I meet a lot of writers who want to write essays. Scratch that. They want to be paid when they write essays. Now there's nothing wrong with wanting to write—and get paid for writing—essays. However, if you're an avid reader of popular newsstand magazines, you know that most of them aren't packed with essays. Many don't run essays at all; and the magazines that do run one essay each issue, usually on the back page and often from a writer who's well known to the magazine and/or

(I wrote this blog post years ago for the now defunct Renegade Writer blog and am republishing it here for my Become an Idea Machine students and the general reading public. It's a bit outdated; Borders has been out of business for years, but a lot of the tips still work. Enjoy!) This week I bought three magazines at Borders I may be interested in pitching. Total cost? $14.48. Ouch! To riff off Leona Helmsley, only fools pay newsstand prices, but I really needed these magazin

This blog post was previously published on the now defunct Renegade Writer blog. It's an oldie but goodie, still relevant today. I've made a couple minor edits, but otherwise here it is in all its previous glory. Enjoy! Like many freelancers, you probably want to sell more stories this year, and one key element to meeting this goal is having stories to tell. And like many freelancers right about now, you're probably scratching your head wondering how the heck to find these st