How to sell stories to newspapers and magazines.

There are many agencies and freelance writers out there offering to sell your story. However, you should think carefully before committing yourself to any agency or agent. The key rule is to NEVER sign a contract which binds you to an agency or freelancer but does not guarantee you a fixed amount of money for your story. There is no advantage in signing a contract with one agency until they have guaranteed you a specific fee.
The problem is to working out who you can trust and who will get you the best deal to sell your story. Some freelance writers claim they are skilled in negotiating you the best fee when in truth their expertise is in writing a story. If the person has their name on lots of stories that they have written then clearly this is where their ability lies. True agents need to spend all of their time negotiating fees with a variety of contacts rather than spending time writing stories. A spokesman said ‘We spend 90 per cent of our time negotiating fees for our clients rather than investing out time in writing the articles. ‘We have a great relationship with news and features editors in the media and so can ensure that only one of their expert writers is assigned to our clients’ stories.
‘In this way, we are free to negotiate our clients the best possible deals.’ It is important also to do your research. Most story selling agencies will have websites that allow you to look at the sort of work they specializes in. Take time to look through old articles they have already successfully sold to get some idea of their expertise. Ultimately, you’ll need to trust your instinct but if they have successfully published similar articles to your own story they may well be worth a go.