Ocean Writer Melissa Hobson
About this podcast episode…
THE OCEAN WRITER MELISSA HOBSON
Melissa spent over a decade in PR & Comms. She was good at it but she was drawn to the ocean.
So she started pitching dive magazines on the side, moved to Mozambique to volunteer with a marine conservation charity, and when the pandemic sent her home, decided to go all-in as a freelancer rather than look for another job.
Still it was PR work she was picking up but frustrated by.
“I just want to write about fish” she told her mastermind friends in the Being Freelance Community.
They encouraged her. And she went for it.
Three years ago Melissa became The Ocean Writer. Now her work appears in National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, and a growing list of major publications around the world. Editors come to her when something pees in the ocean.
This episode of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland covers:
Pitching editors constantly - and dealing with rejection
Turning down work that doesn't fit the niche - even when it's hard - and why that's what made the niche work
Using LinkedIn actively and how it keeps sending opportunities anyway
How Ocean Writer branded clothing sparks recognition and conversations
Building financial resilience - even six weeks off sick this year didn't derail her
Hiring a VA to handle the bitty stuff so she can focus on writing
Stop getting in your own way - why you should pitch sooner than you think you're ready
This episode is available to watch in video here on the site, on YouTube and Spotify.
Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.
More from MELISSA HOBSON
The Ocean Writer website
Melissa on LinkedIn
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and The Ocean Writer Melissa Hobson
Steve Folland: Yes, this time we find out what it's like being freelance for Melissa Hobson. Now, I got to know Mel a lot better a few years ago when she was in the Being Freelance community, and she joined our mastermind group called The Cookie Collective. And in our very first call, when we were explaining where we're at with our businesses, where we hope to be, I distinctly remember this line. It was brilliant. She said, "I just want to write about fish."
Now, at the time, she wasn't. She was working in PR and comms. But now she's known as The Ocean Writer, so you can see where this is going. It's been so amazing to see her go after this and make it happen, but I'm also really intrigued as to how that happened, so I can't wait for this conversation. If you fancy joining us in the Being Freelance community, head to the website, beingfreelance.com, click the button, I'll see you in there. But for now, shall we crack on, shall we? We'll head to the south coast of the UK to chat to freelance ocean writer, Melissa Hobson. Hey, Melissa!
Melissa Hobson: Hi. Good to see you!
Steve Folland: So as ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Melissa Hobson: Yeah. So I think it's a bit of a funny one with me, because I've ended up being so hyper-niche, writing specifically stories about the ocean, and quite a large proportion of my time, things pooing and peeing in the ocean that people kind of think, "Oh, you must have been laser-focused. You got your marine biology degree, and that's what you wanted to do, and then you got there." And that's really not what happened at all.
Looking back, I think there were lots of forks in the road that took me here, but I just kind of bumbled along as I went. And really, I guess the first kind of important step that I took to get here, without realizing it, was before I was even working, I was still at university, and went on holiday to Australia, and went to the Great Barrier Reef. And my travel agent said, "Well, if you go to the Great Barrier Reef, you need to get your dive certification." And I wasn't really a water baby, so I thought, like, "Oh, well, I don't really want to." But- ... I'm also a massive people pleaser, so I was like, "Yeah, okay. Sure." So I booked it, and it was like a week, right? We did two days in the classroom in the pool. So the day in the classroom, you have a day of them saying, "Don't do this because you're going to die." "And don't do this because you're going to die. And if you do this, you'll die." And I was like, "I don't think I want to do this at all."
Steve Folland: As somebody who has also learned to scuba dive, so true. Except you still do it. I'm just terrified of the dying bit. I focused on that.
Melissa Hobson: Yeah. I mean, that bit, didn't like that bit. And then we went into the pool, and they're making you take your mask off and take your reg out, and you've just been sitting in a classroom told about how you're going to die. So I'm like, "Why am I doing this?" Trying to take all the kit together and worried that if I put it back wrong, it's going to be awful.
And I remember just being like, "I just need to get this week out of the way, and then I never have to go scuba diving again."
And then I went on the boat, and we did our open water dive. So we went on a liveaboard. You stay on the boat for, I think it was like a couple of nights, three days. And they went all the way out to the Great Barrier Reef, and we did our open water dives there, kind of qualifying and our first-
Steve Folland: Wow
Melissa Hobson: ... dive certified. And it was insane. And I was like, "Oh, this is awesome." I think it was either my very first dive or one of them where it was just me and my buddy, and we went off, and we had such a great time that we were bimbling around. And it was quite shallow, so we could stay out for quite a long time. And by the time we came back, everyone was like, "Oh my God, where have they gone? What had happened?" And we were like, "Oh, no, we saw some clownfish. We saw some turtles." "It was awesome."
