How to pitch to editors with Lindy Alexander

Lindy: I think sometimes writers can fall into the trap of writing the most beautiful lyrical headline but actually tells the editor nothing. This is a real opportunity before they even open your pitch for you to indicate to the editor that you know the publication by nailing their voice and their tone and their style. And also, if you have space to indicate which section, if you’re pitching to a particular section, which section that your story is going to.

Rachel: Hello and welcome to The Content Byte, a podcast for freelancers who use their words to make money. I’m Rachel Smith, a freelance journalist, copywriter, and content producer. I’m also the founder of Rachel’s List, a jobs board and community for Australian writers and other creatives.

Lynne: I’m Lynne Testoni! I’m a journalist and content writer as well. Rachel and I are your weekly co-hosts, and every week we bring you all kinds of tips, tricks, and some fabulous guests to help you make the most of your freelance business.

Hi Rachel. So, I want to ask a question. Do you spend a lot of time pitching to editors and clients?

Rachel: It’s a very tricky one because I do pitch, but my pitching style is very different now because the editors I pitch to, I feel like it’s a lot of the time, it’s a sure thing and it’s a one-liner. I’m not overthinking it. It might be a story that I come across and go, wow, that would be perfect for X. And because I know the editor really well and she knows my work or whatever, I’ll just do interest in this, has it got legs and it will usually get across the line.

Lynne: Interesting. Same. I mean, most of my work comes to me. Sometimes I do pitch. I know one of my editors really loves a pitch, so sometimes you have to get out there, particularly if you’ve been quiet. I’ve taken a bit of time lately, so getting back, I have to do some pitching. 

Today we are going to talk about what’s involved in pitching, which is really an important part of a freelancer’s arsenal of skills, don’t you think?

Rachel: And not just for pitching stories, like all kinds of pitching really, but I think it’s important when you’re starting out to kind of hone that skill, because it can be really tricky and a bit demoralising when you constantly getting knocked back.

But it’s very exciting. We are so stoked!

Lynne: So excited.

Rachel: Lindy Alexander back making her return trip to the podcast. Yes, second time.

Lynne: We love Lindy. She’s an award-winning freelance travel writer. So many great stories there. But she’s also the founder of The Freelancers Year, which is a popular blog and an online course hub for freelance writers. In fact, I think I’ve said this many times, but Lindy was a real inspiration for me when I first started freelancing ten years ago.

Rachel: I think people must still, don’t you reckon people must still ask her about her, ‘what I made this month’ post, the breakdown.

Lynne: I model that, definitely.

Her program is called the Travel Writer Accelerator, and it helps writers plan their pitches, sharpen them, build strong editorial relationships and secure regular commissions. So, she really knows this area.

Rachel: She does, and given pitching has really changed in the last few years. We’re going to chat about what writers need to learn and possibly re-learn about pitching right now so they can get more stories over the line with editors.

So, without further ado, hello, Lindy.

Lynne: Hello.

Lindy: Hello. Thank you. I’m really thrilled to be back, to be invited back again. It’s really lovely.

Rachel: We’d have you on all the time, but you’re just too busy pitching and going on trips.

Lynne: So, Lindy, I’m on your newsletter list and I love hearing about all your courses. Tell me about why you started offering them and how long you’ve been doing them now.

Lindy: I started my blog in 2017 and really as a result of my blog and sharing my monthly income, as you both alluded to, I was starting to get contacted from people just saying, can you talk me through your strategy and how you are pitching editors and corporate clients?

And so, I started doing one-on-one coaching. And from that, I think a lot of coaches have this a similar experience where you are having the same sorts of conversations over and over, and that you’re taking people through a particular strategy you’ve used and then at some point I thought, you know what? I could probably turn this into an online course, which I did in the middle of 2020. And that was my first course Write and Thrive, which was for established freelance writers who really wanted to land high paying content clients. And since then, gosh, I don’t know how many courses and resources and programs I have launched, but quite a few.

My latest one, as you mentioned, is the Travel Writer Accelerator, which is really focused on supporting travel writers to land regular commissions.

