journalism and the yearly diminishing returns from advertising revenues means prices have dropped and a core team of hacks are left to do the cooking, cleaning and proverbial ironing across the pages. This culling is endemic throughout the industry; even established authors are taking up to 25% drops in advances. To make matters worse, publications accepting freelance work have become frighteningly competitive and often use content for free on the grounds that it will bolster the CV (n.b. recently graduated journalists).  One northern publication which used to offer ten pound per 100 word book review, now insists the free review copy is enough recompense. There’s no way of disguising the fact, times are tough for those with pen as sword.

So what’s changed? Well it’s all because of new media, the interface through which you read these words now. Online, people want things immediately and for free and if you charge, they’ll go elsewhere for it. Rupert Murdoch is (some say valiantly) attempting to impose a traditional media model online through his Wall St Journal and charge for content. Maybe he will save us all and offset the intellectual damage his tabloid publication has caused. This model may work for the Wall St Journal because it has such a niche market, but it is highly unlikely to work with the Times as it is too generalised. People will simply source the information elsewhere.

So how do we survive this technological nightmare? Simple, stop harping on about the old days and make friends with it. Here’s the LeftLion story for you to replicate…

Get a bunch of writers together who all agree to write out of love. Get a geeky mate (we’ve all got one) to do a website for you and start uploading articles. Make a small revenue from online advertising generated from your copy (no work involved on your part) or sell space to local businesses, those bars that want your hip young audience to frequent their hip youthful venues. No work involved. Pennies in the kitty. More importantly than money, you’ve now developed a readership. Fact: There are more magazines now than at any other point in history because the internet does the one thing traditional media can’t; it enables you to build up a core readership that will buy your product. Now you have an established audience you can take the plunge into print journalism. The advertising will pay for print production and any leftover goes into the kitty.

All this free writing is also developing the ace in every journalists pack, contacts. Those agents, marketing and sales staff, publishers, authors, will all come in handy throughout your career. Experience will teach you how and when to use them. The key skill you’re learning now. You may not have any cash in the pocket yet, but the £18,000 you’ve just saved in student debt by skipping the degree and doing what they’ll be doing in three years time, is, a fair return.

The copy you are writing for free can then be pitched to people who do pay. You approach the British press and they ignore your emails. (Don’t worry, paragraph eight reels them in.) Time to think further afield. The new Hood film you’ve just written about can be pitched to publications in America, better still, one’s in each state. Move onto the next country and repeat the process. Remember you’re a novelty from that cute little island, offering up an authentic take on culture that their home-grown journalists simply can’t deliver. Now think of trade publications. A law magazine likes the way you’ve related justice in Hood to the beating of G8 protesters. A food magazine likes your receipt for Meade and the oat cakes the merry men ate in the forest. You are now developing the most integral element of journalism – versatility – the ability to create a demand for copy rather than simply writing what you think people want.

Once the paper is established, put on music nights to promote that wealth of local unsigned talent you’ve discovered. Charge an entrance fee. Put the money in the kitty. Approach a university and suggest some type of work experience for someone doing ‘sound management’. Get them to sort out the gigs whilst putting their theoretical knowledge into practical experience. Repeat this process for art, comedy, literature. If you’re really motivated, combine the lot and approach the arts council or your local council for funding to stage ‘the greatest event ever seen’. Done.

Now move onto podcasts. Strike up a deal with a local business and exchange studio space for free print advertising or tickets to the wonderful events you’re putting on. Use a wide variety of guests on your podcasts. Sit back and watch them filter through endless links via Facebook et al and see your viewing stats go through the roof. Now insert some adverts into the show. Put the money in the kitty. Consider making a compilation CD of your work and approach small independent businesses.

As you become more established across all mediums, people will start to approach you. The council want you to design their in-house magazine. The Guardian will want to know what a local journo has to say about Jeff Hoon or maybe they need a quick review of a local boozer for their food and drink guide- to prove their not Londoncentric. You’ve now got your foot in the door as well as a contact. The downside of course is that your Editor is most likely to take these perks (note to self: start a newer, better magazine and become an Editor).

