Where to sell your writing

The best writer in the world, if he or she has not established a suitable and lucrative market for their work, still will not become published.

One of the greatest freelance writers in the English speaking world, Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote: “Anyone who writes for anything but money is a blockhead.” Harsh? Perhaps. But remember that Johnson was only able to pay for his mother’s funeral by reportedly writing the novel Rasselas in a period of seven days.

By the way, sending in articles on spec is not necessarily a good idea. By all means think about sending something as a sample of the quality of work you can provide, but most publications would want you to write to them with the proposal for an article, rather than a completed article.

Yes indeed, you CAN make money by writing for the specialist trade press.

What is the specialist trade press? It is an exceptionally large and nebulous mass. It consists of hundreds of thousands of titles, some small, some large, published all over the world and covering thousands and thousands of fields of specialist knowledge.
What subjects are covered? Take the following examples:-
The garage industry, roadside recovery industry, coach tours and coach holidays industry, the bus and coach manufacturing industry, the vehicle salvage industry. And those just happen to be five magazines published by the company I write for!

Much of the work done on specialist magazines is done by freelance writers who have specialised knowledge on a particular subject. My employer uses freelance writers who have shown that they have these special attributes:-

1. They understand the brief they are set.
   2) They can write well and write at speed when necessary. It’s no good “choking” and getting all precious about refusing to work at speed. An article that is perfect in every way yet arrives one hour after the magazine has gone to press is useless. However, an article that is reasonably good and arrives one hour before the deadline is perfect. Why? Because it is there!
   3) Have good contacts in their industry
   4) Understand deadlines and stick with them.
   5) They never question a brief by saying: “Oh, but I wrote an article about this very subject one year ago!” Good. Now's your opportunity to write another article on the same subject! Was the reply I gave to someone who raised this point.
   

In order to be able to write for the specialist press, you have to understand the field that you will be writing about. There are general writers who can turn their hand to writing about almost any subject under the sun. There’s nothing wrong with that. Writers who can turn their hand to researching topics that they might not have heard of before and turning in readable, accurate copy are worth their weight in gold. But there are instances where this type of writer will not be able to get a commission, being overlooked in favour of the writer who has a specialism and a good knowledge of a particular industry or a particular field of endeavour.

For example, let’s suppose that a company that makes a particular type of equipment for the MOT industry has introduced a new type of engine analyser which can do the job in half the time. In order to write a proper article about this new piece of kit, a writer would have to understand a great deal about the garage and MOT industry. He or she might even have worked as a skilled MOT tester themselves before deciding to take up a career as a writer. And there are such writers out there with the specialised knowledge and the ability to write clear, concise copy every time it is required.

What specialist knowledge could you call upon to draw upon to write for the specialist trade press? Gardening? Architecture? Stamp collecting? A particular sport? Coin collecting? Knitting? Fashion? Amateur or professional photography? Sky Diving? Chicken breeding? Horse care? Motoring? Fish keeping? Dog breeding? Industrial metallurgy? Building? Counselling? The employment industry? Taxation?

These are, of course, only a tiny portion of the many types of specialism that us ordinary folk might have.
What could you earn? This depends. Some fields of expertise are so rarefied and esoteric that the magazines that cater for them are read by so few people that the magazines can really only afford to offer modest payments, including or only a complimentary copy of the magazine. Often these magazines, although very well produced to fairly high professional standards, are almost labours of love, with the editorial staff receiving little or no remuneration.

However, some magazines are mass market publications and can afford to pay vastly more to freelance specialist writers than can their poorer cousins.

How much? How long is a piece of string? £100 for 1000 words is a good basis on which to start. However, the fee that you can command will depend upon your abilities to work within the four guidelines I have outlined within this article. And something else.

Let’s suppose that a leading figure in the industry you are writing on is an elusive person who rarely gives interviews and is known for being notoriously difficult to interview. Let’s suppose that you have known him for years and that you both get on very well. If you can approach an editor and say: “I can gain you an exclusive interview with X,” don’t you think that you would be paid substantially more than £100 for 1,000 words? Or that after the successful publication of the article, that the grateful editor would funnel more equally lucrative work your way?

Recently, a new magazine was launched. After the first issue a writer with good specialised knowledge of the field called the managing editor and said: “I want to write for your magazine.” He sent in his CV, was commissioned to write one article as a test piece and his articles are regular and very popular features in the magazine.