If you’re brand new to freelance writing, you might be aware of the many opportunities out there to make real money as a writer.

For example, here’s a list of publishers that pay $500 per article.

This article will show you how to actually take advantage of those opportunities – even if you’re starting from scratch, without a portfolio or any previous experience.

You don’t need a portfolio to get started!

Here’s the deal: Many new freelance writers never go for better paying publications, because they believe they need a portfolio. That simply isn’t true.

Long time readers of Freedom With Writing probably already know this, based on the many case studies we’ve published, but the bottom line is this, you do not need a portfolio.

What do you need, instead?

You need a high quality pitch.

What is a pitch? In a nutshell, a pitch is a short proposal for an article sent to an editor.

Writing a good pitch is both simple and hard. Every freelance writer should always be working on improving their ability to send out high quality pitches.

The better you are pitching, the more freedom you’ll have in your career. You’ll have better relationships with editors. You’ll get to pick and choose from more opportunities. And, ironically, if you’re really good at pitching you’ll spend less time pitching, and more time writing for money.

Here’s one big observation I’ve made during my years working with new freelance writers: The biggest obstacle to getting started is often the feeling of being overwhelmed.

I hear this over, and over again:

“There are so many opportunities that I get stuck choosing just one!”

Does that sound familiar? Have you ever scrolled through an endless list of options, without making a choice?

If that’s happened to you, don’t worry. Everybody does that. It’s human nature.

For example, if you’re presented with a list of 28 calls for pitches – it’s easy to get stuck by thinking about all 28 options. (I’m guilty of doing this myself!)

Here’s how to overcome that barrier.

Choose Your Specialty and Everything Becomes Much Easier

When there are endless opportunities, the first thing you’ll want to do is eliminate most of them, so you can actually focus on the ones that work for you.

And the best way to do that is to choose an area of focus – a niche.

For example, Matthew Gaiser, in this case study, focuses exclusively on technology related tutorials. When he’s searching for opportunities, he knows he’s not going to pitch personal essays, video game reviews, or articles about current events. He’s focused on technology and programming reviews. That’s the topic area he’s good at, and it’s the topic area he knows. This makes it easy for him to find the relevant publishers.

If you find that you can’t choose a publication to pitch – then you should probably think about your niche first.

Not only does choosing a niche help with eliminating the problem of too many opportunities, it also adds a lot of credibility to your pitches.

Why? Because, when you send a pitch as a specialist, you can credibly call yourself a specialist. And that means quite a lot to editors.

Plus, as you learn more about your area of specialty, you’ll gain a deep level of knowledge that easily sets you apart from writers who haven’t chosen a specialty.

Editors love working with people who have specialized knowledge. It generally makes things much easier for everyone involved.

So – the very first thing you should do is choose an area of specialty. A niche.

However, there are a few pitfalls to consider when doing this.

1. Don’t worry about choosing just one niche at first. At the beginning of your career, it is OK to explore two, or even three. You may find that one works a lot better for you.
2. Don’t choose a niche that has few opportunities. If you get too specific, there just won’t be enough opportunities for you. This is part of why it’s OK to explore a couple of areas when you’re getting started. It gives you the chance to find out which niche is viable in the long term
3. Don’t let lack-of-credentials stop you from choosing a niche. Far too many writers think they need to be “official” experts, in order to choose a niche. This is simply not true. What you need is the ability to write well in your chosen niche – and the ability to learn about your niche in-depth. Choosing a niche isn’t about deciding that you’re an expert in the niche, it is about deciding to become an expert, and to commit to developing your knowledge in that area, even if you are a fully credentialed expert.

The bottom line: Just make a choice or two! Look at where the opportunities are, and move forward!

Now that you’ve chosen a niche – go back to those big lists of publishers.

Once you’ve chosen a niche, you can save so much time when you’re looking for opportunities.

The first thing you’ll want to do is find a huge list of publishers. The Paid Publishing Guidebook for 2020 is a good option, but it’s now slightly outdated. Writing Launch has a members only database that is more comprehensive.

Now that you’ve chosen your specialty, you can eliminate most of the opportunities, and laser-in on the ones that fit your specialization.

Don’t necessarily eliminate the “general interest” publications; as those often publish articles on a wide variety of topics. As a specialist, one thing you can do is translate your specialized knowledge for a broad audience; that, in essence, is what good writers do anyways.

If you’re not finding the right opportunities in places such as the Paid Publishing Guidebook, don’t worry! Part of your job as a specialist is to learn about the opportunities in your niche. As huge as The Paid Publishing Guidebook is, it only scratches the surface.

You’ll want to learn about the big players in your area. Follow them on Twitter. Buy books. Subscribe to the relevant magazines, email newsletters, etc. Start to develop real relationships. These are all things you can do when you’ve chosen a specialty, but are almost impossible when you’re trying to be a generalist.

Write a Pitch – And Get Published

When you’re a specialist, it’s much easier to write a pitch that gets accepted.

But here’s the deal.

When you’re new to pitching, you should expect to get rejected and ignored.

If that happens to you, celebrate.

Why? It means you’ve become a freelance writer!

Every single successful writer gets rejected. Over and over again. It’s just part of the process.

If you’re not sending out pitches that get rejected, then you’re missing out. Big time.

Aim to get rejected a lot.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should send out tons of low quality pitches. You should be focusing on writing high quality pitches to publications that fit your specialty.

However, you should write them with an expectation that they’ll fail. Eventually, they won’t. But, having this attitude will encourage you to keep pitching. Eventually, you’ll find success.

Here’s how to write a pitch that gets accepted.

Now that you know to expect rejection, you can focus on writing the best pitch possible.

Here’s how to do that.

1. Choose a publication.
2. Carefully study that publication. Read a few articles. Get a sense of how often they publish, their writing style, and the topics they cover.
3. Create several ideas for articles.
4. Write possible headlines for those articles, then compare them to the publication’s headlines. Ask yourself: Does my headline fit? Keep working on it, until it does fit.
5. Write a brief proposal, based on just one of your article ideas. Use Ian Chandler’s Pitch template. (Courtesy of Writing Launch.) Get it here.
6. Sent it to the relevant editor.
7. Repeat.

That’s it.

Oh, and one more thing.

If you have the opportunity, ask an expert freelance writer to review your pitch before sending it.

A good pitch is often extremely simple – and yet, writing a good pitch is hard. There are lots of little mistakes that are easy to make, but also easy to avoid if you know how to spot them. Someone who’s experienced at pitching can usually quickly identify issues with a pitch and suggest small changes.

A good mentor goes a long way.

Writing Launch offers pitch critiques to their members. They sometimes even offer free membership. I encourage you to join the waiting list here.

Also – if you haven’t yet done so, take a look at The Paid Publishing Guidebook here.