Advice from Alumni

Read interviews with freelancers offering tips and advice on how to succeed as a freelance journalist. Plus, get more tips from graduates.

Tips From the Class of 2005
Tips From the Class of 2006

Alicia Zuckerman, J-2000, remembers the advice she got from her professors at Columbia: To work in New York, you have to leave New York. She ignored their advice and got lucky.

Zuckerman, now 33, has been a classical music and dance writer for New York magazine almost since graduation. But she didn't land her big-time magazine job only by luck. She had an uncommon passion – classical music, and she knew her subject well.

"There aren't a whole lot of journalists of my generation who know about classical music well enough to write about it,'' said Zuckerman, who studied English and music as an undergrad at SUNY Albany. "When I go to a press conference at Lincoln Center, there are only a handful of us, and we all know each other.''

Zuckerman started out several months after graduation as an $18-an-hour fact-checker for the classical music section of New York magazine. It was a job that put her in constant contact with editors. "It's not that hard to get a fact-checking job, but if the editors really like you it can work in your favor,'' says Zuckerman.

After one month – and this is where her luck came in – the regular classical music writer announced she was moving to England and asked Zuckerman if she wanted the job. The editors gave her a one-week tryout and hired her. She's been on contract for five-and-a-half years. She writes about classical music and dance. Her New York contract is “definitely my bread-and-butter, but I have to do other things as well.''

Those "other things'' have included reporting on the arts for WNYC, New York's public radio station, and writing feature stories for concert programs at Lincoln Center and other cultural institutions, as well as CD liner notes. As an amateur musician, she loves public radio. "But it's a lot more work than print, and for freelancers, the pay tends to be really low,'' Zuckerman says. "On the other hand, it’s a lot of fun. Obviously when I'm doing stories about music, there's no better medium than radio.’’

If Zuckerman could give any advice to would-be freelancers in New York, it would be to develop a niche. "My classical music background is probably why I ended up not having to pay dues in a small town,'' she says.

But the freelance life isn't for everybody.

"It takes a specific kind of personality to forgo the security that a staff job offers, but for me the tradeoffs work,'' she says. "I take time off when I want. And we just got laptops, so now I go in to the office once a week, and I write up the listings from wherever I am. Right now I'm in upstate New York.'' / September 2006

Melanie D.G. Kaplan, J-1998, started freelancing in 1995 in Atlanta, where she moved to because she had her heart set on working for the 1996 Olympics. She struck out at Olympic Park, but landed a job organizing professional tennis and beach volleyball events. While the job had nothing to do with journalism, Kaplan, an undergraduate broadcast major from Syracuse University, kept her ear to the ground the whole time.

“I talked to everyone in sports that I knew,’’ said Kaplan, 35, who now makes her home in Washington, D.C. “I decided to focus on sports writing because I thought that, being a woman, it wouldn’t be as competitive for me to break in.’’

She was right. The first magazine that gave her a chance was the Atlanta Business Chronicle, which is owned by American City Business Journals, a media company that puts out weekly business tabloids in 41 U.S. cities. Soon she was writing sports business and sports profiles. The pay was lousy - $110 for a 1,000-word profile - but Kaplan didn’t care.

“I loved what I was doing,’’ says Kaplan. “And I’ve always been willing to have a lot of things going on the side.’’

She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1997 and made an easy transition writing for the American City Business Journal newspaper there – the Washington Business Journal. Soon she was banging out profiles of Orioles players and other sports figures. She also got a contract to write CD-ROM content for National Geographic.

“By the time I got to Columbia, I would say I had hundreds of clips,’’ says Kaplan. “But going to Columbia helped me be a better reporter.’’

She stayed in New York for six months after graduation. “I was trying to sell a book, but it turned into a feature story for the New York Times Education Life section,’’ she said.

Then she got an e-mail from Dean of Students Sree Sreenivasan about a freelance writing opportunity in Washington. She sent her resume and clips immediately.

“It ended up being for USA Weekend, and they were looking for a profile of Frederick Douglass’s great-great-grandson,’’ she recalls. “It was a great gig - $3 a word, in a high-profile publication.’’

She moved back to Washington and has been busy ever since. A regular writer for USA Weekend and The Washington Post, Kaplan is always game to add something else to her plate. She also writes quarterly newsletters for the National Football League and the American Association of Retired Persons. Last year she made about $56,000 and this year expects to make considerably more.

“I’ve been at this for 11 years,’’ Kaplan says. “It’s a long process and you have to be persistent. You still have to balance it out between the things you love to write and the things that pay the bills.’’

Her newspaper assignments for The Post fall into the former category. “About every couple months, I’ll write for The Washington Post Style section. I took a beginning motorcycle class in New Jersey and pitched that; I took a blacksmithing class in Charlottesville, Virginia, and wrote that. They like ‘quirky.’ ’’

She also encourages would-be freelancers to think beyond the glitz of New York.

“Everybody wants to be a travel writer and work at Conde Nast, but meanwhile, the Washington Flyer, which is a freebie at the airport, has sent me to Tokyo, Thailand and Uruguay in the last three years, and I get to write first-person travel pieces, all expenses paid.’’

Kaplan works hard but loves the freelance life, even without retirement and health benefits. “The big perk is the autonomy I have over my sked,’’ she says. “I have a lot of time off.’’

Her advice to students: “Have a niche. For me it was sports reporting and moving to Washington. And be willing to do anything.’’ / September 2006

More to come…