Lynne: Wow.

Rachel: I’m on your newsletter list as well and I love seeing, even though I’m not doing a lot of travel writing these days, very sadly, I love seeing, reading about the trends and things that are happening and you have touched on a little bit lately about how the pitching landscape has changed. So, what’s been the biggest shift that you’ve seen?

Lindy: I think it’s interesting for me because as someone who is still actively pitching editors, I have a perspective and I am someone who has been a freelance writer since 2012, really… travel writing, probably only since 2018, but still, that is a fair time in the game. And then I’m also working with newer and more established travel writers, and I’ve definitely noticed in the last, I’d say eighteen months, things have shifted. You would both know that some publications have shut up shop. Other publications are putting the brakes on commissioning or budgets are stagnating. I think what that has resulted in is that for a lot of writers who are wanting to break into travel writing or wanting to get their pitches commissioned, it feels much less predictable than it ever has before.

Lynne: It’s interesting. I mean, this is the big question, isn’t it? Do you see a lot of common mistakes that freelancers make when they pitch?

Lindy: Yes.

Rachel: Oh, there was a pause there. A pause.

Lindy: I do and I’m just trying to think about how to talk about it in a way that would be really useful for people. I think the biggest thing is that and this is advice that gets trotted out again and again, which is don’t pitch a topic, pitch a story. You would be surprised at the number of pitches that I see where people are still pitching broad topics and I think, Rachel, you were asking about, well, how have things changed?

There really is very little fat in the system now where editors are so busy that where potentially in the past if you had a broad idea that was kind of intriguing, an editor might’ve taken the time to go back and forth with you and shape that or ask you more questions. Whereas now if your idea is not specific enough, if it is not a particular story with a particular hook and an angle, they are just going to hit delete on that.

And I was traveling with an editor at the end of last year and she was saying to me she gets five hundred pitches, emails a day. Not all pitches from freelance writers, but from press releases and she said to me, unless I recognise your name in my inbox, I’m not going to open your email. The other thing she said, the only other way to get your pitch read is to have a compelling headline, the subject line in your pitch.

I think for me, if writers can’t distil what their idea is into a single headline, then most likely you have a topic and you don’t have a story.

Lynne: It’s interesting. I do also think that people don’t take the time to understand the medium or the magazine. Do you find also that people always want the high-end ones? They want Conde Nast Traveler; they don’t want the travel section of the local paper or something. They always go for the big ones.

Lindy: I think people are definitely aspirational and they want to be published in those top tier publications and I really support that. I’m working with the writer inside the program at the moment who’s just had a byline in Nat Geo and in BBC Travel.

She really only has been doing travel writing for a year or so. So, it’s absolutely possible to get those big bylines. But I do think to pitch those kinds of publications, like you said, Lynne, you have to really know the publication inside and out. And years ago, I would’ve said you could probably have pitched without knowing the publication intimately, and I had done that. I had pitched general feature articles to publications and they got commissioned, and I wasn’t a reader of that publication. Whereas now I just don’t think you can get away with that. I see a lot of writers saying, I want to write for this publication, and they don’t read it, and they don’t subscribe to it.

Lynne: Interesting.

Rachel: It’s interesting. I would love, I just want to go back to what you were saying about the headlines and how that has to be really strong. Do you teach people in your community that they have to think in cover lines, in terms of magazines. Sometimes we see – don’t be clever, just be really clear, and I know that’s very true for web copy a lot of the time. Don’t be super clever, but if it’s we’re talking about a travel story, should it be clever like a cover line so that the editor can see it on the cover, almost visualise it.

Lindy: I see that in two ways. I see that you need to get your email, your pitch opened, and so you need to spend time thinking about what subject line you are going to use. And that might be different to the cover line that they would run in their print publication. Probably it wouldn’t be that different to the headline that they would give it for an online story. And I think sometimes writers can fall into the trap of writing the most beautiful lyrical headline that actually tells the editor, nothing.

