Archives: Programs

Freelance Business Systems: Accounting Minus Suck

39 minutes of video
39 minutes of audio
20 slides
13 pages of transcript

*****

Freelance accounting commonly takes the form of “why haven’t I been paid for this story yet?!?! I sent the invoice this week!” but invoicing is actually a very small piece of the pie. On the heels of tax season, we’ll take this hour to go through, line by line, what numbers you should be tracking, how, where, and why, so that the numeric side of your freelance life no longer feels scary, and everything has a place that feels just right and brings you joy, Marie Kondo-style.

We will cover:
– How does accounting fit into our larger goals for this series?
– What is accounting and what’s different from finance
– The core parts of accounting that you’re already doing (whether you like it or not)
– Accounting systems that already exist and how to create your own (that work)

Live Idea-to-Pitch Walkthrough #3: Identifying Glove-Fit Ideas

67 minutes of video
67 minutes of audio
8 slides
22 pages of transcript

*****

In the last webinar in this series, which shows live every stage in the process of putting together a number of pitches in just a few hours, I compiled a list of article ideas matched to specific magazines and sections within those magazines. As we went through, I included things that were pretty sure-fire fits along with ones that I needed to check on further to make sure that the idea would really fly for the given section (which we will verify in this webinar by looking at past examples of articles in that section) and the magazine in general (which we will check against the demographics and general voice of the publication).

In this webinar, the hour goes from wide (where we’ve been in the past several hours of this series) to narrow as we slim from the ideas that we like to the ideas that actually have a shot with the magazines in question.

We will cover:
– What we’re doing and how to follow along at home
– What a glove-fit looks like
– Where we are with our ideas now
– Attacking the matches

Live Idea-to-Pitch Walkthrough #1: Turning Trip Notes into a Pitchable Idea List

64 minutes of video
64 minutes of audio
9 slides
20 pages of transcript

*****

In this new series, we offer a window on how pitching takes place for an established writer in the most minimal time with the least possible fuss as we walk from my initial trip notes all the way to polished pitches leaving my inbox right before your eyes. To make sure you can see and ask questions about my decision-making at every phase, I walk through each step of the process completely live with no prep work outside of our calls (or cheating, as I would call it!) to pretty things up or do more digging into an idea.

To kick off the series, we begin with the notes from my travels in the Czech Republic over the summer, transforming my ideas from that time, which are no longer fresh in my mind, into potential article ideas and article types. You’ll learn how to develop a sense for what is and is not a pitchable idea from the types of information you’re deluged with on a trip, and I’ll also note what types of articles could develop from each idea as we go along.

We will cover:
– The premisses + ground rules of this experiment
– How to follow along at home
– Refresher of the types of magazine articles we’ll be scanning for

Live Idea-to-Pitch Walkthrough #2: Matching Raw Ideas to Real Magazine Sections

64 minutes of video
64 minutes of audio
13 slides
20 pages of transcript

*****

Continuing in our landmark series walking, entirely live, through every stage in the process of putting together a number of pitches in just a few hours, we dive into the dreaded matching phase. I know that for many of you, this part of the process—finding a good “home” for your article ideas—can be the most trying part of the question, often lasting for weeks and sometimes months. In this webinar, you’ll see me take my entire list of pitch ideas from the previous week and make as many good matches as I can in an hour.

We will cover:
– What we are doing and how to follow along at home
– How do I know where to start looking for matches
– Recapping ALL the ideas to make the best use of our time
– Sprint searching ALL of the magazines that might work

Live Idea-to-Pitch Walkthrough #4: Ruthlessly Auditing Idea Fit

52 minutes of video
52 minutes of audio
12 slides
15 pages of transcript

*****

Four hours into our series and we’re still working on the ideas! It seems like it will take us forever to get to the actual pitching writing, but that’s part of why we’re doing this series: if you’re diving into a word processing document earlier than this, you’re doing it wrong.

Making sure that your idea itself is solid, salable, and safe for you to stick your neck out with AND that it is a perfect fit for the section you’re pitching it to is actually the secret to saving tons of time with your pitches while also netting a higher acceptance rate along the way.

Fewer, better pitches always win. Having a 90% acceptance rate sending five pitches a month will do better for you than sending 20 pitches with a 20% acceptance rate (4.5 acceptances vs. 4). You can estimate the time savings yourself!

In this webinar, we’ll narrow the ideas we’ve been working on even further so that we’re only moving forward with the ones that absolutely, as far as we can tell not being inside the magazine, have a chance of success as we finesse both the fit and the quality of the idea, focusing on looking for that “why” that really makes the idea pop when the editor reads our pitch.

