How I Find Paying Markets For My Freelance Writing

The money is out there, if you know where to look

I’m a full-time freelance writer. That’s how I earn a living. I don’t currently have a job, side hustle or other form of income, although as I’ve shared before my ‘freelance writing business’ involves around ten different income streams, most of which involve more than (or maybe less than?) writing.

Being a full-time writer means I have to have income coming in, every month, consistently, in time to pay my bills. I’m not playing at this.

I’m lucky that I have regular clients, including a content agency that sends me regular work from multiple clients. But work ebbs and flows, so in quiet times I have to have a few easy go-to options and strategies to find extra work. Here’s what they are.

1. Market databases

There’s an easy cheat many new freelance writers don’t know about. Around the web there are several free and paid databases where you can look up magazines, websites and other markets that regularly use freelancers.

Two free ones that I like are World Wide Freelance and Funds For Writers. Both have online market databases and newsletters that you can sign up for. This means that details about potential markets for your writing will arrive in your inbox on a regular basis, which is great motivation.

World Wide Freelance has both a free and paid version, and you can search the database by topic, country, region, and pay rate. Funds for Writers is free and I’ve heard about some great new markets (and writing competitions) through their newsletter.

As you become more successful and have some money to spend you may want to pay for access to a premium database which will have many more markets, with less competition.

You could also consider investing in a print copy of an annually updated directory such as Writer’s Market or The Writers and Artists Yearbook at least every other year. If you’re just getting started and on a budget, however, you can definitely find enough to get you started on the free market databases.

2. I treat everything I read as a potential market

What you read is an indication of which markets you should be writing for.

Get into the habit of noticing every time you read something and think you could write something similar. If you’re reading a blog and thinking about how much you know on this topic, or how your writing style is similar to the current contributors, check for a ‘guidelines’, ‘write for us’, or ‘guest bloggers’ tab.

When you read a magazine and think you could produce the kind of article they publish, look through that issue to find out if they accept freelance submissions.

If they do, they’ll often have a ‘contributors’ page at the front that will tell you a little about the contributors to the current issue and let you work out if you might be in with a chance of placing an article with them.

Some magazines will invite contributions for certain sections right there in the magazine. If not, get online and start searching. See if you can get hold of their writers’ guidelines.

I write for online markets way more than print publications, but the print publications I’ve managed to get into pay significantly better.

3. Writing newsletters

Several sites produce free newsletters you can subscribe to. Many of them include markets that are actively looking for freelance writers, with direct links to their online guidelines. I’ve placed work in publications that I heard about in newsletters from the following sites:

• The Funds For Writers newsletter, as mentioned above. This one alerts writers to writing contests, with cash prizes, as well as paying markets. It also comes with lots of advice on making a living as a writer.
• The Make A Living Writing newsletter from Carol Tice. This one is packed full of good advice, paying markets and writing inspiration.
• The Paid Write newsletter also comes with a free online course and offers tons of curated paying markets both via the newsletter and on the website.

It’s easy to go overboard and sign up for every free newsletter available. Life will be easier if you try a few at a time and unsubscribe from those that don’t meet your needs, before trying one or two more. I have a separate folder in my inbox for newsletters and file them away to read in blocks so they don’t distract me every time I check email.

4. Online forums

Read threads about finding markets or ask a question like “What was your first paying writing gig?” Lots of writers may pitch in to the discussion.

You can find writing forums on sites like AbsoluteWrite.com and Scribophile. Reputable forums may ask you to register with an email address to help prevent spam.

It’s worth creating a ‘signature’ in forums that allow it, with a link to your website, blog, or social media pages. That way people can also contact you if they have a specific recommendation for you.

You’ll also find writing groups on Facebook, Reddit and wherever else you hang out online. Try them out strategically. That is, by all means join and take a look around, but if there’s not much actual sharing of information on markets and resources, politely back out and find another one. Most of the ones I’ve tried haven’t been that helpful.

Warning: forums and other online writing groups are a potential time suck. Limit your forum time, or use it as a relaxation/stress busting break from work. Don’t kid yourself that hours spent surfing forums is work time.

5. Take classes, and use your instructor’s expertise

Writing classes and workshops, both in the real world and online, can be really useful, and not just for learning your craft. Your instructor may know the perfect market for your work.

The first piece of writing I ever sold was to a small press publication suggested to me by my writing tutor. I’d never heard of it before.

Some writing tutors also work for magazines, anthologies, or websites that accept freelance contributions. A personal relationship with an editor or publisher never hurts.

I’m a big believer in taking real-world classes when you can, but I’ve also taken plenty of online writing courses, and for most people these will fit into your already-crazy-busy life much better. Check out a few of my favorite online, self-paced writing courses.

6. Job boards

No I’m not talking about Fiverr or Upwork. I generally find those types of brokerage style sites don’t work well for me. What works better is actual job boards such as ProBlogger (I’ve found numerous one-off, reasonably well-paying writing jobs here over the years) or MediaBistro (I’ve not used this one much yet but I hear good things about it).

These two have a pretty good reputation, but remember they can’t fully guard against spammers and scammers (anymore than sites like Upwork can) so take all the usual precautions when pitching for jobs you find here. And be super cautious of newer job boards you may come across that seem to be posting very high volumes of jobs. They may just be posting anything they can find without any regard for whether the jobs are legit or not.

Ultimately, to build and maintain your freelance writing career, you’re often going to be actively looking out for new opportunities, in ways that don’t take too much time away from the actual pitching and writing process.

Don’t know where to start? Here’s what I’d do.

• Set aside a specific chunk of time each day, or week, to actively look for new writing markets that pay an amount you’re happy with.
• Set aside another specific chunk of time to brainstorm ideas to pitch to those markets and a further chunk of time to actually write and send those pitches.
• Sign up for a few relevant, market-orientated writing newsletters.
• Bookmark this article to come back to when you have spare time on your hands to explore new markets.

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