“Specialist” Isn’t A Bad Word: A Guest Post by Damon Brown
On Monday Damon Brown begins his popular Renegade Writer e-course, “Tech Journalism 2.0: Making Money With Your Inner Geek.” The Tech Chair of the 2010 American Society of Journalists and Authors conference, Damon is the author of nine books and regularly contributes to Playboy, New York Post, Family Circle and AARP: The Magazine. You can follow his funny, frequent and, ideally, fascinating tweets at http://www.twitter.com/browndamon.
“Specialist” Isn’t A Bad Word
Spend any time as a freelancer and you’ll get into an age old argument: Do you specialize or do you generalize? It can be a heated discussion with an aspiring journalist, a veteran freelancer or, more than likely, with yourself. The fear is that if editors think you only cover certain subjects, they won’t call you. This is a justifiable fear, assuming you don’t know how to market yourself correctly. You don’t have to be a generalist to be busy. In fact, the past decade has been strong for me because I specialize.
Let’s break down how.
BE CONFIDENT IN WHAT YOU ARE (AND IN WHAT YOU ARE NOT)
Like perceptive people on a date, editors can sense when you’re trying to shoehorn your abilities into what they need so you can close the deal. It means confronting perhaps our biggest fear: Walking away from a potential sale.
A great way to practice this idea is to attend an editor meet-and-greet, such as the American Society of Journalists and Authors conference (I’m actually the ASJA Tech Chair this year and will be on a few panels myself). I make it a point to attend as many conferences I can where I can meet new editors.
Around the time I first started freelancing, I ended up winning an open slot with an editor from a magazine that seemingly had nothing to do with my three specialties: music, technology and sexuality. Not wanting to turn down an opportunity, I sat with the editor, happily told my previous publications and specialties, and simply asked “I know those areas don’t necessarily come to mind with your pub, but I’d love to help support your editorial any way I can. Can you tell me more about your needs?” The editor started talking about what the publication lacked and, suddenly, we both started brainstorming on ways I could contribute based on my strengths. I could have tried to sell myself based on what I thought the editor wanted, but I would have looked like every other person pitching the magazine – and would have hidden my true selling points. I still regularly write for the publication today.
CHECK THE ANGLES
A solid angle on a strange subject is always better than a weak angle on a traditional sure shot. Naïve specialists assume that the specialty itself is the angle, but in reality, just like any other story, the topic is never the selling point.
As an example, imagine being a music specialist interested in writing about Haiti. The obvious pitch would be “I’d like to do an article on Haiti’s music, so we can better understand the people after the earthquake crisis.” Sure, that’ll do for some publications. However, if you’d really like to take advantage of your specialty, it’s possible to make the story even more relevant, like “Not unlike New Orleans, Haiti has very poor records of its legendary artists. I’d love to talk to historians to find out how much of this musical history has been lost because of the earthquake” or “The last earthquake of this magnitude hit both the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 1946. I’d like to look at the music that came out of that particular earthquake so we can see how people coped at the time.”
A specialty makes it easier to market yourself and to focus, but story ideas still require work to become the best pitches possible.
CHANGE BEFORE CIRCUMSTANCES MAKE YOU
Applicable to any entrepreneur, which, when you freelance, is essentially what you are becoming, it is important to spot sea changes and adjust before it adversely affects your business.
For instance, let’s say you decide to specialize in eye care, particularly eyeglasses. Laser surgery is coming into vogue, so less people are interested in eyeglasses than they were a decade ago, but you keep pitching articles on suitable eyeglasses, on eyeglasses styles and so on. The pitches may make you seem both dated and unusable to editors.
When it comes to being a successful specialist, these three goals can seem difficult because a) we have gotten complacent with past successes and are too lazy to stay up on the latest news in our chosen specialty or b) we have become attached to the narrow definition of our specialty and are too stubborn to expand or adjust it accordingly.
As I discuss in my journalism classes, however, any nearly specialty can become a gold mine to the open minded journalist.
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Feb 10, 2010 Advice, Classes, Query letters
