This post is by Deb Mitchell.
I’m definitely more of a “rules are there for a reason” than a “rules were meant to be broken” kind of girl. It just never occurs to me to buck the system, and frankly, that’s served me well all my life.
But when my freelance writing career stalled (despite the fact that I had 5+ years of experience with clips numbering in the triple digits), even playing by the rules top freelance writing experts teach wasn’t getting me anywhere.
“Send pitches to newsstand pubs and LOIs to trade pubs.” Check.
“Email editors – NEVER call them!” Check.
“DO NOT clog an editor’s inbox by attaching your clips.” Check.
“Whatever you do, take time to research each market and NEVER, EVER use a template email.” Check, check.
I was spending loads of time researching markets, ferreting out the appropriate editors’ contact info and meticulously wordsmith-ing every email from scratch. Despite my best rule-following efforts, none of the editors contacted me back. Not. One.
There simply aren’t words to describe how frustrated and discouraged I felt. Giving so much time and effort with nothing to show for it eventually took its toll. On a daily basis I was at best, fighting despair and at worst, sinking in its depths.
In the midst of all this, I started working with a writing mentor (the one-and-only Linda). She calmed me down and gave me a few pieces of advice which I, of course, followed to the letter. I got a few lukewarm responses from editors as a result, and I even sold an article to a new-to-me (but not great paying) market.
Sure, it was progress, which lifted my spirits to a degree. But let’s face it — I was still working long, hard hours for minimal payoff. NOT a sustainable pattern for any small business.
Then Linda gave me a tip that helped me think outside the box – and believe me, it was one I NEVER expected to hear from her or any freelance writing expert.
“Why not try calling some editors?” she said, “And write a great LOI email you can quickly tweak for each market. Ask if they assign to freelancers or if they prefer pitches.”
Um, excuse me, what did you say?? Call editors?? Write one LOI to reuse over and over?? Pitch to trade pubs?? Break rules?!?!
As if that weren’t enough, Linda challenged me to call 25 editors in one day.
The thought of doing things that are widely considered no-no’s freaked me out enough, but seriously, 25?! Believe it or not, the part that scared me the least was the actual cold calling. I have a background in sales and I’m good at talking to people and I like marketing myself. Maybe, just maybe, the reason my by-the-book efforts were flopping was because my approach felt inauthentic. Calling editors seemed much more “me” — I’d just always thought if I did it, they’d view me as unprofessional (and kind of hate my guts for bugging them).
But with Linda, a seasoned pro writer, saying it was OK, I didn’t hesitate.
Armed with a three sentence script Linda wrote for me and a short and sweet LOI template email, I started the challenge.
I didn’t even get to leave voicemails with five editors before my phone rang.
“Deb, I was just delighted to get your message!” Really and truly, an editor was calling me to tell me she was happy I’d called her — not “hacked off” or “appalled” or even just “annoyed.” It seems she’d heard my voicemail right after leaving an editorial meeting where she’d learned an article slated for the next issue had fallen through. I’d also thrown caution to the wind and sent her my LOI email with my resume and a clip attached. She’d seen something in my article that would make a perfect story to fill that empty spot. Could I get something into her within a couple of weeks?
I know, right?!?!
After all my nose-to-the-grindstone work and months of angst over doing things the “right” way, all it took was literally a couple of phone calls and I had a gig that paid more than triple what I’d been getting! Even better, the editor ended our conversation by saying this was “the start of a very beautiful working relationship.” Hello, future high-paying gigs!
I’m no expert when it comes to freelancing, but I do think there’s something to this whole “find what feels right for you” idea. Just because the freelance writing books and classes say “Do this” or “Don’t do that” doesn’t necessarily mean those rules are hard and fast. It took me having someone of Linda’s caliber giving me permission to break the rules for me to do something that in the end felt natural and comfortable for me. And it worked.
As long as your approach allows you to both be yourself and to “sell” yourself as a competent professional, it’s worth trying something out of the ordinary — especially if you’re feeling stuck. You can’t predict how editors will react, but if you’re being genuine and gracious to them, no reasonable editor would hate you just for doing something differently. If they do, consider yourself lucky to have been warned about their inner crazy before you got stuck working with them.
So what will you try that’s not in the books? Be brave and take a risk. Go ahead — run with a stick in your mouth! Jump on the good furniture! Call an editor! Take it from me — it’s good to be bad.
How about you? Have you ever broken a rule of freelance writing and benefited as a result? Or have you found a marketing tactic other freelancers would scoff at, but that works for you? Let us know in the Comments below!
Deb Mitchell is a freelance writer in Charlotte, NC specializing in writing about interior design and women’s interest topics. She also works with business clients to make their websites and client communications the best they can be and with students as a general writing and college application essay coach.
This is a guest post by Diana Bocco.
You’ve probably heard the command before: Diversify.
In most cases, what they’re telling you to do is to try out different streams of income: magazine writing, book publishing, coaching or editing. But there’s another way you can diversify as a magazine writer: By looking at new and unexplored markets beyond your comfort zone.
