Hello, and welcome to FWT! Thanks for popping in — but you’ve landed in the wrong place. Freelancing With Tim now lives on beehiiv! Woooo!

Longtime readers will know this has been in the works for, uh, a long time, but I’ve finally made the switch and I’ll no longer be publishing here on Substack. From now on, I’ll be publishing only on beehiiv. (There were many reasons, but ultimately it came down to $$$, as most things do. Y’all know a freelancer’s gotta make a living out here!)

If you’re a current FWT subscriber here on Substack — either free or paid — everything has been taken care of, nothing will change, and your subscription has automatically been switched to beehiiv. You’re all set, no action needed. Hooray! See you on beehiiv!

If you’re not a current FWT subscriber and would like to be, just head to https://freelancingwithtim.beehiiv.com/subscribe and sign up. Hooray! See you on beehiiv!

And, as always, if you find my work useful and would like to support it, there are options to upgrade to a paid subscription, which gets you even more insider tips, discounts to Zoom workshops and one-on-one coaching sessions, invites to subscriber-only events, and much more.

That’s it! Aside from some slight visual modifications here and there, you shouldn’t notice anything different or foreign now that I’m on beehiiv, and your subscription will continue uninterrupted. (Though if you do see anything odd, please email me and let me know!)

Thank you so much for being a part of this community, and I’ll see you in your inbox!

-Tim

P.S. — If you’re new around here, check out these FWT classics to get started:

• 100+ pitching guides for NYT, Vox, NatGeo, Wired, Vulture, Politico, WaPo, Wirecutter, Slate, and more

• Here’s what nearly 450 publications have recently paid freelancers

• My clips were wiped from the internet. What now?

• The only pitch format you’ll (mostly) ever need

• The exact text of a pitch I sold to The Atlantic

• Why you should pitch the editor, not the publication

• How to ask for more money — and actually get it

• How this freelancer made $27,000 in 1 month

• I pored over 700+ job applications. Here are 6 takeaways.

• How to pitch an Opinion article or op-ed

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

Hello, and welcome to Freelancing With Tim! This post has moved to beehiiv (as has all of FWT). Keep reading it here:

See you over there!

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

Hello, and welcome to Freelancing With Tim! This post has moved to beehiiv (as has all of FWT). Keep reading it here:

See you over there!

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

Hello, and welcome to Freelancing With Tim! This post has moved to beehiiv (as has all of FWT). Keep reading it here:

See you over there!

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

Hello, and welcome to Freelancing With Tim! This post has moved to beehiiv (as has all of FWT). Keep reading it here:

See you over there!

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

Hello, and welcome to Freelancing With Tim! This post has moved to beehiiv (as has all of FWT). Keep reading it here:

See you over there!

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

Hello friends, thank you for reading! This post is for paid subscribers only, and I have recently migrated to beehiiv. If you’d like to subscribe and continue reading this and all subscriber-only posts, get 50% off tickets to all Zoom workshops, 33% off all one-on-one coaching sessions, and invites to subscriber-only events, just follow these quick steps and we’ll be in business!

1. Go to https://freelancingwithtim.beehiiv.com/subscribe and follow the steps to complete your All Access subscription, which offers all of the benefits listed above.

2. That’s it! Easy peasy! You’re all set, and welcome to FWT on beehiiv 🤗

Feel free to email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com with any questions. See you in your inbox soon!

Read more

Workshop alert! Join me and Kaitlyn Arford of Freelance Opportunities on May 7 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern for an in-depth tutorial on how to use social media to find more freelance work and build a sustainable — and profitable! — business. There is SO much out there for those who know exactly how to look, and Kaitlyn is the best in the biz at digging up those opportunities. Click here to register, and remember that paid subscribers get free access (for details on that, see the middle of this post). See you May 7!

One of the most common questions I get during the writing workshops I host is this: “What can I do to improve the first draft of stories I file?”

We all want to know the secret to turning in pristine, error-free copy. Sure, you could have three different friends offer notes before you file, or rewrite your story 20 times. But the truth is, your first drafts are never going to be perfect. Whenever you’re self-editing, you reach a point where you’re no longer making improvements, you’re just making things different.

And that’s fine! That’s part of the process! Your editor doesn’t expect a first draft to be perfect, and that’s why we editors exist. This is true of a student journalist working toward their first byline, and of veterans who have been in the industry for decades. Even Taffy Brodesser-Akner, one of the greatest working writers IMO, can take up to nine drafts for a story. Iteration is built into the process.

All that said: There is something you can do to ensure you’re filing the best version of a first draft you can. And it’s much easier than you might think.

The secret? No surprises.

Yes, it’s that simple. The best thing you can do to improve your first drafts is to meet expectations and make sure your editor isn’t surprised by anything in your copy.

Here’s what I mean.

More May workshops! All registrants will get a full playback of the workshop, whether or not they attend live, and paid subscribers get 50% off tickets!

• May 14 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: How to start and grow a newsletter. Join me and Parker Molloy of The Present Age for a workshop on how to launch and grow a successful newsletter. We’ll cover the best platforms for publishing your newsletter, how to find your target audience, how to promote your work, the ins and outs of developing your niche, and so much more!

