4 ways to diversify your beat as a freelance health journalist

Once, my resume was called "soft." It stung.

At that point, I'd had at least a dozen years of experience translating complex medical topics for both highly educated health professionals (including graduates of the George Washington University's medical and public health schools and Ph.D.-level members of the American Psychological Association) and general audiences, like those of US News & World Report, the Washington Post and Business Insider.

And yet, one mentor considered my credentials a bit fluffy in part because I'd also written about sex and relationships for Women's Health and Cosmopolitan. I wasn't the go-to person on any niche medical or health policy topic, and I didn't seem to have some specialty no other writer had.

Once I dusted off my ego, the comment got me wondering: Is it possible to be a "serious" health care journalist and have a knack for juicy essays in magazines? Would writing about other interests, like rescue dogs and craft beer, be a death sentence to any health-writing reputation I'd held onto?

Long story short: No. As a freelance writer, diversifying your beat is not only often a necessity, it can also be an asset - if you position it right.

"I strongly believe any person can learn how to write about anything," said AHCJ member Elizabeth Hanes, RN, a freelance writer who founded RN2Writer to help other registered nurses pursue health (and other types of) writing careers. "To me, that's the essence of journalism: being assigned a story on a topic you may know nothing about and being able to do the research, interview experts and so on to write the piece."

Here's what she and other freelance writers with diverse beats told me about why and how to think outside the health care writing box.

The why

To make ends meet as a freelance writer, and especially a new freelance writer, you sometimes have to take what you can get - be it coverage of a medical conference, reviews of the best new headphones or a profile of a local business facing eviction. Most editors won't hold that against you.

"Today it's all about pivoting," said Estelle Erasmus, a journalist and author of "Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published." "Everyone knows that we're not in the day where people spend 50 years at a company or in a job and then they get their gold watch. There's this understanding [that], "This is my expertise; this is where I have my gravitas - and I also do this."

Plus, adding more topic areas to your coverage can simply mean more clients, a bigger variety of assignments and more money.

But expanding your beat is more than just a financial strategy. I, for one, find it refreshing. What better way to cleanse the mental palate than to put down a deep medical investigation to write about your own wedding or to interview psychologists who consult on screenplays? Frequently switching gears can make you a better writer across the board too, said Hanes, who wrote about art and antiques before expanding her coverage to include health.

"It's easy for even the most accomplished writer to fall into the habit of reusing words and phrases when covering the same topic constantly. But when you branch out into different beats, you're forced to write more creatively, to explore different ways of expressing new concepts and to generally freshen up your prose," she said. "That freshness can carry over into your health writing, which makes it stronger and more vibrant."

Positioning yourself as a health tech writer who also loves theater or as a fitness journalist with a penchant for travel also makes you stand out as a real person - not just another email pitch - to editors, said Reyna Gobel, MBA, MPH, a nutrition educator and freelance writer who covers health, personal finance, travel, pets and more. Gobel, who's also an AHCJ member, got her start in journalism writing about comedy and music for an alt-weekly.

"People love that you're a whole person - be proud of the whole person," she said. "You

never know when you happen to have written about someone's favorite band."

The how

Ready to branch out? Start with the following four steps.

1. Find the intersections

Want to write about travel? Consider starting with destinations or trends that cater to the health-conscious. Interested in real estate? Look into mental health differences between people who rent versus buy. Expanding into education? Find out what's ailing college kids these days.

"Once you've written a few pieces at the intersection of, say, health and culture, then it's easier to pitch straight 'culture' articles, for example," Hanes said.

Erasmus, who's also the host of the Freelance Writing Direct podcast, started as a beauty writer. After partnering with a dermatologist on a book, she parlayed that experience into more health writing opportunities. When she became a mom, she started covering parenting, too.

"You can look for tangential things that connect to what you want to write about and start moving into those areas," Erasmus said.

2. Emphasize common threads

What unifies your clips doesn't have to be one particular topic area - it can be your voice, your top-notch research skills, your mission to shed light on marginalized communities or your ability to elicit great quotes from high-profile interviews.

For Gobel, the pivot from comedy and music to health and finance came when a Texas magazine approached her to write about the latter. It was her experience with alt-weeklies, not necessarily her beats, that piqued the editors' interest.

"Even though I didn't have that same niche, I had that same style," she said. "Being able to communicate that you have this style is really important."

3. Capitalize on established relationships

Rather than cold-pitching Rolling Stone with a celebrity profile idea when all you have is health care clips, ask your current health editor at, say, AARP if they can introduce you to their colleague in features. "This method of networking your way to different beats can be very effective, in my experience," Hanes said.

If you are going to reach out to someone new, make sure to share clips that showcase your breadth and "allow your reporting and writing skills to speak for themselves," Hanes added. "I've known many editors who valued great writing above all else and were willing to assign even when the clips didn't align perfectly with the beat's subject matter."

4. Market yourself strategically

Rather than positioning yourself as a generalist, market yourself as someone whose bread and butter is health care, but who also has X and Y other interests.

Or, rather than saying you write about anything or everything, pitch yourself as a person who has two or three areas of expertise. Gobel, for one, writes about both finance and personal fitness - and pairs them through her branding as the founder of "Wallets and Waistlines."

"You're bringing everything to the table - your reporter skills, your interviewing skills, your research background," Erasmus said. "It's all there in this next part of what you're doing - this enhancement. It just makes you more valuable because it rounds you out as a person and as a producer of content."