Dear Writers —
Here are 19 publications that work directly with freelance writers.
Be sure to carefully study each publication before sending them a pitch.
If you want to succeed with your pitch, the most important work happens when you carefully study the publication, thoughtfully tailoring your idea to their specific needs.
Here are some resources to help with your pitching:
- How to Pitch a Listicle About Pop Culture
- How to Write a Pitch that Gets You Paid (Based on Real-World Examples)
- Case Study: How I Became a Regular Contributor to My Dream Publication
- Case Study: How I Broke into the Smart Mouth Newsletter and Earned $1 per Word
Open Secrets is an online magazine that publishes memorable and revealing personal essays on the topics we are taught to keep “secret.” They are open to essays (1,000 to 1,500 words) on all personal experiences. They pay authors $100 per essay. For more information, refer to this page.
Berkeleyside is a nonprofit digital news platform that reports on Berkeley and the East Bay. They would love to work with local writers, reporters, and researchers to share the stories of Berkeley, serve local information needs, and highlight important viewpoints from across the city. They pay $100 for briefs, $250 for reviews, a minimum of $350 for complex features, and a minimum of $500 for in-depth enterprise and investigative reports. To learn more, refer to their freelancer’s guide.
Crafted For All is “a professional development platform that fosters inclusive, equitable, and just spaces and experiences in the craft beverage sector.” They’re seeking writers: “We’re looking for thinkers and advocates who can educate, inspire, and challenge our community in ways that support our vision of an equitable and just craft beverage industry.” Rate is $200 to $500 per piece. To learn more, refer to this page.
Voxel Smash is a videogames website. They believe that reviews, news, features, and guides should be fun to read. They publish both new and established writers and offer full training and support to them. As per this tweet, their rates begin at $50 for features. If interested, get in touch with them at voxelsmash@gmail.com. To learn more, refer to this page.
Yellow Seeds Magazine is an online publication featuring “non-partisan think-pieces that question our cultural conversations to humanize our complexities as people.” As per this tweet by their editor, they pay $50 for essays of 700 to 800 words. If interested, send your pitches to yellowseedspub@gmail.com. To learn more, refer to their submissions guidelines.
Layered Butter is a magazine about “art, design and the movies.” They build each issue of the magazine around a particular abstract theme/genre/director/actor, and open up the submission process 2 to 3 months before the submission deadline. They also accept off-theme pitches and submissions. According to their submissions page, they don’t want reviews of movies, clickbait listicles, contrarian hot takes, and previously published works. They’re open to “other aspects of formal analysis and cultural criticism, interviews, essays, etc.” Their essays and criticism works are usually between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Rates are $100-$500. To learn more, refer to their submissions page.
Task & Purpose is an online news and culture publication for the next generation of American veterans. They are always seeking “stories on combat and what happens after, deep dives into the scourge of military sexual assault, or explainers on why the military is seeing an exodus of experienced military pilots.” They are also always looking for first-hand accounts and essays. They generally pay $500 per piece. To learn more, refer to this page.
Long Now is a non-profit organization that fosters long-term thinking. Their pitch guide says, “Our work encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization — the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan we call the long now.” They want stories that explore the ‘long now’ of climate change, the rise and fall of civilizations, biotechnology and artificial intelligence, economics, architecture, and more. They accept pitches for essays (800 to 1,800 words), reported features (1,200 to 2,500 words), interviews (1,200 to 2,000 words), book reviews, shorter articles, fiction, and poems for Ideas, their living archive of long-term thinking. Rates begin at $600 for features and range between $300 and $600 for essays, interviews, reviews, science journalism, and news articles. Rates are $100 for science fiction and $25 for poems. For more information, refer to their pitch guide.
The Blacklight is the New York Amsterdam News’ investigative unit. They are seeking experienced freelance journalists. They primarily work with freelance journalists based in the New York City area but are also open to working with those based outside the region. They pay $250+ for fact checks (500 to 1,000 words, 1 to 2 interviews); $1/word for medium length articles (800 to 1,500 words, 2 to 4 interviews); $2/word or a flat commission fee for long form articles (1,500+ words, 4+ interviews); and $250 to $500+ for data visualizations. For more information, visit this page.