We will cover:
– What we’re doing and how to follow along at home
– Where we are with our ideas now
– What fit checks we’ve done and what’s left
– Attacking the matches

Live Idea-to-Pitch Walkthrough #5: Creating the Bones of the Pitch

61 minutes of video
61 minutes of audio
16 slides
15 pages of transcript

*****

We’ve made it through so many stages of the pitch writing process that many folks lump into writing that are actually distinctly separate prep activities: pulling ideas from your trip, matching them to magazines, refining the best fits, and choosing the low-hanging fruit with the best chance of success and the easiest path to putting the pitch together.

In this webinar, the real writing begins! But staring at a blank page is a way to shock any creative mind into panic, so we begin instead by putting together the easier building blocks of the pitch in an almost placeholder-like style with minimal stress and research just to get our quick thoughts on the page.

Learning this trick to getting the basis of a pitch out quickly alone, can easily save you an hour per pitch.

We will cover:
– The purpose of this series starts to come into shape
– What are the bones of the pitch?
– Why we start with the easier bits: P2s and 3s
– What ideas are we going to work up pitches for?
– Attacking the pitches

Live Idea-to-Pitch Walkthrough #6: Filling in the Blanks & Hitting Send

74 minutes of video
74 minutes of audio
14 slides
18 pages of transcript

*****

Even though it seems like we’re at the end of the line, this is actually the hardest part of the pitching process and where I see many of you getting completely stuck. It’s too easy to be fully flush with the facts and fit of an idea, step away from it for a bit, then come back and have doubts because you’re not up-to-date on all of the details of the situation, and then decide that you really shouldn’t send the pitch after all.

In this webinar, we walk through live examples so you can see when enough is enough, when to cut and run, and how, exactly, to get pitches out of your inbox and into the playing field quickly and with minimal fuss.

We will cover:
– Quick recap: What are the bones of the pitch?
– Where did we leave off?
– Attacking the pitches!

Journalistic Detail Collection

Buy a curated collection and save 25% over purchasing each webinar individually.

231 minutes of video
231 minutes of audio
59 slides
74 pages of transcript

Journalistic Detail and Why You Need It

Editors often say they want “researched” and “tight” “copy”, but what does that mean and how do you do it?

In this webinar, the beginning of a new craft-oriented series on uncovering journalistic detail in your field research and incorporating it into different types of pieces, we explore what journalistic detail is, why you need it, and how to know it when you see it.

We will cover:
– What journalistic detail is and why I made it up
– What journalistic detail will really do for you
– Breaking down real-world examples

Weaving Journalistic Detail into Short Articles

In short, front-of-book pieces and in subsections of round-up features, the devil in the detail is choosing what to include from all of your research.

In this webinar, we explore how to use your magazine’s audience and the type of magazine section you’re writing as a lens to drastically simplify the agonizing decisions of what details to include, how much time to devote to them, and how to execute them from a writing perspective.

We will cover:
– Checking back on what journalistic detail is and what it can do for you
– The particular challenges of incorporating journalistic detail in short articles
– Live exercise with Delta Sky
– Breaking down real-world examples

Weaving Journalistic Detail into Descriptions of People

Fiction writers are known for their descriptions of characters, but so many writers skip these details in their travel pieces—to their detriment.

Characters are one of the main things editors regularly lament that writers don’t include in their pitches or final pieces. In this webinar, we explore how to get the details you need on the ground as well as how to incorporate them into your pieces.

We will cover:
– Checking back in on what journalistic detail is and what it can do for you
– The particular challenges of incorporating journalistic detail in descriptions of people
– Breaking down real-world examples

Weaving Journalistic Detail into Descriptions of Places

Setting the scene in your pieces can be the single hardest block of text for so many of us to write! How do we be “creative” or write that “flowery” stuff?

The key to writing a description of a place that (1) doesn’t take you forever and push you into a type of writing you may not be so comfortable with, and (2) actually belongs in the piece you’re writing and shows your writing chops off to your editor (especially in a pitch) is a strong foundation in journalistic detail.

We explore how it works with evocative verbal depictions of places in this webinar.

We will cover:
– Checking back in on what journalistic detail is and what it can do for you
– The particular challenges of incorporating journalistic detail in descriptions of places (and why you don’t want to describe places at all, most of the time)
– Breaking down real-world examples

Creating Ambiance with Journalistic Detail

In this series on journalistic detail, we looked at many specific situations in which you should be thoughtful about how and why you’re introducing detail, from short articles to descriptions of people and places.

