Break In With Fillers: The Better Market For New Writers
by:
Shelley Wake
Interested in breaking into writing or breaking into a new area? You can’t go past writing fillers. Fillers are one of the most unnoted opportunities in the freelance writing earth and offer one of the better opportunities for new writers.
Fillers Are In Demand
I’ve spoken to hundreds of editors and been told over and over once more that fillers are the one thing they ne'er
get enough of. Most publications tend to publish more freelance fillers than they do freelance articles. Yet, they often obtain 100 times more articles than fillers.
This is a gap in the freelance market that you can take advantage of.
Fillers are a Great Place to Get Started
Many publications are careful simply about business feature articles from writers they don’t know. Even as if your article is good, an editor power decide not to publish you because they don’t cognize you as a writer. This is especially true if you don’t have a lot of experience or any clips.
But even as without experience or clips, most editors wish consider a filler. In fact, many a editors treat writing fillers as the testing ground to see if a writer can be relied on to write feature articles.
Here’s what one editor had to say simply about fillers:
“One of the better route to break in is to write fillers. It gives me a chance to start to build a relationship with a writer and see that I can trust them. Of all the freelancers I activity with, over half started out writing fillers.” - Margaret, Magazine Editor
So not only can writing fillers get you several clips, it as well has the potential to turn into a long-term writing opportunity. Consider fillers a stepping stone to more bigger things.
The Smart Way to Write on Description
Fillers are all but always submitted on spec. This means that you avoid the problem of having to query the publication and sell yourself as a writer, because your filler is doing the activity for you and showing the editor your writing skill.
The big argument against writing on description is that you spend your time writing pieces that power ne'er
sell. Fillers reduce this problem because they are short and take less time to write. So even as if your filler doesn’t sell, you haven’t wasted as more time as you would-be have on a longer feature article. Fillers are as well more flexible, with few publications having set guidelines for fillers. This means that a filler wish often be suitable for more than market. So if it gets rejected once, it’s not a waste of time. You can simply send it to a new market, often without having to do any changes.
Fillers Bank on Information, Not Writer Qualifications
Fillers commonly bank on information, not on the writer’s qualifications.
This means that you don’t have to sell yourself once
you submit fillers. Instead, the information you put in the filler sells it for you.
This does fillers a perfect option for writers lacking the experience or clips to sell themselves to an editor.
You Can Write a Lot of Them
Since fillers are short, you can write a lot of them and submit a lot of them. You could virtually
have hundreds of pieces out in the market for consideration in a short time. And if you write them well, you could have a lot of them publicised in a really short time. That means you can build a list of clips fast.
And one different benefit is that magazines don’t have as limited a space for fillers as they do for feature articles. So if your filler gets accepted, it’s likely to get publicised fast. The same isn’t true for feature articles, wherever
an accepted article wish often be regular
for an issue a year or two away.
That’s one more nice reason why fillers are a great way to build clips fast. Once you’ve got the clips, then you have a few more options. Until then, fillers are a great place to start.
And one final tip. Once you have the clips and start moving into feature articles, don’t forget simply about fillers. As you’re researching a feature, take note of engrossing facts, trivia, or anecdotes you move across. These can do fillers and be an additional bonus, conveyance in several extra cash and several extra clips.
About The Author
Shelley Wake is the author of “Getting Publicised Without Clips.” This practical no-nonsense manual shows writers exactly what to do to break into freelance writing. Packed with inside information, established methods, hidden markets, and more, it’s with success
launched hundreds of freelance careers. Link: http://www.writingstuff.com/fs02m.html
This article was denote
on Sep 26, 2005
