Ways to make money as a freelance music journalist in 2023

God, it's brutal out here...

Aug 29, 2023

If you’re working in arts and culture right now, I probably don’t need to tell you that times feel tough. Barely a day passes when we’re not hearing dire news about a much-loved publication shutting down, rates stagnating or rumours of well-trained newsdesks being replaced by generative AI. Even if, like myself, you’re balancing freelancing alongside other jobs, it’s harrowing business, and enough to put you off even trying to keep a foot in the door of something as ‘frivolous’ as music journalism during a cost-of-living crisis.

I’m not going to lie and say that this feature offers total revelation, or suggests that it’s easy to make your rent off the back of a few well-placed articles and a solid dose of hashtag posi vibes. If you’re only just starting out as a music writer, reading this might even end up feeling annoyingly chicken and egg — often, the most lucrative opportunities don’t reveal themselves until you’ve put your years in and can prove that you are someone who can be trusted to deliver copy with the right tone and authority.

I completely hear this struggle, and future posts will explore the tricky nature of actually getting started in music journalism, offering up tips on sending pitches and crafting a compelling interview/review/reported feature. For now though, this newsletter goes out to those who already work in freelance music writing, but are perhaps wondering how they can make a few extra ££s to keep this whole thing going. Let’s dive in.

Spend money to make money

Let’s get the annoying one out of the way first. If you’re already feeling hard up then the idea of investing in flashy things like transcription software may feel like an impossible luxury. That said, there is some ‘more speed, less haste’ logic to the idea of making use of certain helpful tools. Time saved by using a service like Otter.ai frees you up to get writing quicker, and if you’re writing quicker, there is every chance that you will be able to fit more commissions/pitches into your working week. If you can’t afford the paid-for version, there is a free one too; just splice your audio into a few separate parts to get around the upload length limit.

The same goes for paying out to subscribe to specific job newsletters, paywalled content or trade publications, although there are plenty of great free resources out there too (will round these up in another post soon). Getting to know the business and being clued in on current job/pitch listings is a surefire way to maximise your earning potential without having to sign up for any #girlboss pyramid schemes.

I would also deeply recommend spending a few pounds a year on a simple, independently hosted website and professional email address. Active social media and exhaustive contently.com portfolios are great, but one simple landing page with all your contact details and best past work can make it much easier for people to find you and see what you’re all about. Be sure to keep this updated — when social media is having a meltdown, this is the space where you can remain in at least some form of control about how you get seen.

Make thoughtful use of social media

If you’re not already a big tweeter (or should I say, X’er), now might not feel like the most encouraging time to start. I hear you, but even in its potentially dying ember, I still think the ex-bird app is the best place to stay abreast of talking topics, keep an eye on short-notice music journalism opportunities and test the waters by reading/ posting out some of your own hot takes1.

Follow editors/staffers who write for your ideal publications, keep an eye on #journorequests hashtags or even remind yourself to search key phrases every now and then — “looking for writers…”, “now commissioning”…that type of thing. This level of sleuthing can sometimes feel a bit Joe Goldberg, but I’ve known it to pay off in the past.

If you’ve got a decent-ish online following, it can also be worth thinking about openly asking for commissions: letting editors know that you are free for work, linking to a past portfolio and giving a little blurb about what your specialisms are. This type of self-promotion can sometimes feel a bit icky or even come off as lazy (I would definitely still try and send out specific pitches just to make sure that you’re giving yourself the best chance), but as a way of boosting one’s income, I’ve known it to work reasonably well for friends with a decent online footprint. If you’re posting regularly, offering up opinions and giving a sense of your subject knowledge, there is every chance that an editor might have something in mind that you’d be a good fit for and reach out.

If you’re really struggling to gain any traction, you can also use social media to ask other like-minded writers how they’re doing, or if they know of anywhere that might be pitch-friendly at that time. Try not to take the piss (and always be ready to repay the favour), but if you’re reasonably friendly with someone, they might be kind enough to pass on the email of a place where they’re recently been commissioned, give you a sense of the kind of rates they’ve been offered in the past, or even bear you in mind as a potential recommendation if there’s work that they themselves don’t have the capacity to take on. Music journalism is a small world and it’s easy to get competitive, but the good karma of being sincere in both your online and offline socialisation normally comes back around in the end.