And then, yeah, I came back to Bristol, where I was at university at the time, and I thought, like, "Oh, it's a shame I'm never going to do that again." But yeah, I had been truly bitten by the bug. So that kind of planted the seed, I guess. And then I did a little bit more diving when I was traveling after university, and then I went to London, got a job in a PR agency, and kind of thought that that was my path. And I did 10 or so years in London in PR, kind of agency side and in-house, for all various different types of clients, from food and drink, and travel, and charity stuff. And then I went to a small agency where they did quite a lot of charity. We did some kind of cause-based stuff, and we did a lot of travel stuff as well.
And I was still loving to travel and still diving at that point. And I'd kind of gone from the point of if I was on holiday near the sea and there was a dive shop, I might try and get in the water, to, okay, where can I go to go diving as a dive holiday?
And then I started going freelance on the side as a writer, basically because my brother got married. He got married in Grand Cayman. That's where his wife is from. And I was like, "Great, I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to do so much diving." And then I looked at the price of... diving in the Caribbean and went, "Oh, maybe I'm not."
And at the time, I was sending lots of, because I was doing travel PR, sending lots of journalists away to do review trips and stuff, and I thought, "Well, I write a lot." Most of my job in PR was writing, and often I'd maybe send a ghostwritten article that would get published, or I'd send a press release, and it would get edited slightly and published, but not having my name on anything. So I thought, oh, I wonder if I could do this writing thing as a bit of a side hustle.
So I went and got the last, gosh, three or four kind of back copies of Scuba Diving Magazine, which was one of the print mags in the UK at the time, and I read them cover to cover. And I emailed the editor, and I was like, "I am a writer, kind of, but I've never had anything published, and I don't have my name on anything, but I'd really love to write for you." So what I'd done, I'd written him an example story following the format of their kind of features. And probably luckily for me, I'd done it about my last dive holiday, where I was out in South Africa, and I'm going to caveat this with everything was fine, and she was totally fine, but I went on a dive where one of the girls on our boat got the bends, so decompression sickness. It was all very dramatic. It happened. We were still on the dive. The dive was aborted. We had to race back up to the surface, get back to shore. There were ambulance, there was oxygen. It was all kind of crazy. And obviously, from Steve's point of view as an editor, he was like, "We've never really had anyone that's written about that and been there when that happened." So he was like, "Actually, I'm going to publish your," my example story. Went on the front cover. And I was like, "What?!"
Yeah, and he commissioned me for a little piece about the Cayman Islands. So I went out, and the tourist board set up for me to do a little bit of diving there. And then, yeah, and then I was doing that on the side, kind of basically on my holidays while I was working agency side. My boss knew all about it, and he was happy with me moonlighting because it meant I could chat with editors and all that kind of stuff. And that was 10, 11 years ago that I kind of started doing it on the side with, I think I said Scuba Diving Magazine, didn't I? It wasn't. It was Diver Magazine.
Yeah, and then I, after about a decade in London, had a massive case of burnout, and I was like, "Do you know what? I'm done. Throw in the towel. I don't want to do comms anymore. PR is really stressful. I want to go and do something completely different." And obviously, because I'm a diver, I was like, maybe I could do something ocean-related.
So I was kind of looking, and I was googling, and I could only find two extremes, right? Either I go back to probably school, I guess, to get a biology A level because I'm not a scientist. I quit science as soon as possible- ... so it's ridiculous that I'm now a science writer. So it's like go back to school, get your biology A level, go to university, probably do a master's in marine biology. That's however many years. And then go and basically get your elbows out and fight tooth and nail to get these really rare in-the-field marine biologist jobs, where a lot of them actually are in the lab anyway, which I would've hated.
Or you pay 2,000 pounds a week to go and 'volunteer' planting coral or doing something where you're not really adding any value.
So I was like, oh, this is a bit rubbish. What am I going to do? Because I was like, I don't want to be a scientist, and I don't have 2,000 pounds a week. I would just go on holiday and go back to work. That's not what I want to do.
And a couple of years before, I'd been interviewing a guy who's a shark scientist. His name's Simon Pierce. He's really cool. His Instagram is great. He's a professional photographer, so he's got these amazing photos and lots and lots of horrendous puns and awful dad jokes. Sorry, Simon, but you know it's true. And I'd kind of connected with him and followed him on Instagram, so he was front of mind. And I messaged him, sent him an email, and I didn't think he'd reply because he's like the whale shark guy. He's like the guy, and he's kind of quite well-known in the field. And I was like, "Am I just barking up the wrong tree? Is there nothing in the middle?"