There’s still hope because now you’ve written some online articles the whole world has become your audience. If you’ve written something topical or of interest, other publications may contact you to reproduce it in their magazines. For example, the Independent just paid me for an interview I did with Alan Sillitoe in 2008. They wouldn’t talk to me when I pitched ideas to them directly but the internet brought them to me. Now I’ve got the opportunity to pitch other ideas to them whilst fresh in their minds. The internet may be killing print journalism but it has the capacity to save it as well. You just need to be committed and patient and have a little faith in serendipity. But let’s get back to pragmatics.

Now you’ve developed a calming interview technique that you weren’t even aware you had, approach radio stations. How about a ten minute slot about local writers? Or compiling your podcast recordings and making a documentary for Radio Four? Perhaps you could even host a panel at a writing conference now people know you have experience of interviewing.

So I assure you, it’s not all doom and gloom. Things are just different. The rule book has been ripped apart and stuck back together in the wrong order. But we’ll figure this Rubik Cube out, even if we have to cheat a little and peel the stickers off to put them back in their rightful place.

James Walker is the Literature Editor at LeftLion. If you’d like to pay him for his words, see www.jameskwalker.co.uk

To hear the latest WriteLion podcast and hear how journalist Paul Reaney has survived as a freelance writer, see http://www.leftlion.co.uk/audio.cfm/id/86

James K. Walker, editor for Left Lion at speaker at the upcoming Writing Industries Conference shares his Top Ten Tips for writers.

In Saturday’s Guardian Review they published the ten rules of writing of which my favourite came courtesy of Phillip Pullman: ‘My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work’. As is often the case with good advice, I’ve decided to completely ignore it and compile my own list.

1. Read your work out in public. You’ll develop a new found appreciation of tone, rhythm and punctuation. See the reaction of the audience as a kind of verbal editing. When they don’t laugh at your funny character, it’s because he isn’t funny.
2. Join a writing group and open the windows when you leave the flat. It will smell lovely and fresh when you come home and your girlfriend might finally agree to come over.
3. By the way…your laptop is your wife. That cute one that comes over when the flat smells nice is just your bit on the side. Treat her as such. Your loyalty is with your wife and a wife is for life.
4. Walk to work. This way you don’t have to waste valuable writing time joining a gym. There is no greater betrayal of the imagination, than joining a gym. Before you know it you’ll be slipping into your imagination and going over the various scenarios of your book.
5. Take a pencil and paper with you as you’ll be stopping every ten seconds to scribble these ideas down. It’s probably a good idea to invest in a pencil sharpener, finances permitting.
6. Buy a memory stick and type up everything you’ve just written when you get to work because you’ll lose the scraps of paper.
7. Get a job where you can write in peace and preferably one without too much responsibility. I strongly recommend the public sector. The perfect job is one in which you are able to do eight hours work in three, thus enabling you to write for the other five. This is the closest you’ll ever get to being a regularly paid writer. Feels great, doesn’t it.
8. Ensure you have a boss who doesn’t mind you being late. (see point 5)
9. Write a blog. It’s like having a regular mental workout and a good way to track the development of your thoughts. I don’t have a camera and so the blog is the closest thing I have to a photographic album. It’s also a great place to outlet those thoughts you know you’ll never have time to turn into stories but will eat away at you regardless. Like the one about ‘the strange man who used to crouch down every ten seconds by the side of the road to scribble something down. Nobody knew what he was writing or why he did it but…’
10. Don’t write a list of top ten writing tips when you haven’t had your novel published yet. It’s arrogant, delusional and distracts you from what matters. As does reading funny quotes by Philip Pullman on a Saturday afternoon.

Instead of writing his novel, James will be chairing a panel on ‘journalism and blogging’ at the Writing Industries Conference, March 6th, Loughborough University.
www.writingindustries.com
www.jameskwalker.co.uk