Good question! I get work from three buckets (and I should probably write a post about this down the line): The first is referrals. When I started freelancing, I talked to everyone I knew and told them I needed work. I have a lot of connections from previous jobs, so those led to some big clients right out of the gate (like REI and Headspace).

The second bucket is job boards. I’m part of a lot of job boards on Facebook where editors and companies will post their need for writers and editors. I respond to at least 1–2 of these postings every week, and probably hear back from about 1/5 of those editors. Only a few of those are a good fit in terms of pay and timing. That’s how I started working with places like mindbodygreen and Medium.

The third bucket is cold pitching. This works less well, and I do it less often since it’s unpaid time. But I will occasionally send story ideas to editors I don’t know or publications I have never worked with before, to expand my rolodex of clients. Since editors are less likely to accept pitches from writers they don’t know (and I’ve been an editor, so I’ve seen this first hand), I’m more skeptical about this process and would prefer to find clients based on the first two buckets.

At this point, most of my steady clients (like REI, mindbodygreen and Medium) approach me with assignments, which saves me a lot of time. But that took about 9 months to establish, and it’s still not always the case!

I hope that helps :)