On Your Own: A Guide to Freelance Journalism - Society of Professional Journalists

Journalists have found these sites helpful in looking for new freelance clients, to varying degrees. More information about finding work on the web is available in Trolling the web for work in the Finding work section.

Website names listed here are linked to the site’s Home page. Unless stated otherwise, their services are free. Some of these sites aggregate online postings from other job listings, while others include only direct postings from potential employers/clients or recruiters.

Warning: This list may be incomplete! Please send suggestions for other sites that should be listed here, along with any other comments, to [email protected].

JournalismJobs.com

This site is the most specialized for finding journalism jobs. Jobs are posted by media outlets and other organizations, including PR agencies, trade associations and J schools. Job seekers’ accounts are free.

Features:

Search by industry, including a selection for freelance
The location filter includes telecommute.
Post a resume to create an account and sign up for job alerts.

Media Bistro

Most of the listings on Media Bistro, long a go-to site for all types of media jobs, are full-time positions. Useful filters include job category, role, location (including Working from Home) and duration. All jobs/gigs are posted on the site; it is not an aggregator.

Features:

Job listings include an Editorial & Journalism category (194 listings one September 2016 day), and the Freelance option under Duration whittled the list down to 15.
Sign up for email alerts.
$55/year subscription permits access to other services, including a database of mastheads and editorial calendars, a Career Advice section with Go Freelance articles and blog posts offering advice on business basics, journalism advice and how to pitch.
For $15/month (in addition to the subscription fee), members can belong to the Freelance Marketplace and customize a profile, including links to or uploads of portfolio pieces.

ED2010

This site was founded in 1996 by aspiring magazine staff members who saw the need for a networking organization for folks like themselves. It’s set up as a nonprofit networking and mentoring organization that “helps the next generation of editors and writers break into and succeed in the magazine media industry.” Many of the original organizers have moved on in their careers but continue to be involved in the organization.

Features:

Job listings include magazine, digital editorial and social media gigs among full-time jobs and internships, paid and unpaid; filter by Temp/Freelance and enter “remote” in Location unless you are in New York. Some listings are exclusive; others link to postings on other job sites.
The organization helps college students, recent grads, and young editors through off-line workshops, networking events, and mentoring services.
ED2010 has college chapters at 17 schools.

Freelance Writing Jobs

This site is an old standby, with daily postings of all kinds of writing gigs — sometimes with one or two news or feature posts. Most are linked to postings on other sites (notably JournalismJobs.com but often a day late), and some are verging on silly (a docudrama of “the story of my life which is all but guaranteed to be a blockbuster hit!”).

Features:

No filters; instead, the jobs are categorized (i.e., Magazine Writing, Content Writing, Blogging, Copywriting, Proofreading/Editing, and Technical Writing).
Magazine writing gigs are more frequent than other journalism jobs.
Resources include Business Tips, Job Hunting Tips and Writing Tips.

FreelanceWriting.com

This aggregator combines postings from FreelanceJobOpenings.com, FreelanceBloggingJobs.com, Ed2010, Craigslist and Indeed. The filters are unreliable, but the site can be useful for the writers’ guidelines alone.

Features:

Job posts can be filtered, and entering Journalism in the Filter By box cuts out a lot — but not all — of the inapplicable postings.
Writers’ guidelines for 775 publications are categorized to make finding potential publishers for a specific article easier.
Journalism contests are lost in the sea of other writing contests.
Some of the free e-books offered on the site may be of interest — including one called Jumpstart a Journalism Career.

Indeed.com

Indeed calls itself the “world’s #1 job site,” and that may be true. The site pulls in jobs from across the internet, including those from potential clients’ sites as well as many of the sites reviewed here — so there are lots of jobs in its database. One disadvantage is that it’s harder to filter out PR, corporate and movie industry jobs from freelance journalism listings. Another is the sheer volume of low-paying gigs, like $70 a day for a video journalist or $25 for 500 to 1,000 words.

Features:

Although there is no freelance filter or search, the Advanced Search option allows users to set up a keyword search for “freelance,” choose “remote” for location and exclude marketing, PR and textbook jobs.
You can sign up to have new postings emailed to you as they come in.

Other internet resources

Writers Market

This directory of publishers predates the internet and is still available in an annual print resource. It doesn’t list specific job or contract opportunities, but it can a valuable resource when researching a publication to decide whether to apply.

Features:

Sort by newspapers, consumer magazines, trade magazines. (No online category but media websites are noted in listings for other categories.)
Data includes publication schedules, rates, contract terms, how to pitch, percentage freelance, editor’s name.
$40/year or $6/month for access to an online directory of publishing opportunities.
Print version available for $50 (discounts often available).

Last updated: December 2016

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