#341: Crossing Paths: Lindy Alexander’s Secrets to Succeeding with Journalism and Content Marketing

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business.

To a whole new level.

And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With well over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries and now entering our 11th year of programming. And by the way, just a quick word of thanks for being a loyal listener all these years, for spreading the word about the show, and for all your words of encouragement that you sent me over the past 11 years. So for many years, there has been a myth among journalists that journalism and content marketing can't coexist. Either have to focus on journalism work or on content marketing, but not on both. And this belief, I find, is based on false assumptions and outdated beliefs and systems and rules that we thought were going to hold on forever. In this week's episode, you're going to hear why you can actually do both very successfully as a freelance writer, as a journalist, and in fact, why you may actually want to focus on both of them. My guest is Lindy Alexander and Lindy is an award winning freelance food, travel and lifestyle writer and content creator living in Central Victoria, Australia. Her work has been published in dozens of digital and print publications including Sunday Life, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Guardian, Jetstar magazine, Home plus, among many others. And I had Lindy on the show actually a few years ago where we discussed how to grow your income by going deeper with clients and leveraging key relationships. And I encourage you to give that one a try. It's a fantastic episode. It was one of the most popular episodes that year that we ran. This time we're directly tackling the age old myth that content marketing and journalism are incompatible. You're going to hear exactly how Lindy has navigated these waters like a champ, how she's maintained solid journalistic standards and ethics throughout, and how you can combine both to create real synergies in your business. I think you're going to get a lot out of this one. Check it out. I hope you enjoy it. Lindy, welcome back to the show.

Hi, Ed. I'm so excited. Thank you for having me.

So am I. It's been a long time. Many years. We've met in person since then and yeah, yeah, it was, it was great to meet you in Sydney at the Content Bite Summit. And, you know, I told you, hey, I want to bring you back it's been too long, and I'm glad we made it happen. I wanted to focus a little bit on our conversation about journalism and the opportunities out there for journalists who feel conflicted. Hey, you know, I'm going to have to do some content marketing to pay the bills, but does that mean that I can't go back to do some journalism? So this is a really cool topic. I think it's very relevant right now. Before we do that, though, why don't you give us a little bit of background? You know, who is Lyndee Alexander? What does she do? And like, what's her big thing right now?

Yeah. Thank you. So, in a nutshell, my background was not in journalism or writing. I was a social worker for 10 years. Before that, I was actually a sign language interpreter. Moved into social work, did my PhD in social work, got totally burnt out, moved into freelance writing because I'd always identified as a writer, but never knew how I could make that a career. And so it was always something that I was just scribbling away at and never thought that I could actually get paid for it. When I was pregnant with my son in 2012, I started dabbling in feature writing. So writing for magazines and newspapers, people were paying me. This whole world opened up to me, and I slowly transitioned out of social work into freelance writing. And then I realized that if I wanted to go full time as a freelance writer, I couldn't make it work from journalism alone. So I needed to supplement my income with content writing, content marketing. And so I started to move into that world and then had that balance between journalism and content writing. And in 2017, totally inspired by your conversation with Jennifer Gregory when full time as a freelance writer, because I listened to that episode and thought, you can make money. You can make money from freelance writing and you can be happy and you can be writing stories that you care about for clients that love you and who you love. And so in 2017, I went full time, and I have not looked back since.