Click here to register

• May 21 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: The art of structuring a longform narrative. Join me for a workshop on how to structure and organize a longform narrative feature. I’ll lead a deconstruction exercise of a published longform narrative story and give you tips and advice on how to use those tools in your writing. It’ll be structured like a grad school-level class, with participation encouraged (but, of course, not required)!

Click here to register

Ideally, when you work with an editor — though, admittedly, not always — you’ve agreed, at least in big-picture terms, on the structure, organization, framing, sourcing, and tone of your story. To file a strong first draft, just follow through on what you and your editor agreed on for how the story should look and feel. Go through your notes and emails with your editor from when you first started talking about how to build this story, and do a quick check of whether you’ve delivered on what you’ve discussed. 

Is your story structured the way you agreed it should be? Does your sourcing look how you said it would? Did you organize it the way you said you would? Are you in the right word count range? Revisiting all of this will save you and your editor time by covering the basics of your story, because you’ve agreed on the baseline of what the story needs. Once you’ve satisfied all of that, your editor can offer you notes on how to make your story sing.

The “no surprises” rule is a bedrock principle of journalism when it comes to stories in general: The subjects of your story should not be surprised by what’s in it, broadly speaking. “Fairness also means adhering to the ‘no surprises’ rule when writing critically of someone: affording the source the opportunity to answer allegations or criticisms before publishing the work,” according to the N.Y.U. Journalism Handbook for Students. Applying that same rule to your relationship with your editor is going to save you so much time in the long run — and make your first drafts so much stronger. (So don’t be surprised when it gets you on an editor’s regulars roster.)

Good luck out there!

Oh, a few other things …

• Got a question about freelancing or the wider world of journalism? Let’s hear it, and I may feature it in a future Q&A post! Drop any of your questions, comments, and thoughts about freelancing and journalism in general in a comment below, or email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com.

Leave a comment

• Sell a pitch recently? I want to see it! If you had a story picked up not long ago, I’d love to feature you and your story in our ongoing series highlighting pitches that sold. Email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com and put “Pitches that sold” in the subject line. Can’t wait to see ’em!

Email me

• I offer one-on-one coaching! Is your story falling apart and you need a second set of eyes on it? Want a seasoned perspective on a pitch you’re kicking around? Interested in talking about careers and/or building your freelance business? Maybe just want an edit on a story draft? I’ve got you covered! Click below to book a one-on-one coaching session to talk about pitches, story ideas and development, editing, careers, or anything else you might need help with! (Paid subscribers get 33% off — email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com for details!)

Book a session

Hello friends, thank you for reading! This post is for paid subscribers only, and I have recently migrated to beehiiv, which is where FWT now lives. If you’d like a free trial to keep reading this post and all subscriber-only posts, get 50% off tickets to all Zoom workshops, 33% off all one-on-one coaching sessions, and invites to subscriber-only events, just follow these quick steps:

1. Go to this post on beehiiv here: The exact text of a pitch sold to Slate for $600

2. Follow the steps to get your free 7-day trial to an All Access subscription, which offers all of the benefits listed above.

3. That’s it! Easy peasy! You’re all set, and welcome to FWT on beehiiv 🤗

Feel free to email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com with any questions. See you in your inbox soon!

(Ignore the signup box below; Substack automatically adds it, sigh. All past and future posts are now exclusively on beehiiv.)

Workshop alert! Join me this Thursday at 4:30 p.m. Eastern for an in-depth tutorial on writing the perfect pitch that editors will actually read — and commission. We’ll cover everything from how to structure a pitch for almost any story, to what you must include (and leave out!), to finding editors and best practices for following up. Click here to register, and remember that paid subs get free access (for details on that, see the middle of this post). See you Thursday!

Hello friends! I hope your week is off to a lovely start and you’re enjoying some beautiful spring weather and activities. I, um … watched TV and movies all weekend inside. Couldn’t have been better tbh.

Anyway! Today we’re going to cover an often-overlooked but absolutely key component of any successful freelance business: How we present ourselves and our work to potential editors.

I’ve invited freelance writer and former editor Liz Massey to share some insight and knowledge on the topic that she’s gained from her many years on both sides of the equation.

Take it away, Liz!

***

Getting on an editor’s “regulars” roster can be a tricky, mysterious affair, a process that is equal parts skill, reliability, being able to deliver the goods, and sometimes just plain luck. However, there are two things within your control that you can do to help your odds of getting that initial response, gain an editor’s trust, and put your best foot forward: (1) Construct your online portfolio thoughtfully and with intentionality, and (2) Be extremely mindful and methodical about how you portray your published work.

I’ve experienced the writer-editor relationship from both sides. I’ve worked for more than 30 years as a freelance writer and editor, and I was on staff as a magazine editor for more than 15 years. I have seen firsthand how improving your self-presentation to editors can take your career to the next level and remove obstacles to showcasing your talent.

What editors look for when they visit your portfolio

When I vetted writers as a magazine editor, this is what I paid attention to when I reviewed a writer’s published work:

• Each article’s relevance to the pitch or assignment under discussion

• How the writer selected sources and how they handled quotes (i.e., how they set them up and provided context)

• Evidence of good old-fashioned writing and reporting skills, like how they handled transitions and how clearly they framed the article’s purpose early on (like, say, in the nut graf!)

• My evaluation of their ability to deliver the story under consideration

Your focus when building your portfolio should be on the quality of your samples, but don’t forget to make it easy to use. A portfolio site that’s challenging to navigate puts a barrier between your work and the editor.

