The overwhelming response to yesterday’s question: What do you want to know about freelance article-writing is, “where to and how to find markets.” Yes, all one of you who responded said that the most difficult part of article-writing is finding markets. So I will make that part of my program when I meet with writers near Sacramento in a few weeks.
One thing I would suggest to writers is to write on a wide variety of topics so that you have a wider base of potential markets. If you write just on feral cats, for example, your opportunities for sales are greatly diminished. Instead, expand your knowledge and take an interest in many things and you won’t be so limited in the types of magazines you can legitimately write for.
Sure, you want to make a difference for feral cats—you are passionate about educating people on this subject. But, if you want to make money, too, you really must expand your horizons.
Maybe you had an experience with a disgruntled customer at work. Do a little research and write an article for a business management or small business magazine on how to handle the irate customer.
Perhaps you had a touch of altitude sickness the last time you visited a mountain resort or you suffered heat exhaustion during a hike. Again, do some research and create an article for a hiking, health, travel or general publication.
Do you garden, work out at the gym, speak in public, teach, attend church, belong to a city commission or a family, sew or snowboard, make jam, do beading or are a secret shopper, for example? You should be able to come up with several articles in each of these topics for a variety of magazines.
My point is that sometimes the reason we have trouble finding the right market for our work is that we are too narrowly focused with our array of topics. We prefer to stay comfortable within a subject we know.
That said, here are my favorite magazine/ezine directories:
1: Writer’s Market http://www.writersmarket.com
2: Wooden Horse Pubs (online directory with editorial calendars) http://www.woodenhorsepub.com
Here are a few others:
http://www.magazine-directory.com
http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Magazines/?skw=magazine+directory
http://www.magazineboard.com
http://www.mondotimes.com
http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/magazines