I just love that story, you know, for so many reasons. One is you heard something, it inspired you and you took action on it, and that's huge. So many people stop there, they hear something, they get inspired, and right away they start shooting it down and, you know, they give up before they even start. And the second is, personally, for me, you put this content out there, and I'm going on my 11th year of the show, and you, I often wonder, is this making a difference? Is this gonna resonate with somebody? Is this really going to make them do something great or make real improvements in what they're doing. So when I hear this, you know that, by the way, and I approached Jennifer, it was kind of a off the cuff email that I sent to her, hey, you may not know me and I don't know you, but I'd love to have you on the show. And I didn't think anything of it. In fact, I thought maybe if anything, she won't respond. And she did. And you know, the serendipity that came out of all this, that's awesome. I love that. So thank you. So since 2017, content writing has been kind of your big focus. But you also do some journalism work sometimes, right? Or do you.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's a real mix for me. And look, I have shifted. So since 2020, when I launched my first online course, I have shifted. So the mix is always changing. But I don't think. Well, I know I couldn't have gone full time as a freelance writer. And in 2017, my husband took a year off from his work and he had our kids and was looking after our kids while I said to him, I want to see if I can make this work for us. So we had a mortgage, we had all the bills to pay, and I did my maths beforehand and thought, I cannot keep writing stories, feature stories that take me hours to interview, research, transcribe, submit. Also, I'm getting paid on publication when I submit. As a journalist, I just couldn't see that I could make the income that I needed to make. So I had to look further afield and start to think about content marketing. And really that episode where Jennifer was talking about her content marketing clients and how she found them, I think, Ed, I'd probably listen to it 2, 3, 4 times because it was so inspiring, but it was so practical as well. And I really use that as my base to find content marketing clients. And what I found was those clients love people who have journalistic clips. So if you can say I've written for this publication, this magazine, this newspaper, corporate clients love that. They love the prestige of print publication.

Interesting. So let me ask you more about that. Since 2017, we've seen a massive shift of journalists entering content marketing writing. Is it still the same way? Is there still that same level of attractiveness and prestige, considering that now everyone's saying, oh, I'm a journalist and I've written for the Wall Street Journal, and, you know, so and so. And does it still carry that weight?

I think so, absolutely. I still talk to clients. I'm Working with groups of freelance writers who say, these clients are thrilled that I have had an article in this publication. And it doesn't have to be a top tier publication like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or the Sydney Morning Herald. Sometimes it can be a lower tier publication. But there's something about having journalistic chops that I think really appeals to those corporate clients now.

Sure, yeah. They understand that you bring a lot to the table just by having that. All right, so let's talk a little bit about someone. I think we're going to have several people listening to this. We have journalists who are thinking I may need to go down the content marketing path or at least test those waters and let's talk to them first. Maybe a big fear is that if I do that, then it's one or the other, you know, I won't be able to do both successfully. I know you've already addressed this. You say that you do both, but let's unpack that a little bit. Tell me, why is that not true?

I think there's a few reasons. I think that some people feel that it's unethical that I can't be an ethical journalist. And I've had people say to me, I feel like I'm selling my soul as a journalist.

I feel going to the dark side.

Yeah, I feel I'm so ethical as a journalist. I feel like if I started doing content marketing writing, then somehow I'd be going over to the dark side and I would be writing copy that didn't resonate with me and didn't feel good and I'd have to be writing for companies that didn't align with my personal values. And I think that is a really big misconception. And actually one of the, the freelance writers in one of my courses, she came in and she thought, I don't know, but I really want to write for ethical only companies. Now ethical means something different for everybody. But for her, she meant companies that really aligned with her beliefs and her values. And so she started reaching out to these companies that she thought, I know these companies, I love these companies, I buy their products, I follow them. And she now is earning over a hundred thousand dollars a year doing a mix of journalism. And she's only writing for companies where her values align with. And she said to me the other day, can't believe it. I did not know that this was even possible. I think in the beginning she thought she'll have to compromise something. She'll have to compromise her values in some way. And you don't have to.

So let's talk about that. Then she took an approach where she essentially looked around, looked at products she bought and used services, she used businesses she patronized and went there. That's a small fraction of the opportunity in the content marketing world. Even in the world that would be kind of in the ethical side, let's say, which again, I know it's a very loosey goosey term, but what about someone who's gonna quickly run out of prospects to reach out to? Because I made my list and I came up with 17 names. You know, unfortunately, this day and age, that's not gonna be enough. So where else can you go? What would you advise a journalist to do once they run out of those names?

