Freelance journalism (and writing in general) is a perilous profession to undertake — never knowing whether that commission will come through, or fall through, permanently living in a state of ‘boom’ or ‘bust’ as editorial budgets continue to fluctuate.

For all its perils, it’s also a vocation with an undeniable appeal — it’s pretty much all sitting in coffee shops and writing about your favourite things, right? Or jetting around the world to different events and then writing articles for glossy magazines that you charge thousands of dollars?

Not so much.

What’s equally likely is that you’ll self-fund a trip to a big convention (let’s say CES, as my background is tech, but it’s really applicable to any sector) and at the end of the week, after your expenses, travel, hotels and everything else, you realise the trip was, essentially, a financial waste of time.

Of course, you tried to commission work before you left, but you didn’t get a response from everyone in time and besides, hotels and flights need to be booked months in advance.

The problem, simply, is that you just can’t know enough people to guarantee viability — and if it falls apart, there’s little you can do but suck up the loss and carry on.

Even as a serious, well-respected journalist that’s an expert in your area, there are still potential opportunities being missed out on (for publishers, writers — and ultimately readers) simply because you can’t spend all your time ‘connecting’ with people.

Time is money, aka, the freelancer’s mantra.

Let’s take a real-world example of the problem.

My nearly decade of reporting experience has been spent working at places like The Next Web, ZDNet, WIRED, Engadget, TrustedReviews and a few other high-profile titles. As a result, I’m pretty well-connected.

But next week, I have a gadget arriving that’s not really a very good fit for any of those places, or maybe I’d just like to broaden my portfolio a little more. I’m reliably informed that I’m the first one in the UK to get my hands on one, and I’m pretty certain it would be of interest to a lifestyle audience as well as a tech one, but how do I reach those editors or people that would be interested in commissioning it?

I could spend a whole lot of time researching the right people to pitch. But a better answer would be to have a marketplace that allowed me to post a pitch (or an excerpt, if it’s fully written already) and that also allowed those commissioning editors to purchase that work there and then.

This model, in turn, stops the problem of freelancers needing to chase late payments, and publishers having to fork out late payment fees.

It enables an entirely on-demand workflow that can be initiated by publishers or writers — both can post projects.

And most importantly, all members will be vetted before being fully-registered on the platform to ensure only high-quality content from experienced individuals. This is not a home to the ‘$5 for 1,000 words’ articles that you’ll see on other freelance marketplaces. This is a dedicated portal focused entirely on freelance writing run by someone who knows all sides of the commissioning process.

Oh, and it’s going to be free to register when we launch, for writers and publishers. It’s not just tech either, all interests, focuses and topics are welcome. If you can pitch it, we want it.

If you’re interested and want to keep up-to-date with the project’s progress or have questions, please enter your email here: bbt.media and follow us on Twitter.