This is a real opportunity before they even open your pitch for you to indicate to the editor that you know the publication by nailing their voice and their tone and their style. And also, if you have space to indicate which section, if you’re pitching to a particular section, which section that your story is going to sit in.

You could probably also get some brownie points if you put optional digital headline as well, just so you were kind of doing some work for them, I suppose.

Lindy: Absolutely. I think especially when you are pitching an editor for the first time, or an editor that hasn’t commissioned you before, you do have to do that work upfront. And so much of pitching new publications is putting in a lot of work before you get that commission. But if you can nail it, then that really is the start of a beautiful relationship potentially and like you said Rach, I think there are two different types of pitches.

One is the pitch that you send to an editor who knows you and likes you and you can send the like, oh, I saw this, or I was thinking about this, what do you think? But you cannot send those pitches to an editor who does not know you and has not published your work before because they will just hit delete.

Rachel: That is a really interesting segue into my next question, which is, how editors have changed and whether you need to do more to get their attention. Because I happen to think editors are so varied in the types of pitches they want. Some of them want a full synopsis, with everything you cover and breakout boxes and who you’re talking to and all that, and stats and everything, just so they get a real sense that you can do the story, and others want something really small and encapsulated in a paragraph which is written in a really succinct way.

So, it shows them, again, it’s their style and tone, so it shows them that they can do it, I suppose. And you don’t know what you’re getting really, unless you know the editor.

Lindy: You can take, really, you can take your lead from the publication. So, if it’s a publication where they are interviewing people and where a lot of the stories or the story that you are pitching, you are going to need case studies or for a travel story, even if you’re using quotes, you need to, in your pitch say who you’re going to be speaking to. And I think that that is something that people miss and it is often a faculty of a publication, but if they have included interviewees or case studies or quotes that you might just gloss over that as a writer.

But if you were pitching a publication that publishes those kinds of stories, then you need to include that in your pitch. I often think if you’re pitching a first-person piece, you want to start your pitch as if you are starting the story.

I pitched a first-person piece to a travel publication that I have written for, but hadn’t written for probably, I want to say fifteen months the other day, and I just started the pitch as if I was starting that first person piece. And do you know the beauty of that is it got commissioned, but also when I sat down to write the piece, I had my first paragraph.

Rachel: No blank page syndrome.

Lindy: No, exactly.

Lynne: Because pitching is a bit of an art, isn’t it? It’s different from writing as a particular type of writing. Do you think there’s a lot of confidence in it too?

Lindy: I think it’s absolutely an art. I think it’s a science. I think it’s a skill, and I think Lynne, yes, confidence plays a huge part. Both. I see some writers who. I would say mostly, actually. I was going to say, I see some writers who are overconfident, but actually I think it’s the opposite of that I see. Which is people are not confident and either they’re not confident in their idea or that they have an idea. So, what that tends to look like is that they have a very long unwielding woolly pitch and they’re pulling in information from everywhere. Or they’re pulling in details about themselves that the editor doesn’t need to know.

So, for example, I have a PhD and, in the past, I might have mentioned a PhD. That I have a PhD when I’m pitching a story that has no relation to the fact that I have a PhD in social work. But what was I doing? I was trying to make up for the fact that I may be felt a little bit vulnerable and that I wasn’t really a good enough writer to be tackling this story. So, I’m just going to amplify this other part of my experience in the hope that it gives the editor more confidence. But actually, the pitch itself needs to be confident, and we don’t need to list every publication we’ve ever written for. I see that as well, that people are doing that.

And like you said, Rach editors are so time poor. We have to make the most of their attention, if they’re going to click open our pitch, we have to make it really clear straight away.

Rachel: You are seeing so many people honing their pitches, sharpening them, sending them out into the world and the ones that are actually getting commissioned. So, what kinds of pitches are you seeing get the green light right now, but for you and your community as well?

Lindy: I think if you can identify a particular section in a publication, whether that is a print publication or online, and you can say it’s for this particular vertical, you have a much better chance because you are saying to the editor, I am not only pitching your publication, but I also am a reader of your publication and I’m familiar with this. So that really is the first thing. The other thing I’m seeing is that pitches that are very specific, and I don’t necessarily mean hugely long and detailed, but pitches that are very specific, they might only be three or four sentences, but they know exactly what the story is and why it will appeal to that publication’s readers.

