Friday, December 19, 2008

Freelance Writing Resources

These resources are for journalists and professional freelance writers.

They have lots of interesting information, though some of it may not be applicable to newcomers trying to get started. (Though there are certainly plenty of journalism students asking questions as well, but they tend to be going through formal courses, newspaper apprenticeships etc.)

But they do have all kinds of relevant information for people interested in a serious income from writing.

Journalism.co.uk - I'm not sure if this is connected with the NUJ (National Union of Journalists), but is certainly seems to be a go-to place for British professional journalists.

londonfreelance.org - is a site for and by London freelancers! Run by the London Freelance Branch of the NUJ. Among other things it gives information on typical rates of pay for different kinds of work in this freelance fees guide. This tells you for example that a guideline rate for 1,000 words for online media publication is £275, while for a similar length piece that needs intense research the rate is £350. And if you can land a gig writing for a top-tier US magazine, that's a whopping £1,500 per 1,000 words, with rates from at least $3 per word.

Meanwhile issuu is a service for publishing your work yourself. You can publish in many formats - hardback books, spiral bounds reports, brochures, and e-books. Because it's print-on-demand, you can create a book or other publication and there is no upfront cost to you. When people order the book, they pay the fee you set and issuu take their cut from that. There is no charge for publishing e-books there. There is even an option to buy your own ISBNs so officially become a publishing house in your own right.

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