Tips for Increasing Your Chances of Getting Accepted at News Break

These are just some thoughts based on my experiences with those who were accepted already.

Let me start by saying that I don’t know any secrets or have any kind of “insider information,” about how to get accepted at News Break. These are just some ideas of things you can use to establish your worth to their brand based on what they might be looking for. I think several are also good tips for applying for other opportunities or getting yourself noticed.

I’m not sure exactly what News Break wants from its new creators because truthfully, they haven’t told us at this point. I’ve republished some of my Medium articles and written some new ones to see what seems to be getting hits without promoting them myself much these first three months.

I’ve also looked at the articles of those in our groups who are getting thousands of hits, and the creators that are getting thousands of followers. It seems like there are a few types of writers and skillsets that News Break may be focusing on as they believe they’ll help the articles get the most views.

1) Location, Location, Location

When you do a general search for News Break, the first result is, “News Break: Local News and Breaking News which is also the tagline on their home page. On the search result the first button below the result title is “local.” On their headline page and your personal home page, there are four higher-order buttons: “Home”, “Local,” “Following,” and “Classifieds.” The site seems to be making a shift from primarily national and international news to more local news. They are advertising that they feature local news, weather, alerts, deals, events, and more.

So, if you can make a case that you know a lot about your city and that you are in touch with what is happening there, or you’ve written a lot about your city, this might be a plus. I imagine a lot of the major cities have writers already focusing on them so you would need to make a case that makes you look like you would have something extra to offer them.

I would also recommend going through the cities and countries that they list on the site. If you come from a place that isn’t listed that you can write about point this out. It will also show that you’ve done your research and know what the site is about and what it covers.

2) Online Personalities

When I say “personalities” I don’t mean you have to be someone who is famous or someone who regularly walks the red carpet. But there are writers who have a wide online presence and are recognized as their own brand. (This is an idea that actually came from Roz Warren and I think she’s dead on the money here).

These individuals write personal essays about difficulties in their own lives, how these problems affected them, and what they did about them. They touch on problems that many people struggle with like being bullied, or failure and success, or getting back at “the man,” and the like.

The key to these types of writers is they incorporate a lot of who they are into their stories to create an actual persona that people relate to and recognize. All of their stories contribute to this persona and their readers feel like they are watching the person’s life unfold online over time. They hear about their past experiences, what life is like for them now, and their hopes and dreams for the future. They always write in the first person and make the reader feel like they are talking directly to them.

I think this is the most difficult type of writer to become so there are not that many who do this well. That is because once you start creating this persona online, you can’t just stop or “change lanes” if you decide you want to try something different like more formal articles or research reports. You have to be invested in the persona you are “creating” 100 percent or your readers will become upset and abandon you.

You also have to be willing to reveal personal things about yourself that are true even if you embellish them a bit for the sake of the story. Your readers will know if you are being fake or “phoning it in”. The longer you do this, the more personal your readers will expect your posts to be. They want into your life and you have to find a way to make them feel you are giving them that without losing the level of privacy that you need.

As I say there aren’t that many of these around that are 100 percent “in” and have collected a large and loyal following. If you are one of these people, however, it’s a great thing to discuss because you can point out that there is only one of you who can write the material you write and attract the kind of following you have. (A general note here — If you have a large following on any platform or even for your personal blog, point it out and tell them how you managed it).

3) SEO Writers with Marketing Knowledge

I’ve lumped these together because they are both skills that I imagine must be valued at News Break. Just like they don’t have time to edit your work extensively, they don’t have time to added SEO components or to market your work. If you have a lot of knowledge of SEO this is a valuable skill to them since it increases the chances your article will show up in search results.

As far as marketing and distribution are concerned, your work is distributed to other News Break folks who are your followers or based on the tags that are assigned to them by an algorithm. This may or may not result in a lot of page views and new followers, (which you need to earn any money from month to month).

News Break does not do any kind of actual marketing for your work at all, so that falls to the writer. If you have a lot of marketing knowledge, especially any credentials like classes or better yet a degree, this could help you make your case for why you should be accepted as a writer for News Break.