Portfolio hosting options

If your budget allows, your own personal, branded website, complete with a custom URL, is a wonderful option. However, you have to pay for a lot of moving parts, like design work, the domain name, and site hosting.

Using a free platform like wordpress.com to host your portfolio can be a much cheaper option, but it comes with the usual “freemium” limitations that other, similar, platforms have as well. Dedicated portfolio platforms, like clippings.me, Notion, or Authory, offer a decent compromise, providing a platform designed for portfolios with relatively low upkeep fees. I recently started using Authory’s paid platform, which allows unlimited clips to be posted and allows you to create an unlimited number of collections. Its free option could work for many, as it lets you host up to 10 work samples in a single collection.

More workshops! Next month I have two workshops that will go deep on finding freelance work using social media and launching and growing your own newsletter. (All registrants will get a full playback of the workshop, whether they attend live or not, and paid subscribers get 100% off tickets!)

• May 7 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: How to use social media to find work. Join me and freelance extraordinaire Kaitlyn Arford for a workshop on finding work using social media and how it can help you build a sustainable — and profitable! — business. There is SO much out there for those who know exactly how to look, and Kaitlyn is the best in the biz at digging up those opportunities.

Click here to register

• May 14 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: How to start and grow a newsletter. Join me and Parker Molloy of The Present Age for a workshop on how to launch and grow a successful newsletter. We’ll cover the best platforms for publishing your newsletter, how to find your target audience, how to promote your work, the ins and outs of developing your niche, and so much more!

Click here to register

Portfolio do’s and don’ts

Maintaining your portfolio is like brushing your teeth. It’s necessary, you’ll see results down the road, and you’ll be glad you made it a habit. Here are some quick tips that will help you make the most of whatever platform you choose.

Do’s

• Add clips to your portfolio as they’re published

• Save articles in multiple formats, including PDFs, in case the original online link goes dead

• Spend time planning how you’ll organize your clips. If you have more than five, say, do you need to organize them by subject? Do collections of clips need a separate page?

• Create custom collections to showcase specialties

• Keep your portfolio simple and easy to follow

Don’ts

• Exceed your budget for a portfolio site; remember, it’s just one part of developing your career and of your overall freelance business

• Post less-than-great work to your portfolio; you’re better represented by five outstanding articles than 15 mediocre ones

• Make editors hunt for a specific article you want them to read; send them a link from your portfolio to that story in the clips part of your pitch

• Use scanned or photographed images of print pages if you have other options

How to talk about past writing work

Framing your previous assignments in a positive, productive way is also essential to building an ongoing relationship with an editor, whether you’re talking casually on the phone or writing a pitch. One helpful mental model for discussing your work is the case study, which is a deep dive into a specific real-world example that you want to highlight. You can apply the case-study model when talking about your portfolio by focusing on:

• Challenges you overcame in a writing assignment

• Lessons you learned along the way

• How you partnered with the editor to make the final draft amazing

• How this assignment moved your freelance career forward

And, of course, this goes without saying, but don’t bad-mouth editors when talking about prior assignments. This shows prospective editors how you may speak of them.

Finally, a crucial point: Don’t worry about shameless self-promotion. No one else is going to do it for you.

Self-promotion is critical to developing your freelance career. You control how you present yourself, so curate your best work and your best stories about your work. Editors will appreciate you for presenting an honest portrait of yourself and what you have to offer, and that may even help to grease the wheels to more assignments!

Liz Massey is a freelance writer in Northern Maine who frequently shares insights on how to create better nonfiction. You can catch up on her professional writing activities (which include résumé writing and content strategy, in addition to freelance writing and editing) on LinkedIn. You can take a peek at her freelance portfolio on Authory.

Oh, a few other things …

• Got a question about freelancing or the wider world of journalism? Let’s hear it, and I may feature it in a future Q&A post! Drop any of your questions, comments, and thoughts about freelancing and journalism in general in a comment below, or email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com.

Leave a comment

• Sell a pitch recently? I want to see it! If you had a story picked up not long ago, I’d love to feature you and your story in our ongoing series highlighting pitches that sold. Email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com and put “Pitches that sold” in the subject line. Can’t wait to see ’em!

Email me

• I offer one-on-one coaching! Is your story falling apart and you need a second set of eyes on it? Want a seasoned perspective on a pitch you’re kicking around? Interested in talking about careers and building your freelance business? Maybe just want an edit on a story draft? I’ve got you covered! Click below to book a one-on-one coaching session to talk about pitches, story ideas and development, editing, careers, or anything else you might need help with! (Paid subscribers get 33% off — email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com for details!)

Book a session

Hello friends, thank you for reading! This post is for paid subscribers only, and I have recently migrated to beehiiv. If you’d like to subscribe and continue reading this and all subscriber-only posts, get 50% off tickets to all Zoom workshops, 33% off all one-on-one coaching sessions, and invites to subscriber-only events, just follow these quick steps and we’ll be in business!

1. Go to https://freelancingwithtim.beehiiv.com/subscribe and follow the steps to complete your All Access subscription, which offers all of the benefits listed above.

2. That’s it! Easy peasy! You’re all set, and welcome to FWT on beehiiv 🤗

Feel free to email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com with any questions. See you in your inbox soon!

Read more

Hello friends!