Sometimes I think as writers, there are stories that we really want to tell, but they’re not always the stories that publications want to tell. Having that distance can be really, really tricky to work out well, is this a story that is worth publishing? I find this interesting, but would other people find it interesting?

And the way that you find that out is by pitching. And if you are getting silence or if you’re getting rejections, that’s feedback on your pitches. That is showing you that something isn’t quite landing.

Rachel: Say that you pitch three articles to an editor and all of them get rejected. How long would you leave it before you know, hitting them up again with fresh ideas?

Lindy: I’d keep following up in terms of I’d hit them up with another idea, but I would take a break, take a pause and think, why are these pitches getting a no? Because there is a reason. Most editors, even if they’re not replying, there’s going to be a reason why they have not commissioned you or why they haven’t replied to you.

And so, I would take that as feedback. So, if I’ve sent three pitches and none of those pitches, either they’ve been rejected or I haven’t heard back, I’m going to take that as feedback. But I would keep pitching – I tend to be a bit relentless in thinking I’m just going to keep on pitching, but I’m not doing more of the same. I’m taking that as an opportunity to refine what it is I’m doing.

Rachel: Love that.

Lynne: It’s interesting we were talking off air that Rachel and I have a big advantage having done this for a while, and I’ve got some really deep and long relationships with various editors. I always feel for people starting out where they don’t have those relationships. What is a good way to start or what would work for them?

Lindy: It’s such a good question because I see a lot of writers, and I have conversations with a lot of writers who say, but how do you even get relationships with editors if they’re not even going to reply to your pitch. I can’t even get onto that first step to start to have a conversation with them. So how do I even build a relationship?

And what I would say is I think it’s a really big misconception that you need to have a relationship with an editor in order to build a relationship with an editor. And actually, the best way to build a relationship with an editor is through your pitch. Because if you can nail your pitch to an editor, then do you know what that does?

Immediately that signifies trust to the editor because they read a pitch and they’re like, this writer knows my publication, knows my readership, and I trust them because they’ve come up with this great story idea that is a perfect fit for my publication. I trust them that they’re going to be able to deliver.

Then all you have to do is deliver that story and then your foot is in the door. That is how you build a relationship. But sending great pitches that editors want to read like that is the very first step in forming those relationships. Because I think about all the editors that I am regularly writing for. I don’t think any of them I met first. I never met them at a networking event or a lunch. I cold pitched them. They were never a result of being introduced or having another writer say, oh, I’d like to recommend Lindy Alexander. They were all cold pitches, and then I built up my relationships with those editors from there.

So, you absolutely can do that.

Lynne: That’s interesting.

Rachel: Interesting. Well, okay, so you say that you’ve written a pitch, you’ve isolated the best publication for it. What would you tell writers? Are there any sort of key questions that they should ask themselves before they hit send on that pitch?

Lindy: The biggest question is, can I sum up this idea in a single sentence?

That for me is the barometer of whether you have a strong pitch and if you can’t, you probably need to refine it again. Then I think, pitching has a formula. What is the headline going to be? What is that stand first or deck going to be? What is the unique angle and the hook? And then who are you?

Most pitches tend to follow that kind of formula. So, if you have, generally speaking, that formula in your pitch and you have a strong enough idea that you can condense down into a single sentence, I think you have a really good chance of being commissioned.

Rachel: Interesting.

Lynne: See, because I actually do the opposite, Rach. I never start with a pitch. I start with a publication. So, I don’t have an idea to pitch. I think this is an interesting opportunity or publication. I look at say, Home Beautiful that I write for, and I see the sort of stories and then I would start with that and then come back to it, so I don’t go to them with an idea.

Lindy: So, Lynne, how do you get your ideas? Do you flick through the magazine?

