As a freelancer, you have a lot of great skills. You can spot grammatical mistakes a mile away, turn creative copy in under a tight deadline and easily balance your happy-go-lucky customers with your major-hand-holding customers. While you’re conquering the content world from your home office or local coffee shop, you’re lacking one thing: interaction with like-minded people.
It’s healthy to chat with others and since you don’t have an office full of co-workers to gossip with, you need to seek out networking opportunities. To keep you from turning into a computer gremlin, we’ve complied a shortlist of great networking sites that let you interact with other freelance journalists.
The list is a combination of popular freelance networking sites and suggestions from Jennie Phipps, the owner and editor of Freelance Success, a virtual water cooler and job tip sheet for writers.
Jennie Phipps
While there are a number of networking opportunities out there, Phipps says the trick is to find one or two options that fit your writing needs and your budget.
“Spend money where it makes sense,” she says. “You aren’t buying a lifetime membership. Try out a few options for a year and evaluate your return on investment.”
Once you decide which organizations to join, Phipps reminds freelancers that you get out what you put in.
“In other words, don’t pay the membership fee and sit back and expect work to pour in,” she says. “Participate in online forums, be helpful to others and attend in-person meetings when you can. You have to put some effort in to get the best bang for your buck.”
This list isn’t comprehensive: there are journalism groups for every niche, beat, medium and geographic area, not to mention national or worldwide groups and commercial enterprises such as MediaBistro. Rather, this is a place to start exploring some new groups that can help you become a better or more successful freelance journalist.
Freelance Success
Phipps runs Freelance Success. Yearly membership costs $99 and gets you a weekly email newsletter that includes details on how to pitch specific publications, advice on running your freelance business, contests and more. There’s also an online forum where members can trade tips on everything from problem clients to creating portfolios online.
“You get the most out of the site by participating in the forums and interacting with others,” Phipps says. “You’d be surprised how open people are and how willing they are to help others in the field.”
Association of Health Care Journalists
If you’re writing copy for the healthcare world, this association could be beneficial. For a yearly membership fee of $60, you’ll get access to story ideas, recent trends, discussion boards, financial data on nonprofit hospitals, regional workshops and an invitation to a yearly conference. With more than 1,400 journalists in this association, Phipps says it’s a good investment if you work in this niche.
“The online resources are great and the annual conference brings together top-notch writers and experts in the field,” she says. “It’s a solid organization to belong to.”
Upod Academy
In 2011, Los Angeles journalist David Hochman started a community for writers through a Yahoo! group called UPOD (“under-promise, over-deliver”). Now the group has more than 1,000 freelancers. A popular component of this group are its structured three-day classes where freelancers and high-ranking editors work together to propel story ideas. The classes usually run about $525 but UPOD’s online forums are also a popular way for members to connect.
Online News Association
If you’re trudging through the world of online journalism, this association of mostly online newspaper folks could be for you. For $75 a year, you get access to discussion boards and invites to local and annual conferences, but the key to this association, Phipps says, is the online database of members.
“The database can give you email addresses for people you would never find otherwise,” she says. “Whether you’re looking for an editor to pitch an article to or a source, it’s a helpful tool for [all] freelancers.”
About the Author: Lisa Furgison is a media maven with ten years of journalism experience and a passion for creating top-notch content.
