If you were looking for media hits about Scripps College this summer, odds are at least one of your results brought you to Jane Scearce ‘15. The rising media studies senior from Seattle, WA, got a job with Lifehack and immediately became a prolific contributor, pumping out dozens of articles in a few short months. Now part of the C&M reporting staff, she offers some tips of the trade to aspiring writers — in bullet form, no less.
1. No experience? No problem. Demonstrate.
When I applied to Lifehack I had maybe three published pieces to my name, all recent and for a small tech/gaming news website. It wasn’t even the kind of material the Lifehack position called for. But as that timeless saying goes: You Only Live Once (thank you, Drake). So I did my best to be charming in my application and hit send. A week later I got an email welcoming me aboard. And when I applied to that first tech/gaming site, I had zero published pieces to my name. But I did have the Internet. I made a WordPress blog, wrote a few pieces on interesting tech and gaming news, and attached the links as my writing samples.
2. You don’t have to write the news
I started with a niche news website because at the time I didn’t know there were other options. But not everyone likes to write actual news articles, and you don’t have to. The majority of the stuff I “write” for Lifehack isn’t all that much writing, more like blurbs to introduce an infographic, video, series of pictures, or a republished piece. Sometimes I write listicles (like this!), but I get the ideas for them from similar ones somewhere else. You have to find a lot of content that’s both relevant and new to the site, and you churn out posts quickly. But it’s another way to produce online content if journalism isn’t your thing.
3. Speaking of lots of content, I do mean lots.
At time of writing, I have over 60 posts on Lifehack on my author profile since I started in July. I’m expected to contribute around 15 pieces per workweek. That’s about three pieces per day for five days. But getting at least three things submitted in a day isn’t the real challenge — pitching ideas is. I submit a lot of pitches so when some get rejected (which they do) I still have enough accepted ones to use. You become good at it pretty quickly if this kind of work style doesn’t stress you out.
4. Get good at checking your email, and learn how to write them.
Become awesome at checking your inbox if you aren’t already. Forget all those articles in Slate and The New York Times, you can be a frequent email-checker while maintaining your sanity. For work like this, checking email is important in case you get a message from an editor saying they need you to correct something or a reply from that blogger you contacted. Also, being able to write emails well is a pipeline to new opportunities; not only does it make you look professional to your editor(s), it’s a networking asset. For example, Lifehack contributors sometimes contact bloggers about republishing their work to the site, which has allowed me to connect with other professionals because I have a legitimate inquiry they’re more likely to respond to.
5. Familiarize yourself with open source photo resources.
For a while I assumed news sites and professional blogs had people who found photos and that writers just did the writing. This, as I’ve learned firsthand, isn’t always the case; often writers will have to supply images for articles their pieces, and rules for what images can be used vary. At Lifehack, the guidelines are pretty structured: ideal images are a decent size and resolution, under a Creative Commons or other free-to-use license, and not too “fake” (i.e., avoid stock photos). Searching Flickr and narrowing the results down to images posted under a Creative Commons license has been the most successful method for me.
6. Technology can make you a time management wizard
If you have excellent time management and organization skills without help from 21st century technology, you can skip this one. For the mortals out there, the digital and online tools available today are amazing resources for managing your work. You should seek out resource recommendations on your own, but for now start with checking out the ones I use regularly:
- Any.do — a simple to-do app (with mobile versions)
- WorkFlowy — a webapp for outlining stories and ideas
- Rescue Time — a tool for monitoring how you spend your time, with daily and weekly reports
- Evernote — the best cloud storage app for documents and webpages
- Rainy Cafe — an excellent “white noise” webapp to do work to
- Hemingway App — an editing tool that helps you make your writing clear and concise, Ã la Ernest
7. Believe that you deserve to be paid.
Writers deserve pay, period. The first online writing I did was unpaid, but it was a very light work load and wasn’t dressing itself up as an internship. Once I had at least a few things published, I sought out writing gigs that paid, which led me to Lifehack. At the very least, if you’re writing a lot of content for free, you should be getting real and useful networking opportunities and direct feedback on your writing — otherwise, you can do better.