Every freelance writer has struggled at one point or another with getting an editor to read their query. I’m consistenly tweaking with my query style and content to make  it stand out amongst the competition in the freelance markeplace. 

My eyes perked when I saw Spot.Us, Byliner, Atavist Are Showing Freelance Writers the Money come into my Twitter timeline via Shayla Thiel-Stern (@ProfessorShayla). The idea of having someone help me get my ideas into the hands of an editor at a large publication (I’m dying to see my name in print at Real Simple) sounded great. But then I read on. 

While I agree that the face of freelancing is changing and that journalists need to adapt their networking processes to the Internet, I don’t feel that these sites are going to show me the money. How do you guarantee that once you put a story up on a site, say Spot.Us, that it isn’t stolen and written by another writer or a mainstream institution?

David Cohen writes: “And I think gigs or “gigging” will be the way freelancers turn their practice into a career in the future. Instead of pitching story to story, you’ll be working project to project or gig to gig.”

If this is true, and freelancers start working project to project, how many ideas will be lost  because journalists will be signing on to already created projects? Yes, this is a way to make money and a way to have a successful career, but what happens to the gratification of seeing your idea come to life on paper?

I will admit that The Avatist did catch my eye. I think it is an ideal site for a journalist looking to publish a longer piece, but doesn’t quite have enough to create a book. If I had an idea I thought I could take to the next level, yes, this would be a site I would use. 

Fellow writers, what do you think about this article and the idea of finding your next writing assignment through sites like Spot.Us, Byliner and The Avatist?  Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.