I often hold workshops about writing better pitches, and many times the conversations veer into territory I talk about all the time but have never really put into writing: There are very few concrete, unbreakable rules in pitching.

Every piece of advice you’ve ever gotten about pitching — including from this very newsletter! — is just a guideline, a suggestion, or a subjective take on the process. It’s all very squishy! There are countless ways to pitch every story. Some are certainly better than others — like, ahem, those based on advice from this very newsletter 😇 — but none are necessarily wrong or right.

However …

When thinking about what components of a pitch are mandatory, I revisit these four things that I think should apply to every pitch, regardless of the story itself. That’s it! Four things! And they’re pretty simple! But, unlike every other piece of advice on pitching, they aren’t guidelines. These are the unbreakable rules of pitching.

Never send a full draft

This is one of the most common questions I talk about in pitching workshops — “Should I send a draft along with my pitch?” — and it’s the one issue I’m most absolute about. Never, ever, ever send a draft.

But why not?

Whether you intend to send this message or not, the message received by the editor when they get a full draft of a story is: “This story is done, take it or leave it.” And I promise you, it’s rare for an editor to take it at that point. Part of an editor’s job is to work with you on shaping the story for their publication and readership. When an editor gets a draft, that process is essentially finished, and, again, it doesn’t matter if you meant to tell the editor it’s finished; they will assume it is. Attaching a draft with a pitch actively costs you money.

(BIG caveat: If you’re pitching an opinion piece or a personal essay, generally editors want to see a draft. Opinion pieces build an argument, so you need to show what that argument is, and that’s difficult to do in a pitch. As for personal essays, some editors want to see the developed story, rather than a summary of it, so you’re mostly okay to include a draft.)

Workshop alert! I have three super useful sessions coming up over the next month, covering how to write the perfect story pitch, how to find freelance work using social media, and how to launch and grow your own newsletter. (All registrants will get a full playback of the workshop, whether they attend live or not, and paid subscribers get 50% off tickets to all events!)

• April 23 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: How to write story pitches editors will actually read — and commission. Join me for an in-depth examination of what goes into a fantastic story pitch. How do you structure it? What must be in it, and what should you leave out? How much pre-reporting should you do? How can you head off the follow-up questions an editor will inevitably ask? How do you even find editors to pitch or know what publication to shoot for? We’ll cover all that and much, much more in this session.

Click here to register

• May 7 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: How to use social media to find work. Join me and freelance extraordinaire Kaitlyn Arford for a workshop on finding work using social media, and how it can help you build a sustainable — and profitable! — business. There is SO much out there for those who know exactly how to look, and Kaitlyn is the best in the biz at digging up those opportunities.

Click here to register

• May 14 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: How to start and grow a newsletter. Join me and Parker Molloy of The Present Age for a workshop on how to launch and grow a successful newsletter. We’ll cover the best platforms for publishing your newsletter, how to find your target audience, how to promote your work, the ins and outs of developing your niche, and so much more!

Click here to register

Structure of your subject line

This is an easy one. Your subject line should always be:

Freelance pitch: [Proposed headline for your story]

I always advise writers to include “freelance” in the subject line, since PR people often use this same format, so it helps you differentiate your pitch from someone just looking for publicity for their client. Your very first job when pitching a story is just to get the editor to open your email, and a catchy subject line is the best way to do that.

The other major reason to include a proposed headline is that it serves as a kind of backstop to make sure you know what your story actually is. If you find yourself struggling for, say, 10 minutes to write a great headline/subject line, it might be an indication that you should go back and focus your idea a little more.

Quick anecdote: The best pitch I’ve ever gotten had a proposed headline as the subject line, and that headline happened to include the word “fuck.” Amazing! I’m certainly not advising you to swear in yours, but this writer knew I would respond to that, knew I wouldn’t be offended, and knew that that was my general vibe. Like we always say: Pitch the editor, not the publication.

Include clips and a brief bio (and a website if you have one, which you should)

This one is very simple, but often overlooked and forgotten (you wouldn’t believe how many people forget to include these!). This is just a few simple lines at the end of your email, that’s it. No more than three or four clips, and if you have a website, drop that link, too. Generally, I think it’s advantageous to have a website because it lets you guide what the editor reads of your work. The first thing an editor does when they get a cold pitch is Google you to see where you’ve written and to see what you’re all about, but if you send along your website you can answer all those questions while also putting your best foot forward.

For reference, here is the exact language I include at the end of every pitch I send (clips will vary, these were for a pitch in the same line of coverage):

About me: I helped launch Smarter Living at The New York Times then edited it for five years. Before that I was a reporter and social producer at The Washington Post. I’ve written in this area a ton — below are a few clips — and I think [publication] would be a perfect home for this. I’m hoping to get this placed sooner rather than later, so if I don’t hear back from you by [specific date] I’ll assume it’s a pass.

Thanks for your consideration!

-Tim

• Remember: What You Do Is Not Who You Are
• 7 Months Into the Pandemic and I’m Losing Motivation. Help!
• Thinking About a Job or Career Change? Read This
• I Hope This Email Finds You Well

Simple as that!

Don’t forget the small stuff that can add up

This is more of a category than a specific rule, but it matters. Here we’re talking about the list of things to do before sending your pitch:

• Check the publication’s archives to make sure they haven’t run anything similar to your story lately (which you should do at the very beginning of the story generation process, but it never hurts to check one last time)

• Triple-check for typos

• Make sure you’re addressing the correct publication and the correct editor (Really! Even if you’re sure, just check again! You’d be surprised!)

