"It Doesn't Hurt to Ask"

I’ve adopted the title of this post as my personal motto over the course of the past few weeks. This simple adage (and following through on it) has netted me considerable work throughout October and likely for the rest of the year. Who knew?!?

I’ve always been pretty persistent at approaching editors and suggesting story ideas, but obviously I’ve stepped up my efforts over these past few months. But as I’ve heard “our budgets are tight” and “we aren’t assigning anything to freelancers at the moment” and “Please send us your resume and if something becomes available we’ll contact you”, that’s just made me get creative with the types of folks I approach.

This belief has helped me to branch out. Much of my workload for October consists of assignments for new-to-me markets (including 2 trade publications)—places I hadn’t heard of six months ago, but now have me on their radar and I’m happily accepting work from them. Three of my four assignments for this month are for publications I’ve never written for before, and I’m also in discussion with a nearby college to do some work for their alumni magazine (depending on how that pans out, that might be another blog post in itself!) I do the occasional piece for the local newspaper, but am not doing as much work as I’d like, so I approached another local paper and asked if they need stringers. Yep, they do. Now I’m on three of their editors’ radar and hope to be covering events for them soon.

So I’m keeping up a steady stream of new work, besides the ongoing assignments and projects from the regular clients. All because I bit the bullet and powered through past the “Sorry, we don’t need people” and the “Sorry, we aren’t hiring freelancers right now” responses. Luckily, I have found places that need people and are looking for new writers, even if those discoveries came in some unexpected places. Nearly all of the projects I’m working on now came about through LOI’s. I’ve sent out an unusually high (for me) number of queries lately, but they haven’t landed me any assignments yet. So I’ll stick with the LOI’s for the immediate future. They’re working for me.

What about you? Have you approached an editor outside of your usual niche and received a good response? Do you have more luck with queries or LOI's?

Amazing Discoveries

Thanks to Google, I just picked up this cool little trick. I have the worst luck finding actual names of editors and appropriate contact people at different publications, so I tried a new approach—I simply did a Google search for “editor [publication name]” and had more luck tracking down a real person that way than on most pubs’ websites. I still had to do some digging since some of the results were pretty old, but it was still quicker to track down the right person doing it this way than scanning some of these websites. I spent a better portion of an afternoon re-sending queries and LOI’s to various markets—mainly those that only had the generic “info@” or “editorial@” address that I hate. I even managed to land a few responses on the same day—with mixed results, but still!

Along those same lines, some of the responses I received were the “Thanks, but…” kind. “Thanks, but we aren’t paying freelancers right now.” “Thanks, but we’ve gone in-house.” “Thanks, but we’re cutting back on content at the moment.” So maybe these are some of the reasons why I never heard back from any of these places? I guess the magazine industry is still feeling the crunch.

Also, again thanks to Google, I did contact a few “under the radar” markets (mostly trade pubs). I recently did an article for a food trade pub, and really enjoyed the assignment, so I wanted to try my luck at breaking into similar markets. One of my biggest frustrations with freelancing is that most of us are one-hit wonders—we can try to break into a market for months, finally pitch something that’s accepted, and are never able to score another assignment. But persistence sometimes pays off, and I do have something to show for my efforts—I found one market that looked interesting (a food market focused on spice/pepper/smoke), so I sent an LOI and the editor got back to me a few hours later and invited me to send some clips. A few days and one follow-up email later, I landed an assignment! They strike me as very easygoing folks, and this assignment will also give me the chance to work some humor into the piece, which I unfortunately don’t get to do very often. (I tend to be funnier in person than I am on paper). In any case, I’m looking forward to it and hope I can do other pieces for them.

What about you? What interesting/useful tricks have you tried lately?

Phone or Email for Following Up With Editors?

I’ve been taking my own advice and have been in hard-core follow up mode—I haven’t been sending out many queries lately, but most of the ones I’ve sent out have gone unanswered. Next to people not following through on what they commit to, editors who never respond (or need considerable prodding to give you a “no”) would be on my Top 5 list of pet peeves. That’s probably one of the elements of freelancing that I can’t ever see getting used to.

Normally I’ll follow up approximately 2 weeks after I send my original story idea. Then 2 weeks later if the follow-up got me nowhere…then another 2 weeks later, so we’re talking a good 6 weeks before I give up and send the “Do you want this or don’t you?!” (though a bit more professional, of course) email.

Which brings me to today’s question—what’s the best way for communicating with editors? Being the introspective nerd that I am, discovering email way back when was a godsend. My initial reaction to email went something like “No face to face communication?!?! I can rant and rave and confront the other person without having to see them?!?! How do I sign up for this?!?!” And like most people my age who came up through the ranks right at the tail-end of face-to-face communication as the preferred method of interaction, I embraced email and still choose that over picking up the phone. I’ll email an editor until they respond just to get me to leave them alone, but I never call. I don’t know why—I wouldn’t say I’m nervous about it, per se (at my 9-5 job I associate with company presidents, CEO’s, and other high ranking officials without batting an eye), but it just doesn’t feel right to me. I guess I just know that most editors are insanely busy, and I don’t want to be another phone message pushed into the “Later” bin. Thanks, but I’ll wait for the little rush I get when I see an editor’s name in my email inbox.

What about you? Do you prefer phone or email for following up with editors?

How to Talk (and Listen) to an Editor

by Priscilla Y. Huff

I have been a freelance writer and author for a long time, and one axiom that I have learned (and still have to remind myself) is how to talk and listen to an editor. Here are some tips:

1) Editors are ALWAYS on deadline, so keep all your communications with them succinct and to the point.

2) NEVER ASSUME any details of an assignment’s specs. Check with your editor if you are not sure of any part of your assignment. It is a bit crass, but a former day job boss of mine wrote the word “assume” on a piece of paper for me when I made a mistake with a project without checking with her first. She broke it down explaining (that): “It (assume) makes an a@# out of u and me.”

3) Deliver what she asked: An article that is on time with the correct word length, quotes and facts checked, photos the right size for publication, sidebars; and one that is proofread for wording and grammar. Daily re-read your assignment’s specs to be certain you are including all that your editor has stipulated.

4) Your assignment is not over until it is printed: Many times, I submitted an article, only to be contacted by the editor a couple of weeks later when the editor was then going over it for publication and had some questions. Be ready to revise or answer her questions and that she has your contact information if she wants to reach you.

5) Make it easy to get paid. Submit an invoice and include your address or online payment information; your contact information; and what rights you are selling. Editors may “assume” you are selling ALL your rights to a piece when you are not or vice-versa.

When it doubt about any part of your assignment, ask; even editors with whom you have worked with previously. Your editor will appreciate it. When editors are happy with writers, they tend to give more assignments to those writers who really DO listen and make their jobs easier.

For Further Reading:

Writer's Digest Handbook of Making Money Freelance Writing
Writer's Digest Magazine Article:“Tips for Dealing with Your Editor” by About.com guide, Allena Tapia