And he replied to me, and he was super nice and gave me a bit of advice. And then he said, "Oh, were you emailing me because I've got my own charity?" And I was like, "Oh, do you? That's awkward. Didn't realize."
And they'd actually been looking for a comms person for however long beforehand and kind of been struggling to find the right person. So he was like, "Do you want to send your CV?" And, yeah, before I knew it, I was moving to Mozambique, and I was going to go and look after their comms on a voluntary basis. That was 2018.
And while I was out there, kind of started doing a bit more of the writing. Obviously, I was in the field. They trained me as a research assistant to cover the proper research assistants when they had their weekends off. And it was just amazing. And yeah, I started doing a bit more of the writing as well. Was there for 2018. Went to the Philippines with a different organization in 2019, was doing comms there. And then obviously we hit the pandemic, and the world imploded, and I catapulted back to my mum's spare bedroom in the UK, and everything kind of fell apart a little bit. And yeah, ended up finding myself freelance, I guess. Yeah, I didn't even think about applying for a proper job. I was like, "Okay, cool. Been doing it on the side for a long time. Let's make this freelance thing work." So that was, what? Gosh, six years ago, something like that. Time absolutely flies.
Steve Folland: It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah.
Melissa Hobson: Absolutely crazy. And then, yeah, so I was kind of just trying to get by at that point. I was still probably thinking that I'd do more sustainability PR and comms, because there was a big demand for that at the time, so I was doing quite a lot of that. And then I kind of realized I still didn't like PR. It's really stressful. It's fine, but I remember one day, I was in the gym, and there was some kind of urgent story breaking for a client. I can't remember what it was, so it was obviously really important. But at the time, I was waiting for a journalist to get back to me or something. So I was doing HIIT in the gym. We were doing sets, and between every set, I was checking my phone and replying to an email and then getting back to doing weights or whatever I was doing. And I was like, "This is ridiculous. I hate this."
So eventually, I kind of started pushing myself to do more and more of the writing, because I wasn't doing it because I was like, "Oh, well, I don't have time to do the writing because there's all this PR that needs doing." And then I was like, "Well, if you want to do this other thing, go and do that thing, and then if it doesn't work out, then you can pick up PR later." So, I'm yeah, one of the few journalists that went from PR into journalism rather than the other way around. But yeah, was doing that and realized that basically, I kept writing about the sea and about fish and about sharks because I love it. And then, yeah, when I incorporated my business, which would've been three years ago now, I was yeah, deciding do I go with Melissa Hobson Limited, or do I go with The Ocean Writer Limited?
And I was still writing about various other things at that point, and I was like, "No, let's just kind of brand it with The Ocean Writer. That's what I want to do, and that's going to give me I guess the focus to keep doing that and not getting distracted by the other things." Three years later, here we are, spending all my day writing about fish and sharks and weird things happening in the sea. And yeah, I absolutely love it. It's been amazing.
Steve Folland: There's quite a lot to chip into. So there's a period where you're freelancing, and you're basically doing the thing that you had done for a career before, so PR and stuff like that. But you decide you want to focus on the writing, and more importantly, on ocean writing, on marine and science and things like that.
So three years ago- ... sure, you call yourself The Ocean Writer, but what was that transition period like? Was it a transition, or did you literally turn one source off and go to the other?
Melissa Hobson: No, it was definitely a transition, and I think it snuck up on me. By the time I branded, a lot of what I was doing was kind of writing about the ocean. I did have other clients. And I guess it was more kind of going from mainly PR to bringing in more of the copywriting and then kind of pushing to do just more and more of the editorial stuff. Which again, people usually do the other way around because there's more money in private clients than there is in journalism.
It was partly, I guess me thinking, "Stop finding reasons not to do the thing." Because I'd be like, "Oh, well, I can't pitch that editor because it's really competitive." And it's like, well, yeah, but it's even more competitive if you're not pitching them, right? Yeah, it was kind of just pushing myself out of my comfort zone. The ocean stuff was just quite natural, I think. Whenever I found an exciting story, it was pretty much about the ocean because that's what I find really interesting. So it was more, yeah, I guess being a bit more strategic about if something comes in that maybe you could do, and you could do it fine, but you wouldn't necessarily love it, and it's not taking you in the direction that you want to go, then maybe don't grab that just for the sake of it. And being a bit more selective, I think, about what I'm taking on and yeah, just being a bit more laser-focused rather than going like, "Yeah, I can do anything. What do you want me to do? I'll do it. I'll take it."
Steve Folland: Yeah. It's a tough thing to do, isn't it? So you're turning work down because you're like, "No, because this isn't the thing I want to do."
Melissa Hobson: Mm-hmm.
Steve Folland: "This isn't the niche."
