How to get several commissions from one story idea
The art of multiple bites of the cherry
Being able to get several commissions from one story idea is a great way to maximise your time as a freelance journalist. But it isn’t just the case of sending the same pitch to multiple editors. It’s about tailoring a central concept to different audiences and finding different sources to present the story.
It works well in travel writing but I have also used this technique when writing about personal finance, health, and fitness.
Each story is freshly written, and uses different quotes, but the central idea and background research is the same - which saves a lot of time.
One idea can be pitched as a new story, case study feature, wider contextual feature, first-person piece or even an analysis.
Back in 2017 when my father was scammed, losing £18,000 (which thankfully the bank refunded), this led to me writing five different versions of the story, and my dad himself wrote another two. You can see some of the different versions of the story here, here and here. Part of this was because it was a strong story and each different media outlet wanted their own version (even if it was two years later!).
But I also pitched it differently. One piece was a straight news story (This is Money), another was for a specialist magazine focused on the wider issue of these types of scams using my dad as one of three case studies (Moneywise magazine), and another was a first-person piece about how it affected my family (The Pool).
I was early in my freelancing career at the time but it taught me that one story can have multiple approaches, and it is something I continue to draw upon.
In today’s newsletter I am sharing an example of a UK specialist magazine feature which I repackaged and pitched as a listicle for a US fitness website. A huge amount of work went into researching the magazine piece so getting a second commission from the same topic made this more worthwhile.
Read on to see how I pitched the two stories differently.