Interviewing is often one of the hardest parts of freelancing — it involves asking people for help, dealing with rejection, and PHONES — so I've broken the interviewing process down into a series of easy-to-manage steps. This episode deals with everything you need to do before you ask someone for an interview; the next episode will be about how to ask, how to do the interview, and what to do after the interview.

Show notes!

• Seattle's Hugo House is a great place to take writing classes, and I'm not saying that just because I used to teach there.

• The "visit Enya's castle" story is Anne Helen Petersen's "The Keys to Enya's Kingdom," at BuzzFeed. Read it. It's SO GOOD.

• The Billfold has a Patreon! (You know I'm the editor of The Billfold, right?)