Melissa Hobson: Exactly. And I think if I hadn't done that, I would probably still be working in PR. At the time, businesses were starting to think about how they communicate their sustainability and a lot of PR people were starting to think about specializing in sustainability kind of PR, but I'd already been doing it for quite a while, so I was getting onto people's radars. So I definitely could've carved out that as a niche, sustainability comms. But as I say, it just wasn't the right fit for me, and I think that's what's really important about niching from my perspective is people will get in touch sometimes, and they'll have just graduated, and they'll be like, "Yeah, I want to do exactly what you want to do." And I'm like, "Great. You might do, but try it because you might absolutely hate certain bits about it, and you don't know until you've given it a go."
I did, yeah, a decade of PR, probably a bit longer, and it takes that time to go, "Do you know what? This isn't the right fit for me," or, "It isn't the right fit for me anymore." So yeah, I think it was just kind of trying different things, seeing what worked for me, and then having the balls to say no to stuff, and sometimes leave space for something else to come in, because I think that can be really difficult, right? If there's something here knocking at the door and we've got to pay the bills, it's really hard to say, "Oh, I'm going to say no to that just in case I can then go away and cold pitch something myself that might not even come off." But yeah, I was just trying, and over time, kind of getting to the point that actually, I opened the door that I wanted open, and I, yeah, moved away from the other bits and pieces that I didn't love as much.
Steve Folland: How did you go about getting the clients in the niche that you wanted?
Melissa Hobson: On the kind of editorial journalism side of things, you're basically pitching story ideas all the time to different editors. So when I was working with the "Dive Magazine," again, just on a freelance basis, every time it was me coming to Steve and going, "I'm going to go to this place, and they do this here, and it's really interesting. Might you be interested in a story?" Or, "I've seen this, and it's interesting," or whatever, and you kind of have to sell that story every time. And the editor might say no, and obviously, if they don't, you might try and shop it around to someone else that's relevant. Or if they say yes, then you work out the plan, and what's the word count, and what's the fee, and you kind of get on with it. So when I was doing the dive writing, kind of the scuba reviews, I was also doing bits of eco-travel writing. There was an eco website that I was doing bits and pieces for. Those were unpaid, and I probably kept doing them for a lot longer than I should've done, thinking, "Oh, I need to build my portfolio." And it's like, yeah, you don't need to do it for a year or two or whatever. You still are a business.
And then, yeah, so it's just kind of building that muscle and constantly-- and again, I'm still doing it now, even with my regular editors that I speak to day in, day out. One of them, I pitched some ideas this morning, and he liked some of them, and some of them he was like, "No, we're not going to go with those." And that's just kind of the way it goes. So you do have to have a pretty thick skin, especially when you're starting out, I think, and editors don't know you. Some of them are getting hundreds of pitches every day, and they can't even read them, let alone reply to them. So you're sending out these ideas and going like, "Hello? Hi?" But then it is exciting, again, particularly when you first start out and an editor comes back, particularly from maybe one of the bigger titles or something, and they want to run your story, and you're like, "Wait, what? My story?" "You replied, and you said yes. Like, what?"
But yeah, over time you kind of get more of that. You build up relationships with the editors. They know that you're good to work with, and you file copy on time, and all that kind of thing. And then I guess as people see that, like, "Oh, she writes for 'BBC Wildlife,' or she writes for 'NatGeo,' she'd be quite good to work with." And then I think that helps as well kind of grease the wheels when you're sending a pitch and you're like, "Yeah, I've been published here, there, wherever." It gives you a bit of kind of proof, I guess, that you're good to take a chance on with a story.
Steve Folland: The relationships sound really important. How do you keep them, well, alive? How do you nurture them? I'm not quite sure what the word is. Nurture-
Melissa Hobson: Yeah
Steve Folland: ... sounds a bit too deliberate. But-
Melissa Hobson: It's a bit creepy, isn't it? Nurture. Ooh.
I guess from my point of view, I just try and focus on doing good work and being good to work with, and I think that kind of speaks for itself a lot of the time.
Sometimes, you know when you do these webinars and stuff, and quite a lot of places will do an interview with this editor on how to get published or whatever, and it's always helpful to kind of go along to those. And I'm always so surprised by the number of editors that say, "We're looking for writers that can meet their deadlines, and that don't get stroppy when we send them edits about their piece." And I'm like, "Wait, that's not a bar. That's like the bare minimum, right? File on time, and if they have edits or corrections, whatever, of course they do. That's why you have an editor, to shape the piece and make it better." So I think, yeah, just being nice to work with, being a real human, just having a little chit-chat with people on your emails as well can really help.
