How to make a portfolio

How to make a professional portfolio to increase your chances of publishing your articles.

If you are a writer looking for work, the most important tool in your arsenal will be your portfolio. Editors and publishers want to see examples of your work and what kinds of places you have published with before and they don’t want to get a stack of photocopied papers and folded up newspaper clippings. If you want to present your best side to a prospective editor or publisher, it is important to be professional, organized and thorough. If you want to be chosen out of the hundreds of other writers on the editors slush pile, you need to stand out and present yourself coherently and with style. The portfolio you create could make or break your next writing contract. Before you start, you’ll want to pick up some report folders, the kind with the sliding bracket on the edge are the easiest to put together, but you may find a loose leaf type folder even more professional looking and weighty enough to not get lost in a pile of envelopes.

Get about twenty good quality laser copies of any articles you have published in the past 3 years. If your article included color photos, have them copied in color. On the bottom of each copy, type the name of the publication it appeared in along with the date. Make sure you produce copies of ALL of your clips, not just the best ones. You want to build an arsenal of different types of writing so that when you are querying for a job, you will have a full artillery. Clips can include brochures, newspaper articles, nonfiction articles, poetry, fiction, advertising copy, anything that you have written that has been published. The more different kinds of examples you can assemble, the better.

Before you assemble your portfolio, you will want to work up a resume to include in the front of your package. Include any relevant credits you have accumulated no matter how obscurely related they may seem. Also include any information that really doesn’t have anything to do with writing at all. You never know when an editor is looking for an expert in a field you may have experience in to do an article. Even if your editor isn’t interested in your query, if he sees something in your resume that looks interesting, he may ask you to do an article pertaining to it.
You can tailor make your portfolio to suit the interests of any particular editor. If, for example, you are querying to a children’s magazine, include in the beginning of your portfolio any examples of writing you have done related to this field, followed by a few examples of other things you have published. It is always good to show versatility, even when working for a targeted audience. If possible, you should include a photo of yourself in your portfolio, sometimes magazines like to include photos of their authors and it also helps the editor to put a face to your writing, a big advantage!

Above all, make your portfolio user friendly and unpretentious. An editor can tell by your portfolio whether you will be difficult to work and you want to give the impression that you are easy going, though professional and talented. Portfolios add up to a big plus in your favor if you send them along with your query, you will be less likely to get ignored as a nice looking portfolio is tempting for editors to look through.