So the first thing I would do is go through all your clips. And maybe you're thinking, I've got 20 years of clips, Lindy. I'm not going to go through 20 years of clips. Well, that's great. Go through the Last year, last 18 months of your clips and look at the themes. So not just the broad, oh, that's a health story, but that's a women's health story. That's a story that talks about emergency services. So fire and ambulance and police. Then I wrote this story about this particular travel destination. Go through your clips and look at all those different niches that you have touched on. Look at those experts, who are they working for, those case studies, what kind of companies are they working for? And as you start to look at the clips and your breadth of experience, you realize that you can approach so many of those companies in those areas and say, I have experience writing about the area that you work in.

I love that. And this gets into a concept that I often talk and write about called adjacent markets, which really expands the possibilities exponentially for you. So you mentioned, like, emergency services, right? So what products and services do they use? Well, they have to buy things from vendors. And I was talking to somebody the other day, so they sell. Oh, I know who it was. It was a good friend of mine and his wife sells software, this very specific software for emergency management organizations. So fire, police, you know it all over the country. And this is big, big business, right? It's software, but it helps these departments run their operations effectively and save lives. So when you think about who's selling into those markets, what are they then selling, you know, who's kind of related to them. So now we're talking laterally. You're looking up the chain, you're looking down the chain, you're looking sideways and all kinds of possibilities come up. I love that, I love that. So start with your clips, start with what you've done.

Exactly. And as a journalist or someone with freelance writing or feature writing, you're very good at investigating. And I think that's the slight difference that I feel like it took me a while to get my head around exactly what you just said. Who is selling into these companies? And I think it's not just what you see at eye level. Like with journalism, it's people, it's companies, it's places. And often the B2B world is hidden from us mere mortals, usually. And so it's just about doing some digging, really thinking about what are these emergency services, what sorts of products services are they using to run their businesses? What software, what apps, what administration, platform, whatever it might be. And as you start to dig, it's like this whole world just starts to open up and it's something that is invisible to most people in daily life.

I think it really is. It really is. That's one thing I really loved about the business to business market is that these are all my clients, I think, except for one client. In the all the years that I did this were no name companies. Meaning these are names that nobody knew about, but there was something really special about that. You know, it's like, who are your clients? I just love the fact that nobody knew who they were, but they paid well and these are great opportunities and they were fun. Like these were fun topics. Like I did a lot in the supply chain space and a lot of food and beverage manufacturing. That's a fascinating world. I don't know. To a geek like me, it's like, how is yogurt made? You know, but you get to learn that.

Yes. And I think writers are curious and so if you can engage your curiosity, you learn so much that you didn't know. And so yeah, you can go down the manufacturing supply chain area and think, my goodness, it all just starts to open out in front of you.

It really does. It really does. Okay, so I think you gave us some really good ideas there. If I'm thinking about entering, I don't really have a lot of ideas. That's a great, great place to start. Let's talk about from a marketing standpoint, how do you navigate things such as your LinkedIn profile? You know, now I feel like I'm two different people. I do this, but then I'm trying to do this. So which one do I put out there? Just on LinkedIn as an example and, or my website.

Yes, you are talking directly to me. And this is something that I struggled with on a number of levels because I'm a generalist. And everybody says, everybody says you need to be a specialist. What's your specialization? What's your niche? And I didn't have one. And I agonized over it, the years, because I never had that beautiful, succinct sentence that I could put on my LinkedIn that said, this is what I do and this is who I do it for. So this is how I got around it. One was that I recognized that nothing is set in stone so that you can put something on your LinkedIn profile and if it doesn't resonate, if it doesn't work, if you're not getting leads, you can change it so it isn't something that you've etched and then that is the front of your shop forever and ever. So I think that's one thing to always remember, is that it's changeable, it's flexible. And what I thought was, where are my ideal clients hanging out? So on Instagram, it was mostly writers and editors who were following me. My clients, my B2B clients, were not following me on Instagram. So there I was a freelance food and travel writer. But on LinkedIn, my ideal clients were in a totally different space, were in education and recruitment. And so that is what I focused on there. And I have to say, it's a little bit messier. There is no neat little tie and a bow that you can somehow get around this. But being a generalist, that's just part of it. And I think if you can specialize in something, whether it's white papers and you can write white papers for all different industries, or whether you are writing case studies, whether there's a type of content that you can specialize in, some thread, to pull it together is really important. And so for me, it was around blog posts for education and recruitment companies.