Here’s how:
Target small specialty magazines.
Trade magazines are not as strong as they once were. Years ago, you could find publications for almost every trade, from cement pouring to oil & energy to insurance. The recession took a big toll on trade mags and as a result many folded or stopped taking freelance submissions.
Many, but not all. Trade magazines are still out there and they pay well. For example, last year I sold an article to a wine making magazine for $650 and one to a paper industry magazine for almost $1,000. Do I know a lot about wine making or paper production? No, but I’m good at research and I found great experts to quote in the articles, so the editors were happy.
You won’t find trade magazines at your local bookstore – they’re mostly sold by subscription or given away for free to members of a certain union or organization. Still, most have websites where you can get an idea of the topics they cover and you can use your local bookstore to browse books on the same topic for story ideas.
Look at your niche with new eyes.
Whatever your niche is, there might be more to it than you think. Let’s take, for example, the fitness niche. The obvious market is fitness magazines such as Shape and Men’s Fitness.
But if you write targeted articles, you can sell a fitness story to a woman’s magazine (“Exercise for the busy career woman”), a college magazine (“How exercise can help you deal with the stress of college”) or a health magazine (“How exercise can decrease your risk of depression”). How about a children’s magazine? Sports Illustrated Kids magazine publishes stories on kids excelling at sports and fitness and Youth Fitness magazine recently published an article on common summer injuries in active kids and teens.
If you find a specific topic, you can spin it forever into different angles. A “how to avoid injury” article can be targeted to fit a running, skiing or cycling magazine. I once wrote an article on budget travel in Japan and then realized I could write similar articles about other destinations. That resulted in multiple articles and over $2,000 in assignments from travel publications, in-flight magazines and an expat magazine.
And don’t forget trade publications. You could target magazines aimed at fitness professionals, gym owners and sports management. These would require a very different type of article and approach, but it could be an interesting challenge to try.
Cross frontiers.
Up until a couple of years ago, it had never crossed my mind to target international magazines. It seems like such an obvious thing to do, right? The UK, Canada and Australia have plenty of magazines covering the same fields you find in American publications. So why are you ignoring them?
Once I discovered international markets, my reach expanded a lot. I’m a frequent contributor to The Genteel, a Canadian fashion and design publication and I’ve sold stories to The Writer, Marie Claire Australia and UK’s Six magazine. My work has also appear
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called The Dark Side of Diversifying, about how over-diversifying your career can make you feel scattered and at loose ends. As I mentioned, I work on a TON of projects: I write for magazines and corporate clients, write and market books, teach e-courses, do phone mentoring, run the Renegade Writer blog and classes, and write adoption profiles for adoptive families. And that’s just the work side of things; I also run a local moms’ group with over 100 members and am the founder of Creative Professionals for Animal Welfare, which has about 250 volunteers.
So I decided to simplify.
Due to some business reasons I won’t get into here, it was about to become much harder for me to run the Renegade Writer e-courses. In addition, updating the e-course page, promoting the classes, and collecting money add to my already full plate a bunch of administrative and marketing tasks that I had to accomplish for each instructor and each session. It was a difficult decision, but I made the choice to stop running classes other than my own. All of the instructors were very understanding (thank you!). (And don’t worry, the instructors are still teaching their classes — just not through the Renegade Writer. Go here for info on how to contact the instructors about their next sessions.)
Then, this week, I had a great session with my life coach Kristin Taliaferro. I told her that I didn’t feel like I “had it all together” lately. I was scattered and anxious, and felt pulled in a dozen directions at once. Kristin asked me what I would like to get rid of.
I had been thinking lately that I should give up Creative Professionals for Animal Welfare; I just don’t have the passion for it that I had before our son was born 19 months ago. I was doing the bare minimum to keep the service going, and wasn’t making the effort to build the volunteer list and reach out to animal welfare organizations that could use our services. It was hard on the ego, but I decided to find someone who would like to take over the reins and really make the service great. (Interested? E-mail me at [email protected].)
Then there was the moms’ group I run. Like creativePAW, the meetup group doesn’t take a lot of time, but it’s just another thing bouncing around my brain. I have some members who are much more active than I am in terms of hosting meetups, attending meetups, coming up with ideas for new gatherings, and participating in the discussion board. I decided that I would remain a member but step down as organizer. It was worth running the group for the last year and a half — I made a lot of friends with kids Traver’s age — but I would be much happier if someone else were making the decisions. It looks like I have someone I really like interested in taking over, which I’m excited about.
So how do I feel after all that simplifying? Much lighter, though I’m still looking for someone to take over creativePAW, and then there will be all the tasks associated with the transfer. But once it’s all done, I expect that I’ll feel more together and less scattered. When you have a million tasks and they’re all of roughly equal urgency and importance, whittling down your list of to-dos makes deciding which task to tackle much easier.
Now I’m on a roll and am looking for even more tasks and projects to eliminate. It’s difficult becaus