Lynne: I do. And I know what they’re looking for, and I start to see which ones they use, freelancers. I know who’s on staff and who are freelancers, and I see which ones are going being freelanced and I start with the idea for the magazine. That’s with certainly ones that I know for say the Vet Practice that I write for, which is for veterinary surgeons and people in the veterinary industry, they have certain articles they commission out and some they don’t. So, I start with those ones.

Rachel: I think that’s a really good research tip is to look at, if you see names of other freelancers and you can pitch articles that are similar, that is a good tip. But I guess, the other side of it is – I have a great story, so I want to find a home for it and how do I, so there’s that.

Lynne: I don’t think I ever do that. I start with the magazine and think, find a great story for Home Beautiful or Vet Practice.

Rachel: For who you want to write for.

Lynne: That’s just a different way I do it.

Lindy: I think that’s good. You know, Lynne, because I feel like I talk to a lot of freelancers who are the opposite in that they have the idea and that they don’t know where to pitch. They’re like, where do I pitch this? And so, they’re relying on editor call outs to decide where they’re going to pitch. And that is okay if you are a hobbyist or you’re happy with sporadic articles here and there. But lots of the writers I work with want to become regular contributors. They want to become an editor’s go-to writer.

So, I do think we have to be more strategic. So, your example is perfect of really understanding a publication and then pulling in the story ideas that are going to fit that publication and focusing on then building long-term relationships with that publication and that editor. Because I think the other way is that people have an idea and they’re like, I don’t know where to put this. Where can I pitch it?

Lynne: I just find it hard to sometimes shape your idea into a different way. If you start from the magazine or the newspaper or whatever and go that way. Or even radio and come back differently.

Anyway, that’s just my pitching process, tell me about yours, because I’d love to know all the steps because there’s quite a bit to it. It’s not just, oh look, send an email. It’s a bit trickier than that, isn’t it.

Lindy: For a lot of writers, what I see them doing, and I have definitely done this, is that we conflate the idea part and the pitching part, and we jam it in together and we sit down and we’re like, I’m going to pitch and part of then our email process is thinking through the idea. Whereas I think it’s really important to, let’s think about the idea first, let’s go through and really interrogate, well, what is this idea and what sort of shape is this story going to take?

Is it best in like a listicle? Is it best in a roundup? Is it best in a long lyrical beautiful narrative feature. Is it more going to be case study led and because then once you have that sense of what kind of story it is, then you can start to think about, well, what publication would this work for? So, for me, it really depends a lot of my travel writing, I’m lucky enough where editors will come to me and ask whether I want to go on trips for them or cover things.

I will say I went on a trip to Japan at the end of 2024, and out of that trip I had this incredible experience where I really wanted to write about this story, and it was an eighth-generation washi – so paper masker, and we went into his house in the hills in Yohshino. We did a paper making workshop with him and he is only one of three masters in Japan who make this very rare type of paper.

I really wanted to write about it and all last year I pitched and pitched and pitched and pitched. And you know, Rachel was saying, when do you give up? And I know you were asking about pitching a particular publication, but I think I pitched it eight or nine times and thought maybe no one is interested in this story, but then I realised through a conversation with a Rachel’s List member who was also on a travel writing trip with me that it wasn’t actually really a travel story that would’ve been better suited in a different kind of publication. And so, I pitched that publication and it got commissioned, and it’s just been published, which I’m thrilled about.

So sometimes for me, I can have the idea, and it takes that kind of feedback through pitching and getting rejections or silence to start to think, well, what is not working? Why is this particular pitch not landing?

Lynne: Interesting.

Rachel: Absolutely. And I know that you and I talked about, about the whole following up thing. I can’t remember where we talked about it, but it’s always stuck in my head because you said to me, I just follow up constantly over years. Was it when you were doing your corporate writing thing for me and you said, I just keep following up and even like three, five years down the track, you can land that client, or you know, are you still massive follow upper.

