Bonus #54 - Ericka Andersen

Ellen Yin33min

Ellen Yin

00:06

Hey, everyone, today we are joined by Ericka Andersen on the podcast. I'm so excited, because I was telling Ericka, actually, before we hit record, that the timing of our conversation is perfect, because I literally just got off my interview with a freelance writer at Business Insider, and then Ericka just landed a pitch of hers at Business Insider and will be writing an article for them soon. So it ties in perfectly with this conversation of how you can be paid to write for major publications. So Ericka, welcome to our show.

Ericka Andersen

00:36

I'm so excited to be here. Ellen. I listen to every episode, so it's an honor.

Ellen Yin

00:41

Oh, that means the world to me. Thank you so much. There's nothing better than having a loyal listener on our show, because then you you get our community and what we're here to talk about, and actually, this topic, Ericka, I was super excited when I saw this come through my inbox, because it is a topic we have never covered on the show before. You know, we've had publicity focused interviews, but never one from the other side of being the actual writer, rather than the person being profiled or interviewed. So anyways, Ericka, you are a freelance writer.

Ellen Yin

01:11

You've been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Good Housekeeping, New York Post Newsweek and more. And you're also a contributing writer for Christianity today, and a published author of two traditional books as well. I wanted to actually start off by asking a more technical question, because I'm going to operate under the assumption that our listeners may not be familiar with this world. What is the difference between a freelance writer and a contributing writer? As you distinguish for, you know, certain publications that you write for.

Ericka Andersen

01:42

Well, they sort of overlap. So as a freelance writer, I consider myself just sort of, I'm all over the place. I can pitch in Article idea anywhere to any magazine or any publication I want at any time. And you know, see if it lands with Christianity today. As a contributing writer, I am sort of on a rolling basis with them, where they come to me when they have needs, and they, you know, ask me if I can do a story, or it's just sort of like more of a relationship there, where I know I'm going to be writing for them sort of consistently, and I don't have to do the big, grand pitch like I do other places, because we have that prior relationship.

Ellen Yin

02:19

Got it Okay. Thank you for explaining that. I myself wasn't sure if that was the distinction, but I'm really glad you cleared that up for us. I also wanted to as just one more piece of context before we get into the nitty gritty of how others can do this. Can you define for us what the difference is between earned media and paid media? Because I think this is a point of confusion for a lot of people. You know, we often read articles and publications, and if you're not super familiar with the media world or journalism world, it can be easy to confuse a sponsored post, let's say, with, you know, earned media. So could you just share with us what the difference is?

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