In the last webinar in this series, we take it higher level—how do the details that you choose create a larger takeaway for the reader without you coming out and explicitly telling them what you want them to feel?

Taking Control Collection

Buy a curated collection and save 25% over purchasing each webinar individually.

248 minutes of video
248 minutes of audio
62 slides
91 pages of transcript

Taking Control of Your Freelance Travel Writing Finances

In this first webinar in the series on taking control of the business side of your freelance travel writing business, we dive into everything you need to know to get your taxes in gear this year. We are not licensed tax advisors, but unfortunately, most accountants don’t know the nitty gritty of this profession, so we’ll steer you the right way.

We will cover:
– Laying the ground work: what are the expenses categories for freelance food and travel writers?
– How does this play out with your month-to-month expense tracking (and quarterly taxes!)?
– Taking it to the next level: how should you manage these things on an on-going basis

Taking Control of Your Freelance Travel Writing Time

In this webinar on Taking Control of Your Freelance Travel Writing Time–the single most important groundwork I lay with our coaching program members so that they can handle the work they want to do when it starts coming in–we dive into the number one difference I see between the people who “do it” and those that don’t: how they spend their freelance time–you always have choices.

We will cover:
– A business philosophy on time – do you have one?
-The big offenders and how to deal with them
– Approaches to time tracking for beginners (to time tracking) and for travel writing life

Taking Control of How You Travel and Reach Your Freelance Travel Writing Goals

In this webinar, we expand the big picture and how to ensure your big dreams become tangible reality. To grow your travel writing income, you need a reliable, repeatable system for ensuring you have your eye on your benchmarks and pivot to meet them. We explore how to adopt the systems big businesses use to great success for your solopreneur writing business.

We will cover:
– Are your goals on ICE? How to tell – and immediately fix this issue
– The MArathon-Training Method of reaching your freelance travel writing goals
– My favorite “hacks,” tips, and tricks for visible goals

Taking Control of Your Pitches, Ideas, and Follow-Ups

You can have all the article ideas in the world, but if you can’t find the information you need to pitch them to the right markets, you’re toast. In this webinar, we explore how to capture ideas the second you have them, store them for later, and how to adapt best practices to what works for you.

We will cover:
– Zeroing in on the real point of all of this anyway
– How and when ideas come and systems for what to do with them when they do
– How to organize the information you need to match ideas and quickly piece together pitches
– Making sure not to drop the thread in the all-important follow-up phrase

Earn More with Magazine Writing Collection

Buy a curated collection and save 25% over purchasing each webinar individually.

227 minutes of video
227 minutes of audio
74 slides
80 pages of transcript

Triple Your Travel Writing Income Writing for Magazines

For years naysayers have claimed that there is no money to be made in the magazine industry, the fact is that magazines still pay significantly better than websites–and there are many more opportunities to write about travel for print magazines than you realize. Sleek, well-paying, new travel magazines are actually popping up every week. You just need to know where to find them.

– the biggest reasons writing for magazines will skyrocket your travel writing income
– 5 ways to make sure an editor not only gets back to you, but wants to work with you again and again
– how to start getting lucrative assignments right now

The Magazine Landscape: Where All the Assignments Are Hiding

As we come up on a milestone of 300 magazines in the Travel Magazine Database, even I’m struck by how many fully-travel and travel adjacent magazines are out there looking for content.

In this webinar, we look at five types of magazines looking for travel content that you may be missing out on, and three ways to find more magazines that you’ve never heard of to pitch.

We will cover:
– The literal magazine landscape: where magazines live and how they reach people
– Five specific types of magazines looking for travel content you’re missing
– Three ways to find new magazines to pitch every day

What Types of Articles Should You Be Writing?

In this webinar, we cover the different major types of articles that you should be looking out for when you’re on the road: examples of these types of articles, how to pitch them, and how to write them.

We will cover:
– Why magazine-first (or section-first) beats idea-first every time
– The main types of articles that you’re going to come across (in travel and travel-related magazines)
– How the differences in these article types are expressed on the page and in your pitch

The Art of the Follow Up–The Simple Key to Dramatically More Assignments

We’ll talk about timing, scripts, and mechanics of following up with editors on your pitches. I’ll share some more unusual or downright awkward editor responses and how to handle them.

We will cover:
– Why it will change your travel writing career in more ways than just responses to get serious about following up
– 6 reasons editors aren’t responding and what to do about it
– How to respond to every type of response you’re going to come across