By Rosemary Westwood, National Science Health Environment Reporting Fellowship
Anna Medaris didn’t plan it this way. As she put it, one year ago she “stepped off a cliff.”
Medaris had held a series of staff jobs for years, until she decided to take a buyout and leave her health correspondent job at Insider.
“I hadn’t developed a plan, saved up money or rebranded my website, and spoiler — I didn’t crash and burn,” she said during a 15-minute lightning talk titled “How to land on your feet after becoming an accidental freelancer.”
“I didn’t sail off into the sunset either,” she cautioned.
Instead, she found her career moved “like a kite,” picking up wind and speed and then falling into lulls. She estimated she’s now making half of what she earned at Insider, on top of buyout money, but said she expects to see that improve; she can pay the rent on time “sometimes” she noted, to laughter in the room.
Medaris shared six key lessons that have helped her eke out a living amidst the unpredictability of the freelancer’s life.
First, “find community,” she said, adding that freelance writing is solitary, but the career doesn’t have to be. Medaris found freelancer groups on Facebook where people share editor contacts and calls for pitches, paid networks such as Study Hall and freelance groups within journalism organizations including the Society of Professional Journalists and the Association of Health Care Journalists. Freelancer podcasts such as the Writer’s Co-op gave her motivation and support.
Second, she said: “Put it out there.” Medaris announced her transition to freelance on social media, including praise from editors, and within hours she had a message from a New York Times editor asking for pitches. Others who’d seen the post connected her to editors at a medical trade magazine and Everyday Health. She recommended posting your professional news even on social media sites where your profile has been collecting dust, because people can “come out of the woodwork.”
Her third tip underlined the second: “Connections really do matter.” Without realizing it, Medaris had been weaving herself a safety net, she said, through being active in journalist associations and connecting with others in the industry. Meeting people at holiday networking parties led to a Vox assignment, she said. “Start meeting people today, follow editors and writers you admire and engage with them online and go to parties,” said Medaris.
Medaris has written more than 40 stories across about a dozen outlets over the past year, “and none [of the ideas] were my own.” Only now, after building relationships and understanding different publications’ needs and styles, is she starting to see her own ideas come to life in print.
“But my last and most important tip is to deliver,” she said. “Don’t submit copy with typos, know the style guides of the publications you’re writing for and make the editor’s job easy.”
It surprised her how just doing your job well can help you rise to the top, she said.
During questions and answers, Medaris said she tries to earn $1/word, and that her partner shares the household bills, providing financial support during the slow months.
“I’m lucky. I have a dog, no kids,” she said, which takes some of the pressure off the instability of freelance life. But she summed it up this way: “I love life as a kite.”
Rosemary Westwood is an editor with WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and a reproductive health reporter for public radio and NPR.