I am and that makes it sound like I also am a bit of a stalker and a badgerer and I’m not at all, like, I very much keep a respectful distance, but I do think I’m just going to politely, respectfully, gently follow up and I’m just going to keep following up, and I do have certain lines that I’ll use with editors. I will say to them, I understand how busy you are, if I don’t hear that from you by Friday, I’m going to assume it’s a pass and I’ll look to pitch elsewhere. I will let them know if I’m going to move on. But yes, with pitching content clients and corporate clients, I don’t do that anymore.

But when I was doing that. I would just routinely follow up because being top of mind, and I think especially with editors at the moment, being top of mind is really important.

Lindy: And with anyone at the moment, I think, we were talking about Lynne, you were mentioning that editor that just commissions based on who’s in her inbox that day. Which is so shocking probably to anyone hearing this.

Lynne: Well, I thought that was awful, but then it explained a lot and then I started to realise, so it wasn’t me that she was rejecting, she just happened to be, I did an email on the right day.

Rachel: But that really shows, doesn’t it, how busy some people are, how they’ll suddenly think, I’ve got to get that off my desk and here’s a viable person to do that for me. Because I think that that probably happens a lot when we’re pitching for like you say, Lindy corporate clients or you know, to get content jobs and that sort of thing. It’s just who’s in your inbox at the time.

Lynne: That’s really about when LinkedIn really makes a difference. Exactly. Then it puts you in their link in their inboxes in a different way, depending how often they’re on LinkedIn, certainly for corporates.

Rachel: And also, I think I wrote something in the wrap up recently about those call outs that come on LinkedIn where someone says, I need writers in, who can write for B2B clients or something and three hundred people basically, charge this one post and go pick me, pick me, pick me. And I can’t remember who was writing about it, was it? Maybe Jennifer Goforth Gregory and she said, I wait until it’s all died down and then I go to their inbox and DM them and she’s picked up jobs that way because they’re overwhelmed by all these people.

Lynne: Interesting.

Rachel: But then if you hit them up in the inbox just a week later when they’re actually sifting, starting to sift through everything you can be the one that’s at the top of the inbox and they just go, okay, you’re the winner

Lynne: Lindy, I’m guessing that the finding the right places to pitch is part of the challenge and even finding the right email address. How do you go about researching that? Do you use LinkedIn?

Rachel: Or Readly?

Lindy: Look, what I tend to do is that I have a few different strategies. One is that I subscribe to the Study Hall newsletter, which compiles all the call out, well, not all of them, but lots of callouts from editors, and I find that really great way to stay on top of what editors are currently looking for.

But similarly, I find that editor call out – for me, it’s just this influx of writers into an inbox, and I’m the same as Jennifer in that I will sit back and wait. I’ll make a note of what they’re looking for. If it’s a publication I haven’t heard of, I see there’s a really great opportunity to learn a bit more about them.

Note down the editor’s contact details, but often I won’t pitch unless I have a very specific story. If only there was an editor looking for a Japanese paper master story. Then I’ll be like, great, I’ve got just the piece for you. But I feel like for me, it almost distracts me from these are the relationships I want to build with these publications. Seeing an editor call out can, often it’s a shiny new object where I’m like, maybe I could write for, Metro UK. I’ll have a look at that, and it can kind of lead me off the path sometimes. I’ll subscribe to newsletter call outs like that, but there’s also on Instagram, and I cannot remember her handle, but she compiles editor call outs as well. I can have a look and give you the details if you need those.

Lynne: That’d be great. I’ll put them in the show notes.

Lindy: And then I just tend to try to read as widely as I can and even looking at things like for the travel media. On the Trav Media site, when you’re seeing where other writers are being published, that’s a really great way of being like, oh, there’s actually so many more publications than the six or ten that we tend to just rotate through.

And actually, there are some fantastic, I would say like mid-tier publications that maybe don’t have the big bylines and big names, but actually you can get regular commissions with those publications. You can get paid well for them and you can get to write the kinds of stories that you want to write.

Lynne: Interesting. I get Trav Media; I get their call outs every Monday with opportunities and then the odd sort of call out, which I find useful. I don’t really write travel stuff, but you never know. I could be of interest if it’s somewhere I’ve been.

