It’s an unfortunate fact that freelancers spend only a fraction of their time reporting and writing stories. The rest of the time is spent getting that work. Let’s face it: Coming up with fresh ideas can be tedious and time-consuming. Good ideas are gold. When you come up with one that works, it pays to make the most of it. Here are 5 ways to do just that:
#1: Think roundups
When my editor at Woman’s Day suggested I write an article about medical breakthroughs, I didn’t realize that it would be the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve subsequently written round-ups on medical innovations for other national magazines, highlighting the most recent dramatic breakthroughs, of course.
Round-ups are a great way to capitalize on your reporting and research. One of the beauties of this format is not having to come up with a complex structure to write the story. Just craft a punchy lead and start your bullet points. Pitching is easy too: Just find 3 or 4 great examples for your topic and go.
#2: Go Local
Local and regional publications and markets are a great way to stretch your material. These markets don‘t tend to pay as well as national and trade publications, but it’s easy to make the numbers work by “recycling.”
I have written regularly for the annual Medical Resources Guide for my local city magazine, Charlotte Magazine, and have found it’s a great way to upcycle ideas and research. When I wrote a “XX-ways-to-boost-your-brain-power” story for the magazine, following a similar story I wrote for AARP, I found some local references and anecdotes but could piggy-back on the original ideas and research.
Another example: Several years ago, I wrote a chapter about animal/pet therapy for a Time Inc. book on natural medicine. I had all the data and just needed to hunt down some examples and vignettes for the local angle—therapy dogs at a hospital, therapeutic horseback riding facilities, and a horse barn where patients are treated with animal-assisted psychotherapy. The result was the cover story, “Animals That Heal,” for Charlotte Magazine.
#3: Pitch Seasonal
Have a ton of research about weight loss? Craft story ideas around a particular season: Staving off holiday weight gain, shedding pounds to start the new year, getting your body bikini-ready for summer. You get the idea.
When I am lining up fall and winter assignments, I tote out my trusty, “Boost Your Immunity” story. It has run as:
- “Sick of Being Sick?” for Good Housekeeping
- “Health Secrets for New Moms” for American Baby
- “How to Stay Healthy In Cold and Flu Season” for the Wall Street Journal, and
- “The Cold War” for Fitness Magazine.
#4: Consider Content
Like other ASJA-ers, I am going after work outside traditional media. The nice thing about writing “content” is that you don’t have to worry about competing with venues in the journalism world.
Through McMurry (now Manifest), I ghosted a daily blog for a large academic health center website, which generated tons of new story ideas and leads. With new sources, these stories became fodder for articles for Grandparents.com and the Wall Street Journal.
I recently started writing for a local health insurance company. The work is easy and cost-effective. Through a contact there, I also landed an assignment to write profiles for a large local church’s glossy semi-annual magazine. And I was also approached by an app company in San Francisco that was launching a new fertility-related app. I ended up doing a slew of stories on basic fertility information and, in some cases, was able to use updated material from my book on women’s sexual health. (By the way, the app company found me through LinkedIn, so it pays to have a good profile there.)
#5: Recycle Your Sources
We’ve all had sources that inspired us to want to do more with them. Several years ago, I interviewed a pancreatic cancer survivor who was particularly articulate and thoughtful. She ended up in several pieces: one on hospital safety (she was able to provide a couple of anecdotes that exemplified best practices at the hospital where she was treated) and she had a great example that fit into a second story on how hospital design can help or hinder healing. She also had some novel coping strategies, which I mined when I wrote a piece about coping with cancer for Health Monitor. The take-home: Great sources can themselves lead to new assignments.
Three More Points:
- Don’t plagiarize yourself. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to re-write and mix things up.
- Use but update interviews. Although I will draw on old interviews, I touch base with my sources to see if the information still holds and whether there are any important updates. And I get new quotes.
- Explore all options. When I am recycling, I don’t just resurrect old stories as re-runs. I also look for spin-offs—stories that morph into new, related stories. For example, I wrote a “how-to” (service) article on medical travel for AARP Magazine, which led to a reported feature for U.S. News & World Report on hospitals going global, thus leading to opportunities for Americans to get health care bargains at American-led or -affiliated hospitals abroad.