Okay, I like that. I like that. And would you agree that, let's say on a place like LinkedIn, if you saw that there could be both audiences there, so it's not as neat and clean, you could have both and say, you know, content marketing writer for fintech companies and then like a slash journalist for financial services industry, or you could have both, especially if they tied together or even somewhat to some degree?

Yes, absolutely. And I did that. I used the pipe, the slash all the time. Like at one point I think I had four different things and I just played around with it. And also when I was Sending out my connection requests. When I was sending out Lois to people on LinkedIn, I would see which industries were responding and I would tweak my LinkedIn profile accordingly.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. So you could, I guess, technically have two very different things, but I suspect that most people, there's going to be some sort of tie in between the two. Like you're not going to write for, I don't know, hypnotist and then try to be in the, I don't know, in the rocket space, in the aeronautical company, content marketing space. There's probably not going to be that big a disparity, Right.

Usually not.

Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're. Yeah. Hypnotizing people. But anyway, yeah, it's gonna be something close. So how do you figure out how to do and manage your marketing time and resources? Right. So there's pitching on the journalism side, there's prospecting on the content marketing side. There's some similarities, but still you have to go find work. How do you figure out that balance? You know, any ideas, recommendations there?

And that process is really different. Like, I often think the difference between prospecting and pitching for magazines is like you're walking into a restaurant and with prospecting, when you're sending out your Lois, you're really showing the customer, the client, what you've got, like in your kitchen garden. These are all the different things I have. If you sent an loi a pitch like that to a magazine, I can do this, I can do this. What about this? I've also got this. They're not going to be interested. They want a very specific menu. They want to know which ingredients from the garden you're picking and how you're putting them together on a menu. And so I think even just the process is different. So for me and the way that my brain works, I had to separate those out. So usually how I would split that up is most days I would spend 10, 15 minutes on LinkedIn, sending connection requests, sending Lois, doing that kind of grunt work. And I would separate the pitching, the ideation for story ideas for journalism. That would be on a totally separate day because they are different processes for me. And I felt like the prospecting work, I had some form Lois that I would tweak slightly and just send out, blast out to potential clients, make those connections. Whereas pitching is very, very specific, targeted to the right publication, right editor, right story. I felt like that was much more deep work that I needed to do. But I really did start preferencing content marketing because what I found was focusing on that Building up my client base in that then allowed me to have the time and income to focus then on passion projects like journalism that didn't pay as well, but really filled my cup.

I think that's a very smart strategy. So if I heard you correctly, build your business to a point where it can support you and sustain you financially and give you the financial margin you would then need to pursue other things that maybe there's more passion around but you can't live off of entirely.

I don't think so. When I was thinking about going full time freelance in I think it was mid 2016, I had a conversation with a very well known Australian freelance writer and I just messaged her on Twitter, I think, and said, could we have a chat? I'm thinking about going full time. And we had a chat in which she said to me, you are going to find it very difficult to make a full time living from journalism. You'll be lucky if you hit $60,000 a year. And I am an optimist. But I felt totally deflated by that. And I remember feeling a bit bristly about that and thinking, well, I think you can earn any, you know, earn a full time income. But I actually have come to see that I think it is very difficult and I actually don't know any freelance journalists who are making their entire income, their entire living good income from journalism without doing something else on the side, whatever that might be. Teaching, branded content, content marketing, copywriting, editing. I think honestly it's depressing, but I think it's becoming more and more difficult to earn a good living purely from freelance journalism.

