How to get published - Tips for emailing editors - Freelance

How To Get Published: What NOT To Do When Emailing Editors

Once upon a time, I was an intern-turned-editorial contributor at the crown jewel of stylish online publishing, Refinery29.

Our stylish, growing team was crammed in a chic basement office, clattering away at our keyboards in a highly collaborative atmosphere.

As a freshly churned out fashion school grad, it was basically the best place I could have imagined working. They effectively kickstarted my writing career, which is huge. If the editors there hadn’t taken a chance on me, there’s no telling what I’d be doing right now.

…or whether this blog would exist!

Anyway, while growing increasingly obsessed with their ultra-cool content, I learned a lot about online publishing—specifically what editors look for.

In fact, I learned quickly enough that shortly after becoming an intern, I was allowed to guest-edit the site when the Editor in Chief or Global Editor had to step out for a meeting (or a runway show).

Site traffic was growing steadily, which meant editor inboxes were filling up regularly with pitches.

It seemed like everyone wanted to score some a piece of that prime digital real estate.

The editors spent a crazy amount of time reading emails from people hoping to place products or personalities on the website. They would laugh at some, gawk at others, and immediately assign some to be written up and published.

Others got deleted without a thought.

What was that magic quality something had to have to get published?, I wondered. And, after a while, I caught on. Years later, the same “magic qualities” hold true.

Want to get your projects published? Here’s what not to do when you’re writing to an editor…

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Day Job Optional - Freelance Writing Resource - Michelle Christina Larsen - Krystal Raydo

Day Job Optional will Change Your Freelance Writing Game Forever

Aaand we’re live! Welcome to Day Job Optional!

We’re Michelle Christina and Krystal: freelance writers with a passion for the location-independent lifestyle.

We’ve taken advantage of our online writing careers to travel the world, set our own schedules, and live life on our own terms—and now we’re passionate about helping other writers do the same. You’ll typically find us wherever there’s Wi-Fi, palm trees, and margaritas… but at the end of the day, we call New York City our home!

We created this website to share our experiences with you, as well as our tried-and-true tips for remote working as we navigate the location-free lifestyle. We truly believe that anyone with a passion for writing and a laptop can launch a lucrative online career by putting in strategic, consistent work.

The blog posts and other things you’ll find on this site are meant both for people who want to work from their couches (or a cool local coffee shop), and those who are aching to go full blown digital nomad. If you want to keep your day job and make a few extra thousand on the side each month? We’re here for you, too.

After all, it’s “day job optional“, friends!

If this sounds exciting, keep reading.

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