Getting to know them as people and them getting to know you as a person as well, I think does help. And then obviously for me, having a niche, I think, means that editors who have worked with me, if a story comes up that is in my kind of sector or in my field of expertise, I'm going to pop straight to mind, right? Because they know sometimes I do other things, but mainly I do the ocean stories. And so last week actually, I had one of my editors from one of my regular publications, but I don't work with this editor regularly, but obviously they have their team meetings and stuff. There was a story that someone had discovered this, you might have seen it, it was a really cute little blue deep sea octopus.
Steve Folland: Yeah.
Melissa Hobson: And there was some cute footage of it bimbling around, and everyone had covered it, and NatGeo hadn't. And they'd seen it and went, "Oh God, we really need to cover this, but we need it turned around like now, now." And they dropped me a message and said, "Could you do this by 10:00 AM US time tomorrow?" And they came to me because they know I do ocean stuff. They know I can turn things around quickly. I can file on time. I know how they write, how they structure their pieces. I was about to walk into the theatre when I got this email, and I was like, "If I tried to do 10:00 AM and I was a few hours late, is that going to be a problem?" Because I couldn't drop everything while I was in the theatre. I did send a few sneaky emails to get the ball rolling.
But yeah, I think having the niche for me, people, if I was doing a bit of ocean stuff, and a bit of animals, and a bit of sustainability, and sometimes I did food and drink, and sometimes I did travel. You're not going to pop up top of their mind in the same way, because you can kind of do a bit of everything, but you're not necessarily known for that one thing. And yeah, as I say, when something pees in the ocean and an editor needs someone to write about it, and I have had those emails more than once. Like, "Oh yeah, this happened and we thought of you." And I'm like, "Yep, this is not the first time I've written about dolphin wee, so you are correct to come in this direction."
Steve Folland: You make it sound easy, right? This transition into this niche, into being the specialist, into being known, into having the editors of huge publications calling you. Did it feel that way?
Melissa Hobson: No, it still doesn't. It's really hard work all the time, and especially when I was starting out, no, it definitely didn't feel easy. And I think when people are looking at getting into writing, that's something that maybe is a real challenge because it's not spoken about as much, that you could be pitching someone for weeks and months and not even know if they're reading your emails. I do have some little software so I can see if they've looked at my emails, which actually is really handy because I know this editor doesn't even open my emails, so maybe it's a problem with my subject line, right? Or they're looking at it, but they're not replying. And there's kind of this ladder, like just getting completely ghosted, it might just be you're really in the wrong ballpark or they're too busy or whatever.
If they reply and say no, a lot of people find that really disappointing, right? Because it's a rejection. But from my perspective, I think editors are so busy that if they come back to you and say no, and especially if they give you feedback why, they probably see a little something in there and it's like, not this story, but I have taken the time to respond to you to kind of say, "Actually, we do those kind of pieces in-house." So it's really important, and that was one of the things that took a lot of time for me, is trying to take all that feedback on board.
And when I started pitching NatGeo, God, I dread to think what stories I pitched them, because they would've been not great. And eventually, I just kept pitching the animals editor, and she, I think, took a chance on me with the first story, which was about why do whales beach. Why do they kind of strand when they wash up on coastlines? I'm hoping that there was a big kind of newsworthy stranding that had given me that hook, and I wasn't just like, "Oh, why do whales strand?" And I would imagine to get the commission, there was probably something that happened that was relevant to that story. And then after that, I kept pitching her again for, I think, a few months. And it wasn't right because of this, and it wasn't right because of that. And I still have that now. There's editors that I'm pitching and pitching and pitching, and just not quite finding the right story. And that can be really tough because you're like, you want to work with them, you want to pay your bills. And yeah, you kind of just have to keep going and hope that eventually all the things are going to line up, and you'll get that byline that you want.
And sometimes it might be in a surprising direction as well with, I've started writing for "Chemical & Engineering News." I've done a couple of pieces for them. One of my editors moved to that publication, and now I'm kind of thinking, oh, actually, there is cool chemistry in the ocean, so can I be pitching them? And just always looking for those opportunities. But yeah, it takes time and work, as you say, to kind of keep those relationships going, and then also be looking for other opportunities as well. So yeah, it's definitely not easy.
Steve Folland: Now, I love that you're sitting there with your Ocean Writer branded tee on and a hoodie.
Melissa Hobson: The logo's on the back, which there you go.
Steve Folland: Oh, I love this logo. It's beautiful.
Melissa Hobson: Yeah. Stefan did it for me, who you've had on the podcast before.
Steve Folland: Where do you wear those other than on podcasts? Is having the branded stuff on important?
