If it’s Friday, then it’s a magazine masterclass in Chester.
I ran the first in a series of new-style workshops today, hosted by Meltdown, in which we got to grips with some of the thorny issues of making it as a magazine journalist.
Such as, you ask? Well, try signposting, pitching editors and, the thorniest of all — money.
Magazines matter, I think. They educate and inform; they define the age in which we live.
That’s why our discussion moved from Nineties Britpop and Loaded to Monacle‘s spin-off brands and the rise of the indie magazine as celebrated by Stack Magazines.
It was a lively debate with four super-keen wannabe hacks [pictured above], all of whom brought loads of experience, ideas and enthusiasm to the session.
Here’s a taster of some of the take-away tips of the day …
If you’re going freelance, then you will need:
- An ability to generate lots of ideas and pitch them successfully, turning your ideas into hard cash
- An ability to take old ideas and recycle them or spin-off fresh ones with different angles. Either way, you need to refresh quotes, rewrite intros and concs, and check with editors re copyright contracts
- Some business sense and a basic grasp of accountancy to keep your own records
Thanks to the attendees and for the great feedback, such as:
Fantastic session, I throughly enjoyed it! Great seeing you all again and meeting some new faces.
— Joe McDiarmid (@jmcduck) September 22, 2017
And this comment from the feedback sheet:
“This has given me the confidence to give it a go and actually start pitching stories to editors.”
The plan is to take these workshops quarterly, so look out for the next one in the new year.
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