4) Killer Titles

News Break seems to send out waves of notifications for new articles at different times of the day. I haven’t actually monitored this to see when they are but it seems like starting early morning it is every few hours. I have to admit sometimes I get very annoyed by the constant notification tone that seems incessant for several minutes at a time. They come one right after the other.

Another thing about notifications is that they only include the title of the article, not the author or news outlet. So as far as notifications go, you aren’t going up against Newsweek or the New Yorker because your name and theirs aren’t on the notification. It comes down to whose title is the most likely to attract attention.

This is a great feature. It means if we write a news article on a topic covered by the main news establishment, if our title is better, or we’ve added something the other articles don’t have, we will have a better chance of people clicking on our article. But professional journalists and editors are very experienced in doing this so, at the same time, we really have to know how to write great titles to compete. If you can do this as well as news people can, I imagine you’ll be attractive to News Break.

If you can write titles people can’t help themselves from clicking on, discuss this. If you have some that are stellar, list them. Tell them what goes into creating those types of titles so they know yours aren’t just an accident of luck.

5) Established in an Area with Credentials

I imagine another group of writers that would be attractive to New Break include people who have a background and are well known in an area. They have credentials and are widely published and recognized in their field. This tends to be people who do more formal writing about topics they know a lot about and have degrees, experience, or other credentials in the area. This may also be “pop” writing like, “pop psychology” or self-help, etc.

Point out your background, credentials, and history of writing in the area, and if possible give stats on your articles that show they are well-read. Awards and honors in the area will also help.

6) People who are known across media platforms.

These are people who have written for platforms like Medium or Hubpages, mainstream magazines online or print, and major news outlets like the NY Times or the Washington Post. They’ve been mentioned widely for their work, interviewed about their writing what they’ve received honors, and won awards for their writing. In addition, to being writers they have also often been editors, a skill I imagine is valued by NB since they don’t want to have to do much editing for all their new creators.

You can discuss your various accomplishments in writing succinctly, listing platforms you’ve written on and any stats you have showing followers and reads, other writing you’ve done for news outlets, and other info you have that shows you are widely published and popular across the web and have gained attention off the web as well.

7) Influencers

It goes without saying that if you are an influencer or someone who is seen as having authority in a niche or industry with sway over their target audience, or you are a social media guru, that’s could be your in. Obviously, you also have to write well and show this through some of the work you’ve written. But if you can show that you have a loyal following who will read what you write or know how to leverage social media to attract followers and readers I can’t imagine this wouldn’t be seen as valuable to News Break.

Final Thoughts

Again, I don’t have any special knowledge about how News Break decides who to accept as writers. But when we applied, we only were able to give them a single link to support our application. If you approach this as you would a job application by matching your expertise to what News Break seems to focusing on and their possible needs as they move forward, you will have a better chance at being accepted. For those already rejected, you might be able to convince them to take a second look.

Full Disclosure: This is my referral link for fellow writers. If you would like to sign up for the program, I’d really appreciate it if you would use it.

If you would just like to download the app to read what is on the site without necessarily contributing to the content, you can do so here.

If you prefer not to use my links it’s no problem. The purpose of this article was to provide my personal impressions of what might help you look attractive to New Break if you decide to apply or reapply. I know a number of people have been rejected and really think some of this may be because there wasn’t the opportunity to show the areas that might benefit or be attractive to New Break. I hope this information proves useful for many of you.

P.S. Just to give you some perspective, I had 51 people listed as having used my link in applying. To date 47 were rejected, 3 were accepted and 1 is still pending. I don’t know if this is representative or not, since I have no idea who any of these writers are. But if it seems like everyone but you are being accepted, this isn’t true. Writing is competitive and the hard truth is there is a lot of rejection in this field. Sometimes it may be because of skill but often it’s more about fit. The best thing you can do is to shake it off and just keep writing!

Natalie Frank has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. She is the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found here on Amazon.

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You can find links to my other work on Medium and follow me here. Thanks for reading!