LinkedIn equivalent for creative freelancers?

October 1, 2014 6:13 AM

I work in freelance newspaper/online journalism currently, but came into it through a sort of backdoor (via a career in corporate communications rather than via j-school). I now find myself in the situation of having regular work for clients that I absolutely love. Unfortunately, that work only comes out to about 20 or 25 hours a week and it would be fantastic if I could double my workload.

I have the experience and the portfolio to make me a good candidate, but I don't know how one approaches this sort of thing. My current clients have come via networking I did when working in corporate communications. What I'm really hoping is that there is some secret website where publishers post their need for new freelancers.

LinkedIn has journalism jobs, but they're pretty much all full-time and I'm not interested in dumping my current clients. There's craigslist, but the "gigs" section there is a cesspool of scams and people asking you to work for free.

I know that pitching individual stories is a done thing, and it's something that I have done with editors I have existing relationships with. Is sending cold pitches to new editors really the main way people grow their client base?

posted by 256 to Work & Money (2 answers total)

I have freelancers in my LinkedIn network and they swear by participating in groups. Once you participate in group discussions, you have more visibility. Folks can search for you and having high visibility in a group exposes you to all the group members and potentially their networks if they comment on your posts or like them.

Rule of Thumb: you should be a part of at least 10 groups but be selective since you are only allowed 50, and preferably for you a mix of groups that show your expertise and groups where your potential clients are

This article is pretty good, I think.
posted by xicana63 at 6:19 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ebyline is a resource for this.
posted by girlmightlive at 9:01 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]