Building a writing portfolio when the work lives behind links

A writing portfolio has a problem the others do not: much of the best work is unsigned, behind a paywall, or owned by somebody else.

ConxfolioPublished 2026-09-12

— an editor reads one piece. Choose which one.

The structural problem with a writing portfolio is ownership. The strongest work is often the piece with somebody else's name on it, the report that never left the company, or the article now behind a paywall. A page that only shows what happens to be publicly linkable is a page that misrepresents your best year.

Order the clips, do not just collect them

An editor opens one piece. Which one is decided by the order on your page and by the line under each title. So the first entry should be the piece you would choose if you were allowed one, and the line under it should say what the piece did rather than what it was about.

The builder defines a project as a name, a year and one line about what changed, with an optional description, link, image and tags. For written work that maps cleanly: the title, when it ran, and what it achieved. A piece that drove a policy change, opened a beat, or was picked up elsewhere has a line. A piece that was simply published has a title.

Work you cannot link

• Ghostwritten. Describe the kind of publication and the kind of piece, and give the result. "Monthly column for a listed insurer's chief executive, eighteen issues" says a great deal without naming anybody.
• Internal. A style guide adopted across four teams, a set of help pages that cut support contacts. Both are writing with an outcome and neither can be linked.
• Behind a paywall. Link it anyway and say so. An editor at a publication usually has access, and everyone else can read the line.
• Dead. Keep the entry, name where it ran, and note that the link has gone.

What none of these need is an apology. A line with a specific result is evidence whether or not a reader can click it.

Range, in four entries

Editors hire for range more than for a single sample. Four entries covering different registers do that better than eight in one mode: a long feature, a short explanatory piece, something technical, something with a deadline attached. How many to show covers why the number stays small.

Two of them properly written up

For two pieces, fill the details panel: what it was for, what was hard about it, what it changed. For commissioned journalism the hard part is often the reporting rather than the prose, and saying so is more interesting than a paragraph about craft. The case-study page has the shape, including the version for work you cannot name.

Which designs suit text

The portfolio builder holds 20 authored designs across 6 directions. The Editorial direction is the obvious place to start: Otherhand Scroll, a flowing ink case deck; Coinwright, an engraved career timeline; and Ink & Paper, an editorial career record. The Minimal direction holds Grey Drift and Ink & Paper V1, both of which give long entry titles room to breathe.

Each card opens full screen at desktop and phone width before you choose, and switching design later rewrites none of your entries. The whole set is at portfolio designs.

The introduction, and the trap in it

Two or three sentences saying what you write and for whom. The trap is that this is the one part of the page where a writer is tempted to perform, and an editor reading a portfolio is measuring the introduction against the clips underneath it. An introduction more polished than the work it introduces is a bad trade.

The rest of what belongs on the page applies unchanged: contact details that print only when filled, a short skills set, and everything else switched off.

Keep the page current

A writing portfolio dates faster than the others, because the year on each entry is doing visible work. A page whose newest piece is three years old makes an argument you did not intend. The draft stays in this browser, so updating an entry and republishing is a two-minute job rather than a project.

Publishing claims an address of the form conxfolio.com followed by the handle you choose, confirmed by a one-time code sent to an email address, and choosing that address is worth a minute of thought because it is the thing you will put on a pitch email.

The headline is not your headline

A clip's published headline was usually written by a subeditor, and it is often the least representative part of the piece. The entry name on your page can be the headline where it is good, and something truer where it is not, provided the entry says where the piece ran so nobody is misled about what was published.

This matters more than it sounds, because the entry name is what a reader scans. A page of tabloid-style headlines written by other people makes an argument about your work that your work does not make. Naming the piece by what it was about, with the publication beside it, is both accurate and more useful to somebody deciding what to open.