Successful Freelancer Spotlight: Alison Stein Wellner

Good Monday morning readers! Today, I’m shining the spotlight on Alison Stein Wellner, a prolific travel writer, author, and longtime freelancer.

Alison, who has freelanced full time for 13 years, writes a blog about travel for the Huffington Post, a travel and lifestyle column for TheStreet.com, and writes a blog about her travel adventures and observations at A Very Curious Mind (previously A Curious Mind). Alison also is also a writer-in-residence at Alaska House, New York, where she is working on a book about King Island in the Bering Strait. She also is the author of Americans at Play (New Strategist 1997), and Best of Health (New Strategist, 2000).

Her work also has been widely published in Boston Magazine, Business Traveler, BusinessWeek, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Continental, Fast Company, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, Men’s Journal, Money, Mother Jones, New York Magazine, Psychology Today, Reason, Robb Report, Sierra Magazine, USA Weekend, The Washington Post, Working Mother, Yankee, Yoga Journal, and others.

Alison also has worked as a contributing editor at Inc. magazine and is a former editor-at-large at American Demographics magazine. She also is a New York Times Professional Fellow and a National Press Foundation Fellow. Her articles have won awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the American Society of Business Press Editors.

And starting Jan. 12, Alison will be teaching a 6-week course, Travel Writing Workshop, for The Renegade Writer.

How long have you been freelancing full time? What did you do prior to freelancing?

This January, I will be freelancing for 13 years, interrupted by approximately 9 months of W-2 employment, once when I went in-house at a magazine (and quickly realized I was happier freelance) and once for an incredibly brief stint as an “ideation consultant.” Prior to freelancing, I was in college. I started freelancing right after I graduated.

Can you talk a little bit about the progression of your career? When did you start doing travel writing? Do you also do other types of writing as well?

Progression of my career. Well, when I started in 1996, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I was 21, I’d graduated from college a semester early, and was looking for a way to earn some money while I was deciding whether to go to law school. I read every book on freelancing I could get my hands on, and tried a lot of things that first year: I wrote greeting cards, press releases, and tons and tons of queries that got rejected. I found that it was easier to get assignments from publications in my town—I was living in Ithaca, New York—so my first gigs were writing about farm management (American Agriculturist, which is still around) and demographics (American Demographics, which isn’t). This began to loosely congeal into a career focused on writing about business, and I moved to writing for trades.

In 1999, I attended my first ASJA conference, and heard a BusinessWeek editor speak. I queried, and to my shock, got an assignment. I started writing for the small business section of BW regularly. I also became a contributing editor, and the editor-at-large at American Demographics. My career really took off at
that point,  and I started writing for a number of consumer magazines, business titles (with the dot-com boom and all) and other titles as well. Six-figure income and so on.

Although I was often described as a business writer, I never thought of myself that way. I’ve always just thought of myself as either a writer, or a journalist, interested in the craft of research, reportage and writing, and in satisfying my own curiosities.

At some point, probably due to my long-standing membership at Freelance Success, I became interested in writing for women’s magazines, and so starting in about 2001, spent time writing for those mags, mostly about health. I did a few pieces there that I was pretty proud of, but as many writers have noted, the process of writing for women’s magazines is pretty much awful. I call it “the sorority gang-bang.” I still do write for a women’s mag or two, but it’s always with a lot of trepidation and preconditions.

Oh, I should also say that I was contributing editor at Inc. for five years. I stepped down from that position earlier this year for a variety of reasons too complicated to go into here, but I was very much identified with that role, I think more than a few people assumed I was on staff. In my career, I’ve tended to have a few long-term and steady relationships with magazines, those editors have thought of me as “part of the team.” There are positives to that: steady money, for instance. And negatives: too many eggs in one basket, and related, self-imposed career strangulation, since it’s just so easy to give your ideas to the editors who know and love you, rather than to pitch to new places that will further your progression as a writer. I am determined to avoid these types of relationships going forward. We shall see how I do with that.

As far as travel writing goes, I did some travel stories here and there over the years, but I really started doing more of it over the past four years, as I realized how much I enjoyed it.

Most of my work now happens to be in travel writing, or has some element of travel to it. I think “travel writing” is sort of an odd term, travel is a verb, after all. I do some travel service pieces which are undeniably “travel writing,” but my non-service pieces could also be classified as essays, or history pieces, or food pieces. Again, I tend to have a resistance to classification.

And I still do take on a few assignments that have nothing to do with travel or essays, mostly for clients that I’ve worked with before and enjoy working with.

With the current economy, people are not spending as much money or traveling as much. As a result of these trends, have you found that you’ve had to change your strategy or focus at all as a travel writer?

Well, my steadiest work is for publications that target luxury travelers, and this is a sector that is the last to be affected by world economic meltdown. I would say that I have my eye more on affordability than I have in the past, but for the most part, I’m more aware of the affects on travel patterns due to various terrorist attacks and political instability.