Melissa Hobson: I think initially when I got Stefan to do my logo, and I loved it so much that I was like, "I want it on everything." so I got a little hoodie. My dog got a little hoodie. Which is actually, that's how I unveiled the logo. I did a little video of him at the beach wearing his branded hoodie. I got a little mug and a notepad and stuff. It was probably just a little bit self-indulgent because I was like, "Oh my God, I have a logo. This is so exciting."
But I do wear it to in-person events. I'll always wear either my T-shirt or my hoodie, so I've got a bit of branding on. For me, it's handy because I assume people don't recognize my face. Some people who I know through LinkedIn or whatever, if I've had Zoom calls with them, they might see me in a room and be like, "Oh, there's Mel."
But otherwise, you go to these networking events and there could be people that you've been chatting to on email and you don't know what they look like. And I have been at an event where I was looking for one of my editors who I could see her little thumbnail picture, and I was wondering, I was like staring at everyone, eavesdropping onto people's conversations, and then I managed to figure out who she was and then kind of pounce on her and be like, "Hello."
But having my branding on means the other way around, if people know me but they don't recognize me, they're more likely, I think, to come and say hello, and I have had that. And I was at an event the other day and someone kind of saw the branding on my hoodie, and they were like, "Oh, just wanted to have a chat, really interested about what you do," and la, la, la. If I go and nobody notices it, it doesn't really matter. I went in a black hoodie, it's fine. But I think it can help you connect with people, and it can help kind of spark conversations as well, right?
Steve Folland: You mentioned LinkedIn. You seem very active on LinkedIn.
Melissa Hobson: Yeah. Always posting on LinkedIn. When I was copywriting and doing kind of more private copywriting work, it was my main inbound channel really, keeping my presence really active on there was helping. And clients were coming to me through LinkedIn, kind of finding me that way. And again, it's, I think, quite clear from my LinkedIn profile pretty much what I do. Because I'm doing more of the editorial stuff, it's not so much that editors are finding me on LinkedIn now, although some have. But I think it's more when you're in a particular niche, keeping up that marketing, you kind of don't know who's going to be reading, who's seeing stuff. And I do find people who are following me who are kind of, from a business perspective, completely irrelevant, quote unquote, to my business.
I know some people might say, "Well, they're not your target audience. You don't need to market to them." And I don't, but partly if they're enjoying the content, I do little posts just about fun facts about the ocean, and people really engage with those, which is part of my whole shtick. I want people who don't love the ocean to be like, "Oh, that's actually really cool," and get more into it. But also, a lot of the time, if an opportunity comes up or there's a call for pitches or there's something, random people who I've never heard of who are following me will send it to me and be like, "Oh, by the way, did you see this?" And I've had that quite a lot, and often it will be a certain opportunity will get sent to me by four different people at once, most of whom I don't really know.
So that's really nice and really cool. I'm not super strategic on there, as you can probably tell. I'm sharing my stories because I think that's a good way to showcase my work. I'm sharing kind of fun facts about the ocean and cool videos and things like that becauseI think it's cool and it's a bit different from all the hustle bros on LinkedIn.
And then I'm sharing pictures of my dog because he's really cute, and I don't care if it's not Facebook. Going to squeeze in a tenuous business reason to tell people about what he's doing.
Steve Folland: So is Instagram not a big thing for you?
Melissa Hobson: Not really. I think just because the nature of my business is words. I do use Instagram mainly just to show people where my dog is doing something cute. But yeah, from the writing side of it, it's not really where my clients are going to find me particularly. And there's so many channels, right? There's Instagram and there's Bluesky and there's LinkedIn, and I just don't have the capacity for all of them.
Steve Folland: Mm.
Melissa Hobson: So I kind of focus on LinkedIn. I have an Instagram presence and if I've published a story, an article, I'd share a story on it or something. But it's not particularly a focus, in the same way that it would be for an illustrator or a graphic designer or a photographer who's doing really visual stuff. That said, I do use Instagram a lot for work for finding my stories.
Because a lot of the time science is really slow, right? The paper comes out years after the fieldwork is done. But now often scientists and scientific teams are sharing videos and photos of stuff that's going on in the field, and that can be a really great way for me to get a tip-off either for a story or something to watch out for, or maybe a paper that's new or a paper that's coming. So yeah, definitely using Instagram, but in a different way. It's not really-
Steve Folland: Mm-hmm
Melissa Hobson: ... kind of my marketing.
Steve Folland: And how about other people who do what you do? Do you know, or are you a solo fish in this ocean?