The Ability Toolbox is “a lifestyle and self-help community for people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mental health conditions.” They primarily publish work by those who have “personal, lived experience with a disability, chronic illness, and/or mental health condition.” They pay $50-$150/article for original content. Pay range depends on the length as well as the research required for the article (short personal stories pay less while in-depth shopping and how-to guides pay more). In general, they focus on ‘life hacks’. For details, refer to this page.
HipLatina is a website that empowers the Latinx/e community and amplifies their voices. They cover news, entertainment, culture, wellness, beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and family. They accept pitches for original content. Their trending articles are 400-600 words, features/essays are 1,000-1,500 words, and each item in a listicle is at least 75 words. Rate is $50 to $150 per piece. If interested, email your pitches to hiplatinapitches@mycodemedia.com. To learn more, read their pitching guidelines.
Orion Magazine is a quarterly magazine committed to producing stories that “meet the collective need for emotional, spiritual, and social connections with nature and each other.” According to this Tweet, all of their print essays are paid assignments. Rates start at $500 for the shortest print pieces and increase from there. For more information, read their submission guidelines.
Monarch is an online directory that connects therapy seekers to clinicians. They look to create and publish clear, honest, and actionable mental health articles. They have high journalistic standards. They prize science-backed information with a minimum of 1 to 2 quotes from licensed experts as well as references to a minimum of 2 peer-reviewed studies. They pay a flat rate of $500 per article (1,000 to 3,000 words). As their parent company is US-based, to get paid you should either live in the US or have a US bank account and tax ID. For details, refer to this page, and their writers’ guidelines.
Transformations is a digital magazine of narrative essays and other content. The magazine is “published by the Narrative Storytelling Initiative at Arizona State University and is a publishing channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books.” They look for life-changing experiences that have influenced the direction of your lives. They accept pitches about your transformation narrative at transformations@asu.edu. Transformations essays are usually 1,300 to 2,000 words. They also accept submissions of “Snapshot” essays (about 600 words) and book excerpts. According to this Tweet, they pay $100 per narrative essay. To learn more, refer to their submissions page.
Health.com is a source for information on fitness, nutrition, beauty, wellness, and lifestyle. The majority of their readers are female. They accept pitches for: personal essays with reporting; explainers; reports/trend pieces; topical service (service content related to current events); as told to (one-on-one interview narrative); social trends; and product reviews. Rates are $200-$1,000 for personal essays and topical service; $250-$1,000 for reports/trend pieces; $200-$500 for explainers, as told to, and social trends; and $150 to $300 for product reviews. For details, read their pitch guide.
Variable West is a platform for West Coast art. They welcome pitches from writers. They have 5 pitch categories: Love Letters, The Why, Pairings, Exhibition Reviews and Artist Interviews.
-Love Letters: Micro essays of 200-250 words on artists we can’t stop thinking about. Rate: $50
-The Why: Stories of 200-300 words on what inspires West Coast creatives. Rate: $50
-Pairings: “Art that makes us think of food and food that makes us think of art.” Rate: $75 for 300-400 words
-Exhibition Reviews and Artist Interviews: for exhibition reviews (600-800 words) and interviews (2,000 words), they are accepting pitches on the theme of “Staying With the Trouble a la Donna Haraway.” Rate: $150
For more information, read their call for pitches.
Futurism is a digital media platform that covers science, technology, and medicine news that are changing the world. They pay about $200 to $500 per piece. To contact them, refer to this page.
The Xylom is a media outlet that creates “personal stories of science and humanity.” They are looking for personal essays (1,200-1,500 words) that are “at least tangentially related to science”, science analysis and opinion pieces (1,200-1,500 words), narrative-driven science feature stories, and 10-ish-word stories. They pay every storyteller at least $200. To learn more, refer to their submissions page.
The Drift is “a magazine of culture and politics.” They want “socially engaged cultural criticism; class-sensitive analysis; pieces that point out what’s being avoided or talked around in politics, media, arts, or even academia; upbeat cynicism; un-self-serious screeds; generous takedowns; entries from the margins; fiction; poetry; 1-3 sentence book/ movie/ TV/ art reviews.” They pay:
– $2,000 for essays
– $500 – $1,000 for short stories
– $150 for poems
– $25 for Mentions
To learn more, refer to this page.