I'm finding the same thing here in the States, by the way. So I think this is really a global thing and I see continues to go in the wrong direction every year, meaning the wrong direction. Journalism continues its downward spiral year after year after year. I haven't even seen it stabilize. I mean, it just continues the downhill trajectory. So I think journalists have a choice and it's a difficult choice to make, but on the surface it may appear more difficult than it is. What I'm hearing from you, in my experience working with coaching clients has been that, hey, you know, once you make the decision and you commit, I think you might be pleasantly surprised by the opportunities and how they're really not on the dark side and they can enable you to then, you know, find opportunities on the journalism side that you would have normally not been able to take if that was all you were doing. But let's talk a little bit about the ethics because this is an area where I'm not very clear on. And maybe you can educate us a little bit, or at least me. Can you leverage one to get the other? So can I talk about my, you know, specific journalism experience and clips? And I know mostly the answer is yes, we've already talked about it. But what about the other way around? So if you've written pieces in this area or for this specific industry or topic, where do you draw the line and where do you have more latitude? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah. And this is something I see a lot of writers struggling with, especially when they're working for a company or an organization and they're doing deep work for them. And then they say, you know what? Their CEO is innovating in ways that is so exciting and so interesting. And I would love to write a feature story about them, but they're paying me to write white papers for them, or they're paying me to write case studies or whatever it might be. And it is tricky, and I think you can do it. And I have done it. But my approach is always full disclosure. So I would say to an editor, I have been doing some work for this company and I've come across this person in this company. I think it would make a great story. Would you be interested in me writing about them? And sometimes they say yes. Sometimes. Do you know what they'll do is they'll pay me like a discovery fee and they'll say, we'll assign one of our staff writers to them. But thank you for bringing, you know, that person to our attention. Now, often with that discovery fee, I'm like, oh, I don't know how I feel about that because you're getting paid from both sides of the fence. But similarly, I know a lot of travel writers who are also doing public relations work. And I think as long as you are very clear in communicating where those boundaries are and letting everybody know which side of the fence is paying you, because you cannot be paid from both sides of the fence for the same thing at the same time.

Is timing a huge part of this? So let me give you a specific example. Let's say that I'm doing a story and I'm reaching out to some subject matter experts for interviews. And some of these are could be potential content marketing writing clients for me, Obviously, I'm not going to say at the end of the interview, by the way. Thank you. And if you ever need someone to help you write white papers and case studies, I would love that. But could I come back Maybe once that project or this article is closed, you know, or maybe do I have to wait a long time? Could I do this at some point? Could I go back to these sources and pitch them?

Absolutely. And do you know what I think is really interesting is that it never, for a lot of years, it never occurred to me that I could do that or should do that. But you know what happened, it happened organically. So I remember writing a story about an up and coming food area that had been designated as a UNESCO City of Food. I'm not sure if that's the correct title, but something like that. And so I did a profile of this particular area in Australia and spoke to all different producers, chefs, people who were really moving and shaking in that food industry, wrote this big feature piece for them. They loved it. I think probably about four months later, the CEO of that organization reached out to me and said, we have all this marketing material, all these blog posts we need written. Would you be interested in coming on board and doing that for us? And I did that. And they paid super well. And that relationship has continued. And I think what happens is when you are talking to subject matter experts, often they don't know freelance writers. They're not sure they need a writer a few months down the track that they're like, I don't know anyone. Then they're like, oh, there was that journalist who interviewed me. I'm going to reach out and see if they can do it or if they know someone. And if you feel compromised in any way, like sometimes I think, oh, it's a bit too close. You know, it's only been a month since that story came out. I refer them on. And I think that's the beauty of being in a community and a network as well, is that you can share that work around.

So when is it? Okay, it sounds like this is a gray area, but I would think if you have an ongoing relationship with this publication and there's a chance that you may have to go back to that person again as a source, then I think it's pretty clear. Right. But let's say that. Okay, it's done. You know, thank you very much. We're done here.