• Triple-check that all of your links go where you want them to go, then check them again (this one can be particularly embarrassing — lots of copy/paste errors end up here)

On their own, these things really don’t matter too much. No editor would ever decline a killer story because there is a typo or two in the pitch. But taken together, a handful of these tiny little slip-ups may make an editor think twice about commissioning your story.

Good luck out there, and if you have any other “unbreakable rules” of your own, please drop them in the comments, I’d love to hear!

Oh, a few other things …

• If you like what you’re reading, please consider subscribing to the paid version of this newsletter. Paid subs get an extra newsletter every week, access to all past and future paid-only posts, 50% off all Zoom workshops, a guide to avoiding the 7 most common mistakes in freelancing, a must-have checklist for getting your assignments right, the exact text of a pitch I sold to The Atlantic, practical tips for diversifying your freelance income, and much more.

  Subscribe now

• How much were you paid for your last assignment? Feel free to contribute to our ongoing freelance rate database here! And if you’d just like to see the regularly updated database, check it out here.

• Sell a pitch recently? I want to see it! If you had a story picked up not long ago, I’d love to feature you and your story in our ongoing series highlighting pitches that sold. Email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com and put “Pitches that sold” in the subject line. Can’t wait to see ’em!

Email me

• I offer one-on-one coaching! Is your story falling apart and you need a second pair of eyes on it? Want a seasoned perspective on a pitch you’re kicking around? Interested in talking about careers and building your freelance business? Maybe just want an edit on a story draft? I’ve got you covered! Click below to book a one-on-one coaching session to talk about pitches, story ideas and development, editing, careers, or anything else you might need help with!

Click here to book a session

Hello, and welcome to Freelancing With Tim! This post, and all of its wonderful pitch guides and resources, has moved to beehiiv (as has all of FWT). Keep reading it here:

See you over there!

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

Hello friends, and happy (belated) start to spring! I hope you’ve all been eagerly coming out of your winter cocoons and enjoying a little more sun and nicer weather (if that’s the case where you live, anyway).

Today we’re going to talk about how to proceed when your story just ... isn’t working. Stories fall apart for a million reasons, but that doesn’t always mean the story is dead. A lot of the time, they’re totally salvageable with a little extra effort!

Pretty early on after I became an editor, I was working with a freelancer on a story about disintegrating familial relationships. We had a general perspective and outline, a plan of action, and a pretty direct route forward. We were both pumped about it!

A few weeks later, the freelancer emailed me: sources were disappearing, the background reporting wasn’t aligning with what we thought the story was, and the writer felt that our plan was caving in. We talked about a few ways to dig ourselves out, but, eventually, the writer just stopped responding.

This, of course, is an example of what not to do when your story is falling apart. What could have eventually become a helpful, relatable story about family and relationships turned into ... nothing. This freelancer had called the game too early and ghosted.

Don’t do that! Believe me when I say that editors genuinely want to work with you through the entire process, even when it gets ugly, and it’s quite literally their job to do so. (In this editor’s opinion, it’s one of the most rewarding experiences for an editor.)

Stories fall apart. It happens to freelancers fresh to the industry and to veteran staff reporters who have been on a beat for 15 years. It’s not unique, it didn’t just happen to you, it doesn’t reflect on your skills or temperament as a journalist, and it most certainly doesn’t mean it’s automatically time to throw in the towel. Sources disappear, the reporting is completely counter to what you thought the story was (literally happened to me this week on a story I’m writing for next month), you get into the weeds and realize there just isn’t anything there, the moment passes ... these things happen, and a lot of the time it’s simply out of your hands. It sucks, it’s stressful, it can feel like failure, but this is the life we signed up for as journalists. Your editor understands this, and you won’t be the first freelancer whose story fell out from under them.

Upcoming Zoom workshop, please join me!

• April 23 @ 4:30 p.m. Eastern: How to write story pitches editors will actually read — and commission. Join me for an in-depth examination of what goes into a fantastic story pitch. How do you structure it? What must be in it, and what should you leave out? How much pre-reporting should you do? How can you head off the follow-up questions an editor will inevitably ask? How do you even find editors to pitch or know what publication to shoot for? We’ll cover all that and much, much more in this workshop. (All registrants will receive a playback of the full session, whether they attend live or not, and paid Substack subscribers get 50% off admission.)

Click here to register

P.S. — I know a few folks had trouble accessing a previous one of these; if that’s you, email me directly and I’ll comp you into this one.

But! With some redirection, refocusing, and reframing — sometimes a little, often a lot — even the most hopeless of stories can turn into something beautiful. *insert awful, tired cliché about how pressure makes diamonds*

So we know what not to do — give up, ghost, abandon the idea, generally just write off the story — but what can you do to pull a story back from the brink?

Here are a few simple Dos and Don’ts to pull the body out of the trainwreck.

Do: Communicate

This is by far the most important part. Again, editors have been to this rodeo before. To a certain degree, it’s expected! But the moment you realize things aren’t shaping up as you thought they would, just reach out. A super simple email laying out exactly what’s going on is the best move here, and it doesn’t have to be complicated:

“Hey, can we hop on the phone when you have a minute? It’s starting to look like our story isn’t panning out how we thought it might. [X source pulled out, Y research showed something totally opposite, Z time peg has passed unexpectedly soon], so I’d love to chat through some ideas with you.”