Pitch different

For me personally, interviews and reported features are 100% the most rewarding part of the job — chunky bits of work that allow you to dig deep on an artist or trend. They tend to pay the most, but they also take the most time: time to prep questions, time spent nailing down availabilities, time to inevitably reschedule, time to panic before the interview, time to actually do the interview, time to transcribe, and then time to sit down and write/review/edit the thing. Gig reviews can be much simpler and lots of fun (yay for entry to sold-out events whose tickets you couldn't afford) but travel can be expensive, and in an era of endless (albeit necessary) train strikes, gigs sometimes feel like more hassle than they’re worth if you don’t happen to live super close. Album reviews, whilst theoretically simple to produce from home and in your own time, are being commissioned much less, and are normally unlikely to result in a high rate of pay (but a much higher rate of being trolled on the internet — a topic for another time).

Thinkpieces, however, can bridge the gap of artist access and are your best friend in times of financial hardship. If you’re working from a decent place of knowledge on a topic, or have a particularly insightful opinion on a specialist subject (backed up with solid research ofc), these pieces can often flow quite quickly, and offer up the kind of ‘unique’ or specific perspective that a time-pressed publication might be more inclined to outsource.

Over time, a good thinkpiece or round-up writing tone can really be capitalised upon, showing people a particular area of musical or topical expertise. If you’ve got a decent working relationship with a publication, there’s no harm in asking if they’re looking for a columnist, or if they would consider a more retainer-based arrangement for a certain kind of regular pitch (a local scene beat for example, or a genre-based round up, or festival coverage). As recent layoffs may show, nothing in journalism is permanent, but locking in even one of these flexi-freelance slots/ ongoing understandings can really help to alleviate both financial and emotional pressure.

Last but not least, don’t be afraid to pitch to foreign publications. There may be more paperwork involved, but as a UK writer, I’ve often been floored by how much better rates are in the US for very similar profiles and listicles. Even if the money isn’t mega, doubling your territories also means doubling your potential commissions, so don’t be afraid to get adventurous — there’s a lot that can be achieved via Zoom or Google Meet.

March to a different beat

If you have a few solid interview features under your belt, reach out to your PR contacts and ask them if they have any albums/track-by-tracks/new label signing projects coming up that may need bios. Copywriting isn’t something that many music journalists talk about publicly (and for good reason, seeing as it often involves NDAs and unreleased material and the like), but there are tons of opportunities to be had if you know where to stick your hand in the air for them. I’m not personally experiences in all of these realms, but the same apparently goes for trade mags, coffee table/ghostwritten book deals, streaming services and music-adjacent brands that need promo copy….do your LinkedIn stalk/polite twitter ask to find the right contacts, and then pitch, pitch, pitch away.

If you truly feel you’re hitting a brick wall with music, don’t be afraid to switch things up entirely. A good writer is a good writer, and over the last ten years, I’ve been able to write about fashion, beauty, food, local news and various other ad-hoc bits to keep myself going. Mixing up your beat is also a great way to use geography to your advantage, particularly if you’re outside of London. Is there a local newspaper or publication where you can get into ‘whats on’ type coverage, or even get access to artists coming through on tour without necessarily having to compete with national publications for the interview slot?

Journalism lends itself pretty well to other forms of public engagement too. If you’re making your way as a music critic, you’re probably a pretty decent interviewer and/or public speaker. Check in with local bookshops/unis/venues that may need moderators or hosts for events. If your local university or college offers courses on music, creative writing, music business etc., do some digging to find a course leader, and drop them an email to let them know that you’d be happy and available to come in and talk to their class about what you do this upcoming semester. Sign up for door/stewarding work at gigs and festivals too — sometimes these roles are volunteer-based, but other times, they pay cash in hand and can double up with getting into a gig or chatting to interesting local fans and figures.

If you’ve got the time and inclination, try diversifying your skills in sympathetic areas to maximise your earning potential. If you’re a dab hand at a writing-adjacent discipline (like photography, video editing, or being a whizz at indesign), mention this in your pitch when negotiating budget or suggesting potential further commissions. Websites like Skillshare and FutureLearn can help you to bone up on practical skills and media theory, or you can teach yourself pretty much anything via YouTube. Once you’ve found your thing, you can also think about selling your own zine/e-book/substack/podcast, or sign up for something like Patreon or Ko-Fi to accept donations from people who might want to support you and your work more generally.

Get militant about money

Be vigilant with your late fees, and know your rights. Charging late fees is obviously not a money-maker per se, but it is a way of making sure you’re not cheated out of what you’re owed, or at very least, that you have a framework of reference for communicating with publications that do not pay when they say they will. There’s some useful advice for handling these issues via the Gov.UK website, or via the NUJ/London Freelance org.

