Ask the cubicle expat: To blog or to pitch?

Trina Sargalski writes: I’ve been blogging regularly about local and seasonal food in Miami. I just went part time at my school so I could devote more time to my freelance career. I’m wondering how you decide as a freelancer what to blog and what to save to pitch to publications and websites. Should I be worried about other journalists pilfering my ideas to use for their own pitches? I’m really confused on this one and would appreciate any advice either by email or on the blog!

I answer: This is such a fabulous question. Let’s start backwards: There are rarely unique ideas in the world of pitching, just unique spins on old tales (like, a new study comes out, or there’s a pop culture tie-in). To see what I mean, subscribe to Peter Shankman’s If I Can Help a Reporter Out, and marvel at how familiar all the story ideas sound (Greening Your Office, Losing Your Home, How Greening Your Office While Losing Your Home Affects Your Love Life, and so on). Or just go to the newsstand and read a few magazine covers or tables of contents. Then note how the headlines are virtually the same as they were last year, only with a few more “belt-tightening” and “tough economy” tips thrown in.

That said, if you have a stellar story idea, do not put it on your blog before you pitch it. Why tempt fate? And why waste it on an unpaid blog when you might be able to get paid cash dollar bills for it?

Here’s how I decide between blogging and pitching (for the sake of argument, let’s pretend I’ve been blogging a bit more regularly than I have been):

Could this idea make an entire article (rather than just a one-paragraph blip on my blog)? Are there viable media outlets where I could sell this article (or, do I know editors that might like this idea, or could I use it in my paid columns)? If so, then I pitch first. If I sell the article, I can always mention an interesting aspect of it on my blog later, once its been published.

I had your dilemma — to blog or save my ideas for paid work — when I was writing my new book earlier this year, which, like this blog, is on freelancing. Because I wanted the book to be fresh, I shied away from blogging about the topics in my book outline. I, of couse, had about 50 little sections or sidebars that I didn’t have room to include in the book. Some will likely turn into articles (some already have), or blog posts, or possibly even another book.

Once you start selling articles, you’ll get a better sense of what you don’t mind “giving up for free” and what you’d prefer to sell (said the gal who’s been having a hard time keeping up with her unpaid blog of late). But as always, I’d love to hear what others think on pitching vs. blogging. If you have a completely different MO than me (make money from my writing, get more national bylines), you may have a different take.

7 comments August 23rd, 2008

When to breed, if at all

Unless you’ve downshifted even more than I have this summer, you probably saw the U.S. Census Bureau report that more dames are having kids later — or not at all — than ever before. Maybe now your Aunt Rudy will stop asking when you’re going to get knocked up.

As for having kids sooner or later (if you choose to have ‘em at all) and how that affects the ole career, thanks, everyone, who shared your tales with me. I crammed as many as I could into an ABCNews.com column called Career Choice: Motherhood Now or Later. Here’s the top of it:

Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes it feels as if researchers are popping out press releases on motherhood and careers faster than women are actually birthing babies.

In July, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, told us that Harvard grads who went on to get their MBAs became stay-at-home moms at a higher rate than grads who went on to become doctors or lawyers.

Earlier this month, Cornell University let us know that mothers were 90 percent more likely to ditch their careers if their husbands worked at least 60 hours a week but that, if the roles were reversed, the husbands would likely keep on working.

And just last week, Cambridge University informed us that in the U.S., the percentage of people in favor of moms working full time dropped to 38 percent in 2002, down from 51 percent in 1994. In other words, if you believe that “family life would not suffer” if a mom has a career, you’re in the minority.

Others — like “Why It’s Best to Marry in Your Twenties” and “Parents: Tell Your Adult Children, ‘Don’t Delay Childbearing!’” — are so hideous that you just want to throw a baby blanket over their heads.

It’s hardly a news flash that, on average, women who choose to have kids do so later in life than their own mothers did. Nor is it news that more often than not, today’s moms are balancing a career in the process.

So rather than judge the breeding and breadwinning decisions of others — or dwell on the fact that no one’s scrutinizing every move men make with anywhere near the intensity — let’s look at the factors real-life moms consider when they weigh how and when to blend motherhood with their careers.

You can read the rest of this article here.

1 comment August 23rd, 2008