About Barbara Mantel
Barbara Mantel (@BJMantel), an independent journalist, is AHCJ’s freelance community correspondent. Her work has appeared in CQ Researcher, Rural Health Quarterly, Undark, Healthline, NBCNews.com and NPR, among others. She helps members find the resources they need to succeed as freelancers and welcomes your suggestions.
Photo by Coffee Channel via Flickr
Most of the guides in the Freelance Center are now current. I hope to update the remaining two by the end of the month and will continue reaching out to editors for new market guides.
Let me know if you would like to see pitching instructions from a particular publication or if you have a contact for a publication that you think I should approach. You can contact me at freelance@healthjournalism.org.
The latest additions included revised guides for Cosmopolitan, Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News and Nature Medicine and a new guide for Prevention. I’d like to thank freelance medical writer and editor Erin Boyle and AHCJ board member Jeanne Erdmann for their help.
Cosmopolitan pays $2 per word for print stories, but the print magazine is published only nine times a year. Not every issue will have a health story, according to Lifestyle Director Ashley Oerman. The fee for digital stories depends on the amount of reporting required and the writer’s experience level. Those story ideas are often generated by Cosmo’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) team. Nevertheless, Oerman said she welcomes freelance pitches for both print and digital, especially around mental health and the health care system. Story ideas should be tailored to the target audience, women ages 18-35.
Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News is a monthly print magazine and website aimed at a specialized audience of health care providers. Managing Editor Adam Marcus said freelancers have the most success pitching him feature stories, which typically range from 900 to 1,200 words. Fees start at 75 cents per word and can go higher depending on the amount of research and the number of interviews. “One thing that many freelancers don’t understand, initially, when writing for us is that we’re not looking for consumer-oriented news or features,” Marcus said. “We’re looking for things that are directed at practicing gastroenterologists.”
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Barbara Mantel (@BJMantel), an independent journalist, is AHCJ’s freelance community correspondent. Her work has appeared in CQ Researcher, Rural Health Quarterly, Undark, Healthline, NBCNews.com and NPR, among others. She helps members find the resources they need to succeed as freelancers and welcomes your suggestions.