How does one go about getting started as a travel writer? Any pieces of advice for someone who would like to venture into travel writing? Is it even possible to break into the field right now given the current economy?

Well, I have a long answer to the first question and a short one. The long answer is my six-week Travel Writing Workshop over at the Renegade Writer, and here’s my short answer: First, you should travel. Somewhere, anywhere. It amazes me how many people want to be travel writers who really dislike leaving the house. Second, read travel writing you admire. Third, pitch travel ideas. Wash, rinse, repeat.

As far as the current economy goes, it may take more pitching to break in now than it would in a time where ad dollars are freely flowing and magazines are adding pages. But if you are determined and talented (in that order), you can break into any field of writing.

And as a general policy statement, I don’t see any reason to focus on the bad economy, it will only depress you. And a depressed writer will not have the necessary enthusiasm to sell any editor on any idea.

How often do you travel throughout the year? Do you schedule the trips and then pitch stories or do you do it the other way around?

I travel a lot. I try to limit it to ten days a month, this past year (2008) it was probably more like 12–15 days. My goal is to travel less in 2009, again, we shall see how I do.

As far as the pitch then travel, travel then pitch question, this is difficult for me to answer. I have several steady gigs for which I determine my own stories, so I won’t go somewhere if I don’t feel confident that I will get at the least a story for my steady outlets. I consider a trip successful if I come away with enough ideas to pitch to merit a return trip with assignments.

Traveling can sometimes generate some funny stories. What is your most memorable?

My most memorable . . . gosh. Well, probably when I allegedly scaled the fence between South Africa and Mozambique, sprained my ankle, nearly stepped on a poisonous puff adder, was not able to allegedly climb back over the fence and had to hobble for a half an hour to a hole in the fence where, thank heavens, my guide had a Tanqueray and tonic waiting for me in the Land Rover. That makes me sound more adventurous than I actually am, so I like to tell that one.

I have had so many moments while traveling that have made my heart almost stop at the wonder of it all. Standing on the black sand beach of Kare Kare in New Zealand, flying over the frozen Bering Strait in Alaska, looking for polar bears, listening to the call to prayer on the backwaters of Kerala in India . . .

What are some common myths about travel writing?

That it’s all moments of wonder like the ones I’ve just described. There are a lot of times where it’s difficult, annoying, and actually quite boring.

What advice would you offer budding travel writers?

In addition to my advice in answer #4, I would say, really learn the tools of narrative. Learn about character and plot and description and dialogue, with as much intensity as you would if you were learning to be a novelist or a screenwriter. Great travel writing is great writing.

What are the top three pieces of advice that you’ve received as a freelancer?

Well, it’s life advice, but since writing is a part of life, it applies.

1. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. (Don’t expect to get something for nothing, or get somewhere worth going without effort.)

2. This too shall pass. (The editor who’s torturing you will eventually go away. The editor who you love probably will too. Plan accordingly.)

3. To thine own self be true. (Nothing works well if you’re pretending to be something you’re not.)

I recall you talking about some tough times that you went through early on in your career. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you learned from that period?

Well, when I was first starting out (after college), I didn’t have any work and I didn’t know anyone in the business. I was writing a ton of queries, as I said earlier, but at a certain point it occurred to me that if someone gave me an assignment, I really wouldn’t know what to do. I was good at writing queries, but had little experience writing articles. I decided that I had to fix that, so I made my credo “aim low” —I started querying places that paid less than 50 cents a word, on the theory that I was qualified to write for them. (I found these places via Writer’s Market.) My query skills were so well developed at that point, that the assignments started coming in, and I began to learn how to write articles. After a while, I added a second part to my credo “know someone.” I asked each of my editors for suggestions of other editors who might like to hear from me. This worked to build my clip file, and I started aiming higher, and higher and higher.

Do you have any advice for freelancers who want to remain competitive in this environment? How can freelancers keep work coming in the door in these tough economic times?

My advice is, as much as possible, to forget all about this economic environment. I agree that it is scary times, but there are writers that are still getting work and there’s just no reason why you can’t be one of them. Step up your querying efforts, keep those queries out there, don’t let them molder in your computer where they can’t possibly do you any good.

If you find yourself with less work than you’d like, try to think about how to use that time wisely. It may mean taking a class, it may mean starting to write queries in an area that you haven’t tackled previously, it may mean working on a passion project. Remember: This Too Shall Pass.

Any other advice for full- and part-time freelancers?

I think it’s so important to remember why you started writing in the first place. I’ve never met a writer who has been in it for a while that’s ONLY doing it for the money. There are so many easier ways to make a buck than being a writer.

Hang on to your joy, to your passion and to your curiosities. These, more than anything else, will see you through the tough times.