u/InvestorMonitor

Hey everyone,

I have been a journalist for nearly five years, the past three doing freelance work, mostly writing features and analysis articles.

Before I was journalist, I was in tech for five years.

I think this is by far the hardest year for me as a freelancer. I am finding less freelance opportunities and feel I have fallen behind my journalism peers. I am even trying to find a min wage job to go alongside my freelance work and I am finding no one wants to hire me. I am starting to get quite stressed.

I see a lot of requests for either freelance or full-time video or podcast producing help. I am pretty confident I would have the skills for this style of job based on my journalism and tech background. I just have no relevant experience apart from one semester where i produced small video documentaries (and i am not sure I could still find them to share with companies today.) I really enjoyed editing those videos at the time.

Does anyone have any tips to break into these roles?

I expect some suggestions will be make your own TikTok. I am reluctant to create my own social media account because i don’t really have the face/voice for in-front of the camera and i try to limit these platforms for mental health reasons. I think it would be easier to create a social account if i had a specific beat but my coverage is generalist and i dont feel i have a consistent flow of content to have a channel.

I have been pitching a feature story for a few weeks. I tried all the big names and had no takers, so moved to pitching niche publications.

Finally someone accepted and asked my rate, which I haven’t had before. Usually it is the editor that tells me what they’d pay and has generally been in the range of $500-$900 for a multi sourced story.

I guessed a range based on what other editors paid me and how much work it would take me and got rejected for being out of budget -_-

I feel like I should have lowered my prices because I am trying to get visibility for type of writing (it is outside my usual my beat) but at the same time I live a high cost of living metro city and need to pay the bills and I am never saving any money or pension. I don’t want to undersell myself, but I also would love to have written the article.

Alas, I am not sure this is a question, but just a rant about the state of the freelance industry.