Melissa Hobson: There's a couple of fish. There's a little bunch of us, I think. I guess it's a bit of a Venn diagram as well. There are certain people who might write about animals, so when cool stuff happens with ocean animals, they're going to be covering those stories. But there are a handful of kind of writers specifically focusing on marine issues. I'm connected with most of them. Some of them I know really well. We send each other opportunities. We catch up on Zoom. Some of them we don't know each other quite as well, but we know of each other and engage with their LinkedIn posts and stuff like that. Even within the kind of ocean niche, slightly different specialisms and expertise. So, Ally, who's a friend of mine, does scuba diving travel. She's more into the travel sphere, which I do little bits of, but not quite as much.
There's Sam, Sam Andrews, who you know, obviously does a lot of marine writing, but she's a proper scientist. We have kind of slightly different clients and can cover things in a different way, and she has loads of pros that I don't have, and vice versa. And again, we're really good friends, and we chat all the time. And... I think when you're freelancing, it can be easy to see other people as competition when they're doing what you do. But I'm one person. I have one pair of hands and one laptop. I can only do a certain amount of work, right? And there are so many stories to tell, so why would I be gatekeeping? I think it's awesome that there are other people talking about the ocean and conservation and getting people inspired, because I can't do it all on my tod. That would be ridiculous.
And obviously, sometimes you see a story and you are like, "Oh, how did I miss that?" Someone didn't send it to me before the embargo or whatever. But really, I think you're kind of celebrating all those other people and their wins, and they do the same for you. And as I say, the freelancers that I'm connected with in my space, we share opportunities and we tip each other off on stuff, and I think that's really nice to have that.
Steve Folland: How about the work-life balance side of things? Because there was a point here where you were talking about the edge of burnout back when you were doing PR and comms, which was very frenetic and full-on. How's it for you now?
Melissa Hobson: Yeah. It's still really challenging. There's a lot of reasons, right? I think a lot of freelancers are going to resonate with that idea of you go freelance because you don't want to do the 9:00 to 5:00, and then you're doing the 24/7 because everything is about your business.
Also, and this is something that I'm working on this year. Last year I was doing a lot of news. So a marine science paper gets published, I might get a heads-up a few days or a week before. I pitch to my editor. If I get a commission, I have to do the interviews, write it up, do the edits, get it all sort of turned around for that point that the embargo lifts because we want our story to be out as soon as it's out.
And I was really busy last year, which was great, but it meant that it was a lot of tight turn stuff, just back to back to back to back to back. And I kind of said, you think of the freelance feast and famine, and I was like, "When it gets quiet, I'll take some time off."
And that kind of didn't happen because I work with lots of different editors. One editor's quiet, and then another editor that you haven't heard from in a while pops up out of the woodwork.
So that's something I'm trying to be a bit firmer about this year in terms of actually planning and booking that time off and saying no to stuff if it comes in during that time off. But also, I'm doing a bit more kind of-feature-based stuff now. It's a longer lead time. You can kind of plan it a bit better around what else is going on.
But yeah, really, particularly because I'm doing it on my own as well, right? Most of the freelancers I know have a spouse who either has a stable job or at least has another income, so there's a bit of balance there. Whereas I could have a busy month and then have nothing booked for the next few months after that, and you kind of don't know because news is so tight turn. I might have another busy month next month, or I might have nothing. So it can be quite stressful to be like, "Oh, yeah, I'll just take that brief, and I'll just take that brief." But it's also really important to rest, right? So yeah, my main enforcer of work-life balance, obviously, is the dog. He likes to go to the beach, and he likes to go to his local coffee shop, and he will tell me when he wants to go. And if I have something on, sometimes it doesn't even matter. He's like, "No. We're going to see Chris at The Hangout. We're going to go and get a coffee now." And I'm like, "Okay. I guess we are."
Steve Folland: So that must mean you have to be really good with your finances in terms of having a buffer?
Melissa Hobson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And this is actually something-- So you remember when I was in the Cookie Collective with you, right? And we were talking about income and buffers and all that kind of stuff. And I did at the time, I would put little bits into a buffer, but I was a little bit more, if I had a big month, I would be like, "Great. I'll take that extra."
And you said to us how you kind of pay yourself a salary, basically. That is set every month. So I got a bit more strategic about it. So basically, if an invoice comes in, I will split it into different pots, and literally pots in my bank account. It's one of those ones you can split stuff up, right? So, about half of it goes to my kind of salary and dividends, and then there's some set aside for tax. There's some set aside for software, my VA, those kind of spendy things you need to put money towards. I put 1% donating to charity, so that goes into a little pot.
And then, yeah, it does mean that smooths things out. So if I have a really, really big month, then a chunk of that will be going into savings, that if I have some time off or...
