Creative Substitutions for Freelance Writing Clips

Editors are more interested in the quality of your writing work than they are in how much you were paid for your previously published work or where your articles have appeared in print. Most publications are open to new writers. Editors simply want good writers, so they ask for clips to help distinguish the skilled writers from the poor ones. Here are some writing samples that count as clips, even if you've never been paid to write.

1) Letters to Editors
If you've ever written a letter to an editor and had it published, this letter counts as a clip. You can send this letter to an editor as an example of your work. If you're trying to get published in a certain newspaper, writing a letter to an editor of that paper and providing this as a clip when querying later is a good idea.

2) School Papers or Essays
If you went to college, you probably had to write an essay to get in. This counts as a successful writing sample. You can also use thesis papers or other essays you wrote in college. If your professor liked the paper, chances are an editor will, too.

3) Reviews You've Written Online
If you've written book reviews online, for places like Amazon for example, you can use these reviews as clips. If you've written product reviews, you could use those. Music reviews, movie reviews, or any other reviews you've written online count. If you are querying an editor about writing reviews, but you don't have any reviews online, consider writing some on websites or blogs to have some samples to show.

4) Website Content
If you have a website, or you've ever contributed to a website, you can include links to this content in your queries to editors. Especially if the website is yours, this is a great example of the quality of your writing. If you don't have a website, consider starting one just to be able to show it to editors.

5) Blogs
If you keep a blog or an online journal, this writing can also be showed to editors who want samples of your work. Linking to your blog in a query is preferable to sending printed copies of your blog posts. Starting a blog is an easy way to get published clips.

6) Newsletters
If you've ever written for a newsletter, online or off, this writing counts. If you don't have much writing experience to show an editor, consider creating your own online newsletter to use as a clip.

7) Sales Letters and Advertisements
If you've ever written a sales letter, you can use this as a sample to show editors. If you've ever written advertisements or classifieds -- to sell your furniture, for example -- you can use these, too.