What Magazines Are Looking For In Freelance Writers: Vital Advice

If you are a freelance writer, you will be able to work on different kinds of texts. In this profession, everything depends on your personal skills and ambitions. There isn’t a writing job that you won’t be able to get with enough motivation and dedication.

You will need to research your prospective employer if you are really determined to get some particular job. In case you main goal is to start writing for magazines you should learn what the editors are looking for in freelance authors.

The following tips will help you get a job as a freelance writer for a magazine:

• Excellent writing skills.

You will never be able to get a good writing job if your skills aren’t up to par. Your English must be perfect, so not a single grammar or spelling error is allowed. The samples of your texts sent with your resume must be impeccable. All your texts must flow freely and your vocabulary must be rich but not overtly “bookish”, unless the article you work on requires the use of some special terms.

Please note that even if you write some complicated article, you must use clear and simple language in order to make it possible for non-professionals to understand the text. Magazine editors are very particular about writing styles, so you will need to adjust yours to fit in with other publications.

• Interesting content.

The articles you write must catch the readers’ attention. This means that the content must be fresh and original. Even if you are writing about some well-explored issue, you should present it from a unique perspective. Your goal is to make your particular article stand out among dozens of similar ones so that people will be tempted to share it with their friends. Interest from the readers is the most important thing that will determine whether you will be employed as a regular author for a magazine.

• High level of professionalism.

You must understand that freelance writers have professional ethics code that must be followed. It may not be an official set of regulations, but this is something you need to research and learn carefully.

First of all, you need to be punctual. Do not ever break a deadline, and if some emergency does happen, give the editors as much warning as you can. Seeing how it’s your obligation to fulfill the job, you may even try to outsource the assignment you are running late with. This way, you will be able to “save the face” with the magazine. You must also make sure that every article you write is 100% free of any unintentional plagiarism. If you use information from any sources, all of them must be credited.