Advice from Laurel Touby, Founder of mediabistro.com

Laurel Touby founded Mediabistro.com in 1997, and since then this community of media professionals has grown to more than 500,000. mediabistro.com hosts more than 200 events for media professionals around the country each year and offers more than 100 classes around the country and online.

Let’s say you write kickass letters. Everyone tells you, “You have a way with words.” Because that’s basically how all of us start in freelancing. At some point in a writer’s life, someone has told him or her, “You have a way with words; you should really consider being a writer or writing something.” But there are some things you really should learn about writing. One is it’s not always going to be what [you] imagined in your wildest dreams that it’d be. So when you sit there and write your blog or your letter or poetry, you’re able to go to the furthest extent of your creativity with no repercussions, no one not paying you because of it, nobody rejecting your work.

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Basically you have to make a decision: Do I want to be a journalist, or do I want to be a writer? Because they are two different things. The way you can reach that decision, whether you want to be a writer or a journalist, is going online and doing some articles, actual journalism. Or if you really have the confidence and think you can get paid for it, channel your time and effort and energy to a local newspaper, to a trade magazine in your industry, to [a] local-community-kind-of-thing or a nonprofit organization that has a newsletter or magazine. Or contact your alumni association or publication. Those are all great places to get started, either paid or unpaid.

Build Up Your Clips

If you can wrangle some money [out] of it, more power to you. But most of the time, it’s going to be hard if you have no track record and no clips. This is your way to make clips. This is what I did—I went out to a small local paper and I said, “I have no clips since college.” I was three years out of school, and they thought, “ok, we’ll try you out with something, but we’re not going to pay you for it.” Or, “We’ll pay you $25 if it we run it.” So I went to a gay pride parade in Brooklyn. They liked it and they ran it, and they let me do a couple more assignments.

Talk to People

Then what I did was called up every single person who’d gone to my school, Smith College, who was either a writer or editor and said, “How do I become you?” It’s what’s called an “informational interview.” If you’re changing careers, you can call nearly anybody in the world and ask them how they got to where they got. And people love talking about themselves, they love talking about their career paths, and most people like helping other people. So unless you’re calling the secretary of state [people will talk to you].

The deal is you call up and say, “I’m switching my career. I think I have some really great skills in that area, but I’d love to know how you did what you did. I’d like 15 minutes of your time, over the phone or over coffee if you’d let me. I’ll buy coffee. And I just want to pick your brain about eight questions that I have, just eight questions.” And then you’re limited to those eight questions, and those better be damn good questions. And you better let that person go at the end of your eight questions so that they don’t feel like you’re abusing your time period with them.

And then you should follow up with that person later on—that’s the key. Following up later with, “You convinced me that I should pursue this career, and I would like to do it the way you did it, by working first at a blah blah blah type of publication. Could you perhaps turn me on to some people you might know at such-and-such publication. Here is. . . ” It has to be very targeted, very direct, very aggressive without being pushy about your needs and your desires and your skills. The worst thing you can do is have that great interaction with that great person and then let it drop and never talk to them again.

The scaredy-cats are the ones who don’t do this career. The people who have any boldness or any sense of self-worth are the ones who do this career. You have to reach out to the community and meet people like you and live in a neighborhood where there are people like you. Coming to a place like New York—people say it’s too expensive or too much—but it’s better to be here. You hear about more stuff, you stay connected more, you meet people who are doing what you’re doing and it inspires you.

Once you’ve gotten some clips under your belt—and it’s going to take some time, three to six months at least, because changing careers takes time, anytime you do it. And this is an exceptionally hard career to change into because it’s a talent career. It’s all about talent and glamour and there are so many people trying to get in to it. So once you’ve start getting those clips together, you’ve got to start working your way up to the next level of assignment. Whether it’s the same publication you’ve worked for, [doing] bigger, better assignments. Or whether you try to tackle a new venue.

Do You Have a Specialty?

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And the other thing you have to decide at this point is, now that I want to be a journalist, is there any type of area I want to specialize in? Because you can make a much better living, much easier, if you specialize in something. Especially if you specialize in something that nobody else wants. Let’s put it this way, everybody wants to be a travel writer, everyone wants to be in fashion, everybody wants to be at a women’s magazine, men’s magazine. There are just hordes of people trying to get in to those. [Instead] you try to get in to something that nobody knows very well, or that nobody wants.

The Pitch Letter

I don’t think editors read all the pitch letters they get, but they read them enough. It’s not like the book industry, where you have a huge slush pile. If you write something that’s short and to the point and says, “I can give you more information if you’re interested. I’ve written for other publications. I can tell you more about myself.” And then you follow up—not just send it and hope and pray. You’ve got to follow up: “Give me a call at this number if you need me sooner; I can turn this around quickly.”

Another thing you want to do is pitch stuff to newspapers. They don’t pay as much but they have a fast turnaround time and they have a lot more space to fill. Editors might be curt and rude, but it’s not personal at all. You’ve got to think like the best of salespeople—you’ve got to keep going at it. And be persistent as all hell, without being rude. And realize that this is going to hurt, it’s going to be a process, and it’s going to take 100 pitches before you get an assignment. If you go out in there thinking, “This is going to take me 100 pitches before I get an assignment,” you’re going to smile if number 50 is a hit. If you go in there thinking every pitch is going to land you an assignment, you’re going to be in for a disastrous ego pop. It’s really a numbers game; it’s like dating, it’s like sales, it’s like anything that requires massive amounts of follow-through, follow-up, diligence, continuous belief in yourself.