That’s it! When things look shaky, communication is your ladder out of the hole. It might seem like an insurmountably uncomfortable conversation, but truly, honestly, it’s not.

Don’t: Keep the problems to yourself

The worst thing you can do here is never mention the problems and then file a story completely different from the version you talked about with your editor. No editor in the world will be upset when a writer tells them things aren’t looking great at the moment, but editors will be miffed if you file a 900-word explainer when the agreed-upon idea was a 2,000-word narrative feature. It’s perfectly fine that every single thing isn’t working out! They rarely do. But resist the impulse to try to fix everything on your own. You’re not on your own here.

Do: Bring ideas

I know, I know, we’ve all heard it before: Don’t bring problems without bringing solutions. That worn-out axiom certainly applies here. Even if you don’t have a fully formed idea, at least try to have a few rough thoughts about potential paths forward. It’s the editor’s job to work with you and help shape those thoughts into ways forward.

Similarly, it’s important to have some specifics about what’s not working with the story. The editor won’t have any clues on how to fix it if you don’t tell them what’s wrong, so be forthright (however awkward that might feel in the moment) about exactly what is falling apart.

Don’t: Expect your editor to completely fix everything

This is still your story, and as much as your editor can help you with it, they can do only so much; you still have to report and write it. A good editor will be there every step of the way, but at the end of the day, they can’t report your story for you. I know this seems self-evident and obvious, but you would be astounded how many times a writer will file what is essentially an outline and expect the editor to do the rest. (Like, for real, it happens way more than you think.) Your editor can, and should, help devise solutions, but the writer is still the one who has to execute.

Do: Establish a realistic revised timeline

If you bring up the issues early enough, an extended timeline will almost literally never be a problem. (But, of course, nothing is ever guaranteed in life, sigh.) If you think you’ll need an extra two weeks to iron things out, just ask for the full two weeks. If you realize — and communicate — the problems as soon as you encounter them, reworking a pub sked is generally not a major problem. (Bringing these up a week before your pub date, on the other hand ...)

Don’t: Force it if it’s not there

We’ve all had to deal with it, probably many times: The story just isn’t meant to be. It happens. Take the loss — and if you’re lucky, the kill fee! — and start on your next story. A few years ago I was unbelievably excited about a story idea I loved and successfully sold to GQ, but for a multitude of reasons it utterly unraveled and there just wasn’t a way to bring it back to life. This sucks in the moment, so give yourself a beat to be bummed, but don’t linger. It comes with the territory.

Do: Forget it and move on

Fail, recover, retry. That’s all we can do. (And if you’re doing things right, you should be failing a whoooole lot.)

Good luck out there!

Oh, a few other things …

• How much were you paid for your last assignment? Feel free to contribute to our ongoing freelance rate database here. And if you’d just like to see the regularly updated database, check it out here.

• Sell a pitch recently? I want to see it! If you had a story picked up not long ago, I’d love to feature you and your story in our ongoing series highlighting pitches that sold. Email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com and put “Pitches that sold” in the subject line. Can’t wait to see ’em!

  Email me

• I offer one-on-one coaching! Is your story falling apart and you need a second pair of eyes on it? Want a seasoned perspective on a pitch you’re kicking around? Interested in talking about careers and building your freelance business? Maybe just want an edit on a story draft? I’ve got you covered! Click below to book a one-on-one coaching session to talk about pitches, story ideas and development, editing, careers, or anything else you might need help with!

  Click here to book a session

Hello friends, happy holidays! The year is almost over! It’s officially winter now! It’s all happening!

In the time-honored tradition of publications rounding up their best work of the year, this week I’m pleased to present 2025’s most popular FWT posts. Below are the newsletters and stories that have most resonated with the FWT community, not only in terms of traffic, but also in the robust conversations that surrounded these topics. Some are super practical — like the nuts and bolts of getting started in freelance journalism — while others are more abstract, like how to get editors to come to you.

But more broadly speaking, what did we learn this year?

Not to get too ~down~ during the holiday season, but one of the overarching themes of many conversations I’ve had this year with freelancers is that ... well, it’s rough out here. Between budgets being slashed, opportunities disappearing, and competition being tougher than ever, so many of us have had a rough year in the industry.

Personally, I have found a weird sort of comfort in that. Despite all of us facing pretty rough headwinds, the freelance community has rallied around each other and supported one another in ways I haven’t seen since the worst days of the pandemic. The generosity of freelancers has been on display in a wonderfully heartening way this year, and though the bad times aren’t going to end any time soon (or ever?), the succor I’ve seen freelancers offer has been a beautiful example of lifting others up. No freelancer makes it without the support of fellow freelancers, and it’s a pleasure to be a part of it. (Sorry to get all sappy, but I really mean it!)

With that, below are the 10 best posts from FWT this year. I hope you’ve gotten as much out of them as I did researching them and putting them together, and I’m so excited for a ton of really great stuff coming in 2026. (And a quick programming note: I’ll be off this Thursday, but back in the saddle after that.)

Happy holidays!

