How To Become A Freelance Medical Writer?

How to become a Freelance Writer?

• I am a natural born writer, I love to write and I write best when it comes to non-fiction and I am interested in becoming a Freelance Writer. What exactly does one need to do to begin a career in Freelance Writing (even for local for magazines, newspapers, etc)? And how does one obtain a 'reporters pass' in order to go to, for example, a crime scene for information to report and to obtain photos, etc? I am very interested in doing this but as you can probably tell, I have no clue as to where to even begin. I am totally willing to start at the bottom/ entry level/ whatever, I just would love actually get my foot in the door though. I feel that freelance work would help me to create a portfolio of my work where I can then, hopefully, move onto bigger and better places and things from there... Anyone have any advice as to how one can begin to do this? Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance for your time and feedback!

• Answer:

  I went down to my local large bookstore (Powell's City of Books) and perused the shelves for useful stuff. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages are that you can write on whatever you like, and you can often sell the same piece, with only minor changes, to several different publications. The major disadvantages are that you have a great deal of trouble making the initial contacts, and then you don't always know whether your chosen topic will sell this month ... or this year. For the most part, you need to decide which publications have writing and articles of the type you'd like to produce. Look in the magazine or on the web site for their submission requirements. Then start writing and start sending them stuff. I know that this is simplistic. However, I'll leave the details for those book authors, as there are chapters and chapters of good info, and I don't know which 10% is what you need. Also, know that you may well be able to paper your bedroom with rejection notices before you make a sale. Keep plugging away. So far, what I have is one crossword puzzle with trivial circulation, but the direct email addresses of the puzzle editors of several major syndicates (and our local off-beat weekly, but I'm not quite in their usual head space).