Yes.

What's wrong?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any hard timeframe, like, I would take into consideration a few things. Do you think that you would use that source again as a source, even for a different publication? Have you been paid? Because I think with this piece that I was writing for, they paid 60 days after publication. So I filed My piece, I think it probably took three or four months for it to be published. Then I got paid 60 days after.

Publication, which is a huge problem, but.

Not uncommon in some parts.

No, I know, I know. But to make a living just off.

Yeah, right. And so I would wait until all the money is cleared. You've done the thing, that story is done. But it's really, really common that sources, case studies, business leaders reach out and say, ah, you interviewed me for this, do you know anyone or could you do this thing for me? It happens all the time.

And if it doesn't, it's okay after a certain amount of time for you to go back to some of these sources, Right, absolutely.

And I think part of that is just that organic, keeping in touch, maintaining relationships, which is the most important way to run your business is you never know the connections those people have. You just never know. And I have been on press trips as a travel writer where I have stayed at properties, I've written stories, they've been happy. Then that company owns different resorts or different experiences and they need a writer to create some content for them. And they have come to me to do that, to do that for them. And so I think maintaining the relationship can lead to all kinds of opportunities.

Does it work the other way? If you interviewed that CEO, then you came back later and approached him about doing some work for them, and you did some work and then it's over and it's been a few months and now you have another assignment, could you use them as a source if they were the right person?

I'd be hesitant to. I think we're getting into murky territory here.

Pay for play.

Yeah, yeah, I think I would. I feel like just one skip across. But I think, me personally, I think I would be hesitant to ping pong back and forth between being paid for it, using them as an expert, I think I would probably steer clear of it. And the other thing is, if I was a specialist and just say I was a specialist in. I'm living my dream life here in Hot Springs, and there were only very few experts who could comment on the health benefits of Hot springs. And then the CEO of the Hot Spring Association, I'm obviously making this up, contacted me and said, can you create content for us? I would think carefully about that. If I thought that I wanted to continue writing journalistic style articles in that space and would potentially need them or their members of their organization. You know, if people have very specific skill sets and there aren't many other people that I could call On I might think twice about doing something like that.

Yeah, that makes sense. What I'm getting is the sense of just trust your instincts. Right. You should know. I think we all have that Spidey sense when we start feeling. And if, I guess, you know, this is one of many reasons to have a good network of peers you trust. If you have any doubt, maybe run it by a couple of colleagues and see how they people you trust regarding this and see how they feel.

Yeah. And I think the thing is, pause, pause, think about it. If you're not sure, consult, consult and talk and see what other people think. Because I don't think it's not like a flowchart. If this, then this, if this, then this. If this is yes, then this. And I just think it can be really murky because these are human relationships you're dealing with. And so I think talking to other people, getting other perspectives and erring on the side of caution is a really, really good thing.

I think it's wise advice. So as we start wrapping up, I want to kind of come back full circle to this idea that, you know, the way we started this conversation is you may have some passion topics and as a, let's say you now in the content marketing side or have been there, but really would love to kind of come back and do some feature stories on topics that are meaningful to you, either because you have a passion or a hobby or that is a cause that means something to you and you would love to be able to do that. Right. I would love your reaction to this idea and react however you'd like. Maybe our business doesn't have to fulfill every single desire and need that we have. You know, maybe that's an unfair expectation of our core business. What would you say to that?