Most magazines/online sites these days have their own set rates for specific types of article, which doesn’t always leave much room for haggling. In terms of your wider business however, don’t be afraid to review your own rates where necessary in line with inflation. When dealing with larger labels or lengthier commercial projects, there may be more budget set aside than you necessarily realised, or potentially a bit of money that they might be able to pass on to help cover the cost of your travelling to do an in-person interview etc. Be polite obviously, and set your expectations low, but it often makes sense to ask what a client’s budget is first and then negotiate from there.

On a similar note, it’s often helpful to be realistic with yourself about your own work patterns, timings and priorities. Everybody’s sense of ‘value’ is different (see this great Freelancing For Journalists post on the nuances of ‘payment in kind’), but if you know that you’re the sort of person who will agonise for hours over a 200-word album review that pays a fiver, you might want to think about re-allocating some of that time to crafting a killer feature pitch, or at least setting a personal limit on how many reviews you can reasonably justify taking on in a month. It’s good to challenge yourself, but being honest with yourself about what you can likely achieve in a working day will help you to set an hourly rate, which you can cross-reference with your living expenses/saving goal etc.

This kind of tactical maths may feel cynical as hell, or even ungrateful, like you’re trying to flex that you’re somehow above doing the ‘smaller’ pieces of work. But even if that hourly rate is only a number that you keep in your head, it’s a useful way of reflecting on your personal circumstance and figuring out ways to meet your financial needs without trading away your entire mental well-being. Turning down any form of work can feel mega-counterproductive, and I am terrible at saying no. But if you want to maintain a level of quality output and personal well-being, there are times when you’ll need to make a short-term choice for long-term gain.

Lastly, sign yourself up to ALCS, which by some sort of witchcraft, collects royalty money twice a year from reprints of your work. There are specific eligibility criteria (and listing all your stuff is LONG), but having seen what it’s done for others, I’m excited to try it out for myself this year. Even if it only spits out a few pennies, who doesn’t love free cash?

Get a sympathetic part-time job2

Even if you’re consistently trying everything you can think of, maintaining a creative career is hard. Nothing kills creativity faster than the endless calculations of how many features you’ll have to file that month on acts you don’t even care about in the hope that you might afford to even vaguely enjoy your life. I write these newsletters wanting to be consistently upfront about the privilege of hybrid academia-journalism income and a long-term live-in partner who shares my bills, but also to be similarly open about the long journey of self-doubt, poor mental health and tactical recalibration that it has taken to get here. As I see it, the whole point of freelancing is that more often than not, you get to pick and choose the stuff you’re genuinely skilled in and excited to work on rather than simply grabbing at anything on offer. But if you feel like you’re currently in this boat of freelancer panic, it’s worth taking whatever breather you can, making deeper peace with the idea of jobs outside of the industry.

It’s definitely sad to think that music journalism is now a job that only the elite or exceptionally lucky can afford to do full-time. That said, once you take away the pressure of proving your career to other people, there is something to be said about freeing yourself up emotionally (and financially) to do your best writing by spending at least some of your time doing something else. I truly think that some of my happiest and healthiest years as a working adult were when I was splitting my week three ways; freelancing, working on a part-time master’s degree, and then doing a couple of days a week as a sales assistant in my local vintage clothing store. The shop hours were relatively flexible in that I could swap with a colleague if I needed to make an interview, but the routine broke up the loneliness that so often comes with freelancing, and it gave me a great excuse to be exposed to new music all day and have conversations with colleagues and customers which sparked off new editorial ideas.

Bonus points: it got me on my feet and away from my desk, which really benefitted both my mental and physical health, and it was a job that I could leave at the door, quite literally locking up and walking away from at the end of each day. Barista work, retail, record shops, gig venues, educational settings…as far as I’m concerned, all of these places can only help to support your creativity, or even encourage it, and I would heartily encourage any freelancer who is struggling with either income worries or loneliness/cabin fever to consider it as a strength rather than a sign that you have somehow ‘failed’ on being a writer.

Of course, this list is far from exhaustive, and is totally based on what has worked for me and my immediate peers. Are there any killer tips of your own that you think I’m missing? Excellent journo resources, or tasks worth avoiding? Experiences that have you muttering “What sort of patronising dream world is Jenessa living in that this is her idea of useful advice?” Drop your thoughts in the comments, and let’s see if we can help each other out.

Aca.Journo.Fangirl.Other.

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