Rachel: Wow. Such great advice. Well, tell us about your usual week. Do you sort of split it between, running your courses and programs and also doing your own writing?

Lindy: Every week is a little bit different. So, for example, last week I think I had three or four articles that I was writing. With TWA, which is my travel writer accelerator, I tend to have at least two full days a month where people have one-on-one coaching with me as well as one day a month where we have a live call. So, there’s that interaction that I have that is pretty immovable in my month and then depending on what travel I’ve got. Next week I’m heading to Tassie for three days, in April I’m going to Europe for two weeks. So, it really depends on and it’s always a little bit of a juggle of how I fit everything in.

Lynne: Is it a good balance? Do you like it? The mix?

Lindy: It’s so good. I mean, it really, it really suits me. I really feel like at the moment I have found my happy place of a programs that I’m loving, running, and an incredible community of writers, as well as writing for publications that I love, with great relationships with editors, and then a home life that feels really balanced. We live in a beautiful place, so I cannot complain.

Rachel: I just need to ask because basically this is what I get from my kid every time I try and go away. Why do you have to go away so much, mum? Do you get that from your kids or are they just sort of used to it now?

Lindy: No, I definitely do. Especially from my daughter who will, she’ll always stuff a sock toy in my suitcase. I’ve just come back from Sydney. So, she wrote me a note. She does tend to move into our bedroom though, so my bedside table is full of her stuff. At the moment she turned my desk into a cubby. I think there are advantages for me.

Rachel: To you being away.

Lindy: Whether or not she sees it as work, she still refers to it as a holiday. So, I’m working on that part of it.

Lynne: Because it sounds like the dream life, doesn’t it? And that’s why I guess the course is so appealing. So many people want to be travel writers.

Lindy: And I think the beautiful thing about travel writing is that whatever you are interested in, whatever stage of life you’re in, it really can suit you and it can match you. So, whether you’re interested in outdoor adventures and hiking, or whether you’re interested in staying in five-star hotels, you can have those travel experiences. I never even knew that this world existed. Ten years ago, this was totally a dream for me.

Rachel: I do really miss my travel writing days.

Lindy: It’s not too late, Rach.

Rachel: I know. I think about it all the time. The only trouble is, it’s tricky because you really do have to be able to carve out three to five stories in a trip if you can, to make it worth it and then sometimes you can end up on the famil from Hell where they just take you all the places that you can’t actually write it about. Do you still go on those or are you really tough now and go, I’m not doing that. Sorry. That doesn’t fit the story I’ve placed.

Lindy: I guess I’m doing fewer group press trips than I did, and I’m organising my own, which is really great. And I think too, it depends where it fits in your life.

I’m working with some people where this is a nice part of their life, that they are in the majority of their money from copywriting or content writing and getting able to do, being able to do some travel writing is a really lovely thing for them and their partner.

So not everybody needs to or wants to get as many stories out of a trip as they can. I certainly tend to, except if I’m travelling with my family and it’s just an added bonus. When we went to Japan in the middle of last year, I got a lot of commissions, but they were mostly hotel commissions. So it was, what a bonus that we got to stand these incredible places, and it really didn’t impact too much on our holiday.

Rachel: Oh, lovely.

Lynne: So, Lindy, we’re ending the podcast now. It’s the new 2026 change with our new fast three questions. Are you ready?

Lindy: Ready.

Rachel: Okay. First question. Favorite tools of the trade that you can’t live without?

Lindy: I feel like I can’t live without Voxer, which is the walkie talkie.

Rachel: That’s how we communicate.

Lindy: I would probably have about five different people per day that I’m Voxing with, and I just, I love it. I know there’s a lot of negative commentary about sending monologues to people, but I’ve got friends and colleagues all over the world and it’s just, there’s nothing better than for me waking up to voice messages from friends all over the world. I love Voxer.

Lynne: That’s good. And it’s basically like having a conversation, but not in real time, isn’t it? You do your reply. They come back to you, and you can do a conversation over days.

Lindy: It is asynchronous, which really works.