Yeah, I would agree. I have some qualifications, probably. I think sometimes people feel, I know I did that I'm dragging myself to content marketing, I'm going to have to do it to make money, and felt really resigned about it. And then I get in there and I'm like this, this is just like journalism, except it's paying me better. And so I was writing these think pieces for a health organization, a public health organization. I was talking to fascinating experts, diving into the latest research. I was writing journalistic style articles, except the audience was not someone who was picking it up off a newsstand. I was interviewing for another job for a university. I was interviewing people in all kinds of faculties in the business faculties, which sounds kind of potentially dry and boring for some people, but it was so interesting to talk to these subject matter experts who had been conducting research about all different studies about adaptive policing, things I knew nothing about. And so I had this vision that journalism would be the fun part. That's my passion, that's what I want to do. But I'm going to have to compromise and do content marketing. But actually I felt really fulfilled by that. But what I'm seeing is that a lot of the writers I work with in my programs, they come from journalism. They realize if I'm going to earn good money in good time and not work 80 hour weeks, I need to add some content marketing into this mix. So they do content marketing, but a lot of them still feel this need to, as you said, pursue stories that fill them up, whether that is destinations, experiences, people, causes. They want to practice their creativity and write their own stories, come up with their own ideas, rather than being given a brief or coming up with a strategy for a company. And so I think if you look at it in that context, your business can fulfill those desires if you have that balance. And I think the beautiful thing about writing is that you can find places that really do fill your cup, both in the content marketing and the journalism space.

I would agree wholeheartedly with that. I haven't had the journalism experience, but I found out by accident that the stuff that I was writing eventually for my clients was a lot of fun. I didn't realize that I was a business geek until I started writing for these software companies that were solving big business problems for their market. And I thought that is fascinating because what they're doing is giving their customers a competitive advantage from a technology standpoint in a world that's really hard to gain those advantages. And I thought that was just really, really cool. So I don't know, maybe it came like that passion or that interest was natural, or maybe I talked myself into it, into finding the fun or interesting element of it, but either way it worked. And I found that the really, really techy, technical stuff was super boring to me. But then the whole solving business and human problems was really fascinating because there's a big creative element to that. It's not one plus one equals two, it was one plus one equals five. And then the way they did it was really creative and really unique. And they had an advantage because nobody had caught up to them with this idea because everyone was thinking about it differently. And I thought this is, it's like it's a puzzle. You know, somebody cracked the code here and I don't know, it was really cool. For me. So I would say sometimes you just have to look for it, you know, find the fund an interesting element if it's not readily apparent.

Yeah. And one of my writers said to me the other day, she now is writing content for a vegan bondage company. So, you know, and I was like, who knew? Who knew? But there is so much out there that no matter what your interest, proclivity, curiosity, there are companies doing things that are so fun to write about.

Yes. Be open to the possibilities. I love that. Yeah. Who would find that? I mean, hopefully they contacted her. So, Lindy, I want to make sure I send people to you and your networks and your social media. Where can I send them? And then what's new and cool in your world that you're excited about?

Yeah. Okay. So my website is the FreelancersGear.com and on there is a courses and resources page. So I've got lots of free resources and a $9 spreadsheet that has over 270 different publications to pitch to with their publication guidelines. So if you're looking at.

That's cool.

Yeah. Reviving some of your journalistic skills and wanting to pitch some publications but aren't sure who's paying and what they're paying and what you need to do, that is a really great resource. And yeah, I have a program called Write Earn Thrive that I run twice a year and it's a lot of journalists who come into that who want to earn more money from content wr. And I'm just about to launch very soon a new small group intensive for people who want to break into their dream publications and write feature articles for their dream publications.

Very cool. And where could people learn more about that? Is that also on your site?

Yeah, they'll probably just need to drop into the Freelancers Year and sign up for my newsletter.

Okay.

And they'll get all the updates there. And I'm on Instagram at the Freelancers Year and my personal travel, writing, baking. Instagram is indeed Alexander writer, travel writing and baking.

Yeah, there you go.

All the good things in life.

Great way to cap this one off. Very appropriate. Well, Lindy, thanks again for coming on. This was fun. It was fun catching up with you a few months ago. Fun catching up with you now. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and your ideas.

Thank you so much for having me, Ed.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Earn More in less time. The proven mindset, strategies and actions to prosper as a freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com where you will also find the detail, show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day. Mindset, strategies and actions to prosper as a freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com where you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.