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Hello friends, thank you for reading! This post is for paid subscribers only, and I have recently migrated to beehiiv. If you’d like to subscribe and continue reading this and all subscriber-only posts, get 50% off tickets to all Zoom workshops, 33% off all one-on-one coaching sessions, and invites to subscriber-only events, just follow these quick steps and we’ll be in business!

1. Go to https://freelancingwithtim.beehiiv.com/subscribe and follow the steps to complete your All Access subscription, which offers all of the benefits listed above.

2. That’s it! Easy peasy! You’re all set, and welcome to FWT on beehiiv 🤗

Feel free to email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com with any questions. See you in your inbox soon!

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Hi! I’m sure you usually skip past this, but please take a sec to read! I started FWT years ago to provide resources to help journalists thrive in our industry and to demystify the world of freelancing. I want to continue that mission and offer more and more resources, so if you like what you’re reading want to help this grow, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. A paid sub includes an extra newsletter every week, 50% off all Zoom events, access to all past and future paid-only posts, and much more. Subscriptions start at just $7/month or $70 /year. Either way, so thrilled you’re here!

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Hello friends, and happy holidays! First, I just want to apologize for not having been around much lately. The past few months have been extremely ... complicated ... for a few very significant reasons. But everything is evening out now, and I’m back in business.

So! Today we’re talking about a more subtle approach to landing more freelance work. We all know the obvious stuff: pitch more, network more, build a stronger brand presence, be shameless about self-promotion, etc. Of course, that stuff is necessary. But there’s something a little more subtle and nuanced that is just as important.

Let me explain.

Lots of freelancers I work with ask some version of the same question: How do I impress editors? How do I stand out? How do I sound smarter in my pitches? How do I make my work impossible to ignore?

It’s perfectly natural to fall down this rabbit hole! Freelancing can feel competitive, and when work is uneven, even a slight edge can make the difference between paying rent with a paycheck or dipping into savings (should we be lucky enough to even have savings). It’s normal to assume the solution is to be more impressive, more original, more insightful, more undeniable.

And to be clear, those things do help. It goes without saying that the best way to get more freelance work is to create truly impressive, original, and standout work. Be so good they can’t ignore you, and so on. But after years of editing freelancers, talking with other commissioning editors, and freelancing myself, I’ve come to believe that this line of thinking is slightly off. Or, at least, incomplete.

A better question is: How do I make myself an obvious, low-risk choice?

A great idea sells once. A great partner sells as much they want.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Editors absolutely would prefer to work with a dependable, reliable, consistent freelancer than a superstar. No question about it. The writers we come back to most are the writers with whom our last collaboration was smooth, calm, and predictable. When an editor is scanning their mental list of possible writers on a tight deadline, they’re not asking who impressed them the most. They’re asking who will make this assignment go the least sideways.

That’s the quiet truth most freelancers don’t hear early enough.

Generally speaking, most working freelancers are good writers and have good story ideas. And even if they’re not at that superstar status just yet, it’s our job as editors to get them there. It’s one of the great joys of being an editor! And the freelancers we love working with most are those who actively want edits and want to grow and learn.

So the differences that determine who editors go to in a pinch — or even just who we want to work with more regularly — tend to show up in much subtler places, like how easy (or not) it was to work together, or, again, how eager and receptive the writer is to take edits and improve. Were things manageable even if they got way off track? Or stressful and full of unnecessary surprises? Stability makes just as strong an impression as chaos.

Being impressive is memorable. Being low-risk is assignable.

Another bell I ring often is that clear, early communication is one of the simplest ways to become that low-risk choice. We editors notice when expectations are aligned early, when details are clarified instead of assumed, and when questions are asked before they become problems. A short email that says, “Just confirming scope and deadline so I’m aligned,” does more for your reputation than an extra clever turn of phrase in your copy. Clarity is crucial.

All the same can be said for reliability. You can file perfect, clever, insightful copy all day, but if an editor doesn’t know when they can actually expect you to file, you’re probably not the type of freelancer they’re going to actively assign to. Editors don’t need perfection; they need consistency. It’s literally our job to make your story the best possible version of itself that it can be! So a writer who hits deadlines most of the time and communicates early when issues arise is far more valuable than a writer who occasionally delivers something brilliant but unpredictably.

And, to be clear, predictable doesn’t mean boring. It just means an editor knows roughly what will happen when they work with you. They know how you communicate, how clean your drafts will be, how you handle edits, and how you respond under pressure. That predictability makes you an easy, and obvious, choice for assignments.

Is this the most glamorous way of working? Of course not; there’s no Pulitzer for “Most Dependable Freelancer.” But it is a surefire path to getting more consistent work, and to building a reputation as someone editors actively want to work with.

I’d say you can’t put a price on that, but the price is right there in your bank account.

Oh, a few other things …

• If you like what you’re reading, please consider subscribing to the paid version of this newsletter. Paid subs get an extra newsletter every week, access to all past and future paid-only posts, 50% off all Zoom workshops, a guide to avoiding the 7 most common mistakes in freelancing, a must-have checklist for getting your assignments right, the exact text of a pitch I sold to The Atlantic, practical tips for diversifying your freelance income, and much more.

  Subscribe now

• How much were you paid for last assignment? Feel free to contribute to our ongoing freelance rate database here.

• Sell a pitch recently? I want to see it! If you had a story picked up not long ago, I’d love to feature you and your story in our ongoing series highlighting pitches that sold. Email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com and let’s talk!

