ABSTRACT
Your work as a freelance feature writer is tough and demanding. You are your own boss. This puts you in charge of marketing, prepar ing, and submitting your work. No one does any of this for you. Some people find this working environment-best of all, the freedom and flexibility-to be to their liking. Others cannot handle it well and pre fer staff work. You have to decide what is better for you. Some writers feel there is no better time than now to be a freelance feature writer. There are more magazines, therefore more markets, than ever before. There is greater specialization than the magazine industry has ever known. Although there may be fewer newspapers, there are more edi tions of the major dailies caused by zoning, or segmentation, of neighborhood coverage. Yet, other writers say full-time freelance writing has never been so tough. Pay rates are consumed by inflation,
some larger fee magazines have closed, and larger numbers of writers m ake the w ork m ore co m p e t i t iv e . Are you ready fo r tha t? Free-lancing is not an easy endeavor for beginners, especially youn ger writers who may lack savvy business skills.