In March of this year, I was on a press trip for a couple of weeks, and then as soon as I got back, I got the flu, and I was knocked out for two weeks, and then still not very well for a couple of weeks after that. So that's like six weeks, right? A whole month properly off work, and six weeks not really doing much, which would've been a lot more terrifying, frankly, if I didn't have that buffer to go, "It's okay, because I've planned for this," and yeah, I can still pay myself. I can still pay the mortgage and the bills. And yeah, I think that helps give you a bit of confidence as well to kind of, yeah, maybe take those risks or go for things that you really want to do that are less likely to pay off maybe, and also have holidays and time off and be sick or deal with whatever the universe is throwing at you, because that happens too.
Steve Folland: You said VA.
Melissa Hobson: Yes.
Steve Folland: What does your VA do for you?
Melissa Hobson: She is my hero. Poppy. She's amazing. She does just a few hours a week for me, and she's doing a lot of email kind of management. One of the types of stories I do for BBC Wildlife is basically finding really awesome videos about stuff that's happened in the ocean, and then writing a short video-led article that's basically like, "Oh my god, look at this awesome thing that happened in the ocean," with a little kind of bit of a mini interview about what's going on in the footage. And as you can imagine, that back and forth of contacting the videographer, asking for permission, sharing the BBC's usage rights, getting the footage, getting the credits, asking any questions. It takes a lot of time, but it's also really bitty.
Steve Folland: Mm-hmm.
Melissa Hobson: And I was finding that I was trying to focus on something, and I'm like, "Got to reply to this email, and then reply to this email." And Poppy does all of that kind of liaison for me, and she just, yeah, drops me a little comment like, "This one's ready to go," and I've got a link with the footage. I've got the credit. I've got all the information. And then I can just focus on writing the story without all the back and forth on it. And then she helps me with some of my admin.
So, there's a database called the ALCS, which is like secondary royalties, basically. Freelance writers call it the magic money tree because we don't really know how it works. But you log your relevant articles, and if they were suitable for you to get secondary royalties, like once a year, you just get sent some money, and it's like, awesome. But again, it's that kind of bitty admin that takes time, and it's distracting from the other stuff. So, she looks after those for me and saves off my coverage and sometimes does bits of research and all those kind of bits and pieces. So yeah, just stuff, I think, that lightens the load and gives me the head space to focus on what-
Steve Folland: Mm-hmm
Melissa Hobson: ... I need to focus on because I think particularly if you're... writing is really draining, right? You need to be focused all the time. And if there's things that are kind of pulling your attention, that can just make it really difficult to write a good piece. So-Yeah, she's brilliant. I love it, and it was something that I was leading up to for a really long time, and I felt like I couldn't justify the investment. But I'm, yeah, really, really glad that I did go with that.
Steve Folland: Yeah. How long have you been doing that?
Melissa Hobson: I think about a year and a half now I've had-
Steve Folland: Nice. Yeah
Melissa Hobson: ... her on board. Yeah.
Steve Folland: Now, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Melissa Hobson: I would tell myself, and I still do tell myself on the daily, "Stop getting in your own way." and by that I mean, and we kind of touched on it, it is so easy to be like, "Oh, well, I won't pitch that editor because they'd never say yes."
And they might not. I was pitching The New York Times for 18 months before they commissioned a story, and it was because an octopus was riding a shark like a hat, and why would you not commission that story?
But I could've got to that point and been like, "Well, he's never commissioned anything. Why would I pitch this? They're not going to accept this. It's silly." And the same with all these opportunities. If you don't put yourself forward for them, you're not even giving someone the opportunity to say no to you. So you're already putting that barrier up.
And I think that's something that particularly newer freelancers, and I have it when I'm speaking with more junior people, they're like, "Oh, no, I couldn't put myself forward for that competition or that this or that whatever because I wouldn't win or I wouldn't get it." And it's like, yeah, you might not, but you're definitely not going to if you don't give it a go.
So yeah, that's something that I would wish I'd done sooner, kind of stop self-selecting things and thinking, "Oh, I'm not good enough yet," and go for it. And if there's a solid reason that you're really not meeting those criteria for something, what do you do to go and fix that? Do you need to do a course? Do you need to get published somewhere else? Do you need to practice something or whatever? So I'm not just saying, "Oh, yeah, just go and throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks." But go for things a bit sooner than you think you're ready to.
Steve Folland: Brilliant. Great advice. Melissa, it's been so good to chat. Go to beingfreelance.com. As there are for all of our guests, you can find links through so that you can find Melissa online. Maybe go and find out if they ever did publish the shark wearing an octopus for a hat or whatever it was.
Melissa Hobson: They did. It's a good one.
Steve Folland: They did! Go on. Go find it. So yeah. But really, thanks so much, and all the best being freelance.
Melissa Hobson: Thank you so much, Steve.
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