• I offer one-on-one coaching! Is your story falling apart and you need a second eye on it? Want a seasoned perspective on a pitch you’re kicking around? Interested in talking about careers and building your freelance business? Maybe just want an edit on a story draft? I’ve got you covered! Click below to book a one-on-one coaching session to talk about pitches, story ideas and development, editing, careers, or anything else you might need help with!

  Click here to book a session

Hello friends, thank you for reading! This post is for paid subscribers only, and I have recently migrated to beehiiv. If you’d like to subscribe and continue reading this and all subscriber-only posts, get 50% off tickets to all Zoom workshops, 33% off all one-on-one coaching sessions, and invites to subscriber-only events, just follow these quick steps and we’ll be in business!

1. Go to https://freelancingwithtim.beehiiv.com/subscribe and follow the steps to complete your All Access subscription, which offers all of the benefits listed above.

2. That’s it! Easy peasy! You’re all set, and welcome to FWT on beehiiv 🤗

Feel free to email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com with any questions. See you in your inbox soon!

Read more

Hello, and welcome to Freelancing With Tim! This post has moved to beehiiv (as has all of FWT). Keep reading it here:

See you over there!

(Oh, and ignore the subscribe box right below here if you see it — Substack puts it there automatically and I can’t remove it, sigh. I’m fully on beehiiv and nothing will be published via Substack again.)

There was a time, many internets ago, when Twitter was the end-all, be-all network for journalists. In some (decreasing) ways, it still kind of is, but I think we’ve all come to the conclusion that ... it just kind of sucks now. What used to be a fun place to meet other journalists, find work, network, and just goof around has become something very different. 

But what you probably don’t know — or have written off — is that LinkedIn has become the new hot spot. It has everything: jobs, gigs, networking, weird personal life posts that feel oddly intimate, life and career updates from people you actually know, and a place to make genuine connections with others in the industry. This is a tune I’ve been singing for years, but I really mean it. (Also hi let’s connect, here’s mine!)

This sounds weird! I realize that. LinkedIn still hasn’t fully shed its 2013-era reputation of being a lame place where middle-aged guys post motivational quotes and self-righteous soliloquies. But I promise it’s not that. On top of being an absolute gold mine of full-time positions and freelance work, it’s a place to find news in real time, make connections that actually pay off in ways that Twitter never did, promote your work, and, practically speaking, drive real traffic to a story. I worked in audience dev for years, and my secret weapon was always LinkedIn.

So how can you use it to your advantage? Here are four things I always advise:

Update your profile

If you’re like most journalists, you probably set up a profile years ago and haven’t changed it much since. It’s time to fix that! A current, engaging profile is one of the most important things you can do to get yourself out there and find work.

A few things: Your profile pic and header. Friend of FWT Kaitlyn Arford has a fantastic pic/header combo — check it out here. Her profile has a specific visual identity that aligns with her personality, and it fits well into her other online profiles, including her website. On top of that, her header image says right away what she does and that she’s open for work. Having a consistent visual identity screams professionalism, and it’s worth the effort. (If it’s in your budget to hire an illustrator for a few images, go for it.) I do the same on mine.

Aside from visuals, update your profile with your skills, recent experience, clips you want to show off, and services you offer. This not only helps anyone who finds your profile, but it will also help you surface in more searches that people conduct around your areas of expertise. Updating all of this is super easy: Just click View Profile from the top-right dropdown menu, and explore everything you can. Be sure to drop in a bunch of keywords that align with your business anywhere you can. (Also, make sure you update your Basic Info section with some keywords, too.)

Don’t be shy about advertising what you can do

A few times a year, I’ll use this exact text in a standalone post: “Hello friends! Reminder than I am available for copywriting, editing, consulting, and any other media needs. DM me! :)” It’s literally one sentence, and from that post I get at least seven or eight DMs from people interested in hiring me for those services. It really is that simple. It can feel weird, but the only way people will know that you’re available is if you tell them. No one is paying attention to your career as much as you are, so let them in on your skills.

Network network network!

Something I always say: Networking is only weird if you make it weird. Just think of it as making friends with other folks in your industry. It’s perfectly fine to request someone you admire, want to work with, or just want to be industry friends with. Those connections may end up leading to more and more work. Include a little note with your request if you want, too, but no more than a sentence, otherwise it feels like an email.

Engage with your peers

Conversations on LinkedIn are, while often corny, exponentially kinder and more civilized than anything you can find on Twitter these days. People are actually sincere! Imagine that! Those in your network want to hear from you, and they can be a great resource of feedback or just general discussion for you, so take advantage of that. It’ll never be as silly as Golden Age Twitter, but it can be just as fulfilling.

See you on LinkedIn!

Oh, a few other things …

• Sell a pitch recently? I want to see it! If you had a story picked up not long ago, I’d love to feature you and your story in our ongoing series highlighting pitches that sold. Email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com and let’s talk!

• I offer one-on-one coaching! Is your story falling apart and you need a second eye on it? Want a seasoned perspective on a pitch you’re kicking around? Interested in talking about careers and building your freelance business? Maybe just want an edit on a story draft? I’ve got you covered! Click below to book a one-on-one coaching session to talk about pitches, story ideas and development, editing, careers, or anything else you might need help with!

  Click here to book a session