Lynne: So, question two is one habit that genuinely saves you time.

Lindy: Okay. So, I should say that Lynne and Rachel sent me these questions earlier, and I went and spoke to Pete, my husband. I was like, I don’t, what a habit that saves me time because I couldn’t think of one. And he said, well, you don’t procrastinate, so that saves you time. And he was, he was joking because I’m not someone who loves to plan things, but I do think, actually probably that is a habit that I have, that I’m not super organised, that I don’t tend to spend a long-time planning things.

If I get excited about something, I tend to just take action and do it, and so I think that saves me time.

Rachel: I actually know that about you already and you know when I, where I learnt that about you is the, what I got paid this month posts, because there was, so sometimes you would have so much work that you had got through that month and the comments were like, how did you do that? How did you do those fifteen articles or how did you do this and fit that in as well? And I used to just think, she doesn’t procrastinate this woman. She just gets in and does it.

Lindy: I mean, I do procrastinate. I think actually, I think it’s called precrastination, which is just as bad as procrastination, which means doing things before you should be doing it. Because then often what happens is like you make mistakes that then you have to go back and tidy up, so it’s not always a good thing.

Rachel: All right. Fair enough. Okay, third question, one thing you wish you’d done sooner in your career.

Lindy: I do wish I had become a travel writer sooner because I’m at the point in my life where I am getting offered incredible trips. And like this Europe trip I’m taking next month, they said you can bring a plus one. And there’s no way at the moment that I could take Pete and leave our two kids at home. So, I do say to him often, imagine if I had done this sooner before we had kids. I mean, would we have ever had kids if we’d had that life?

I don’t know. But imagine if I had done this now and I think I just had no idea how to break in. I didn’t know how to do it. I had no confidence in myself. So, I do wish that I had started that sooner.

Rachel: A lot of my travel writing was before I had Charlie and my husband got to come on so many trips and when I think about some of the crazy stuff that we did, but I was doing it for a story and he just came along.

I think when we first got together, I said, listen, I’m writing about diving with sharks. Do you want to come? And he went, okay. So, one of our first dates was he was submerged in the Shark Tank in Manly Aquarium. But that is coming when they grow up for you.

Lindy: Yes, that’s true.

Lynne: Yes. But that’s interesting what you say because almost everybody, we’ve asked that question, they wish that they would have tried something like this earlier. We all put in in these blocks in our career because we don’t think we are ready or good enough or whatever, but we all want to have tried what we’re doing now and you’ve been doing it for longer.

Lindy: I think you’re right, I think you know, as to your question before around confidence, I just think I work with so many people who are incredible writers, have great ideas, but they do not always see that, and they do not always back themselves. And it makes me really sad because I just think, gosh, if you start to take action, then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and you see the success and that snowballs and snowballs.

But you do have to be brave enough to take that first step.

Rachel: Absolutely.

Lynne: Fantastic. Oh, my goodness. Lindy, thank you so much. We could chat to you all day. It’s lovely. So inspiring. Such a great conversation and I bet it’s got lots of people out there excited about your courses or just pitching generally or of course travel writing.

Rachel: Absolutely. Thank you.

Lindy: Thank you for having me.

Rachel: Absolutely. We will put all the links on where to find Lindy in our show notes, and we will be back next week.

Lynne: We’ll be back next week. Thank you. Bye.

Rachel: Thanks. Bye.

Credits:

Connect with Lindy via:

The Freelancer’s Year

The Travel Writer Accelerator

Here are also the links to the call outs she mentions:

Study Hall newsletter 

Travel writing call outs on IG

Find Lynne www.lynnetestoni.com

Find Rachel www.rachelsmith.com.au

Rachel’s List www.rachelslist.com.au

Thanks (as always) to our sponsors Rounded (www.rounded.com.au), an easy invoicing and accounting solution that helps freelancers run their businesses with confidence. Looking to take advantage of the discount for Rachel’s List Gold Members? Email us at: hello@rachelslist.com.au for the details.

Episode edited by Marker Creative Co www.markercreative.co