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Thanks to Steve Sears for sending me the idea for this post!

Last week, Diana wrote a post responding to a “rule” another writing instructor gives her students that you need to write for 15 regional parenting publications before trying to pitch the nationals. Diana rightly called B.S. on this advice. But some people took that to mean that you shouldn’t write for smaller or regional magazines, which is not at all what Diana meant. What Diana said is that you should pitch the magazines you want to write for, whether they’re tiny local pubs or The New Yorker.

But that brings up the question: If you write for the Podunk Times, can you consider yourself as successful as someone who writes for The Atlantic? What is writing success, anyway?

Success is subjective. To me, it’s being able to support my family while enjoying a flexible schedule and interesting work. While I do have a minimum per-word rate I strive for, I don’t care if I’m writing for specialized trades or well-known newsstand magazines. Both The Federal Credit Union and Women’s Health help me advance towards my goals. In fact, I recently wrote a post called Why You Should Work for Fewer, Smaller Magazines that extolled the benefits of writing for trades and custom publications.

I could probably be making a lot more money, thereby meeting many other people’s definition of success — but I prefer to work part-time and instead spend more time with my family doing fun things. If I were hustling 40 hours per week or more, I don’t think I’d be able to go to playdates with my toddler, bake a batch of cookies at 1 pm, have an hour-long phone chat with a good buddy during my son’s nap, or go out for dinner with my girlfriends (because I’d be too exhausted to be out that late!). I may not be rich, but I believe I’m successful.

Another writer may feel that success is seeing her byline in the glossies on a regular basis. For someone else, making enough money to keep him in books and coffee could be the definition of success. And some writers want to earn enough to have a second home and a cleaning service to keep it nice.

If you’re living your own version of success — or working your way towards that goal — you should be proud. Don’t worry about what other people think or how you measure up compared to other writers. Think about what success means for you, and go for it. [lf]

I answer your burning freelancing questions on the blog. If you have a question, e-mail it to me at [email protected]. Have a lot of questions? Consider signing up for a phone mentoring session.

Kim asks: My question has to do with the state of the magazine market now compared with a few years ago. I heard there are fewer magazines: are they hiring fewer freelancers? And with everyone and their grandmothers attempting/pretending to be writers due to lack of jobs with the economy, how do we deal with everyone paying freelancers less now because these people are flooding the market?

Let me address your concerns one at a time.

The Bad News: Magazines are folding.

The Good News: There are plenty more where those came from.

When writers bemoan the state of the magazine industry, they seem to be considering mostly newsstand magazines. But there are literally hundreds, even thousands, of paying markets that are not on the newsstands: Trade magazines, custom publications, alumni magazines, association magazines, and more. I make my living writing mostly for custom pubs and trades these days, for reasons I explained in this post.

Throughout my career, I’ve lost many clients due to magazines going belly-up. But every time I’ve lost a client, I’ve been able to find another one to replace it.

Finally, as Jennifer Lawler talks about in this guest post, we writers always do better if we diversify. I’m sure there aren’t many writers out there who make 100% of their income from magazine writing and are able to pay their bills that way. Most of my income comes from magazines (and websites), but I top off my bank account with copywriting, writing books, teaching e-courses, and even doing copyediting for one client. If you don’t rely solely on magazines for your income, the state of the magazine industry won’t impact you as much.

The Bad News: Many markets pay ridiculous rates like $4 per article.

The Good News: That doesn’t affect professional writers.

As I said in this post, “Markets that pay $1, $2, and more per word are not going to start offering $4 per article ‘just because they can,’ because they can see from these content mills the kind of quality that payrate buys. It’s like saying that McDonald’s grill-jockeys are depressing the rates for master chefs.” There are plenty of markets out there that pay decent rates, but many writers are too lazy or too inexperienced to find them and work to break into them. And some writers just prefer the easy way out of writing $4 articles that they can find as easily as clicking on Craigslist. For the rest of us, there are lots of good markets to go around.

The Bad News: Thanks to the Internet, everyone and their brother finds it easy to deluge markets with pitches.

The Good News: When editors find a professional, skilled writer, they usually stick with her.

It’s more difficult to break in these days than it was when I started 14 years ago, and I believe it’s because the Internet makes it so easy for any wannabe writer to fire off dozens of crappy pitches — which makes it harder for professional, skilled writers to stand out.

But truly great pitches do stand out, and once you do get in the door and wow an editor with yo

I like to experiment and try out new ways of working and living, and when I come up with an idea, I tend to act on it right away. That means that I’m often changing the way I think, and that something I was gung-ho on a week ago might have fallen off the radar today. When something works, I use it. But if it stops working, or I figure out a better way to reach the same goal, I make a change.

For example, for years I followed the philosophy that it’s better to earn more money when you need it rather than cut down on your spending. As freelancers our earning potential is theoretically limitless (since there’s no boss putting a cap on our income), but there’s a point where slashing your budget bottoms out and you can’t cut any more. So for years I would add various activities and things to my life and say, “I’ll just earn more to cover it!” An outside office. Personal training. Daycare. Cable (when we watch only one TV show).

Then, about a month ago, I had a session with my life coach Kristin Taliaferro and was complaining about how stressed out I felt. Don’t get me wrong: I work part-time hours and always manage to cover our bills, but I put a ton of pressure on myself as a business owner. Kristin said, “You know, every time we have a session you’re looking for new projects and new challenges. Have you ever thought about cutting down on your expenses instead so you don’t have to hustle so much?”

I felt immediately that she was right. I’m Type-A when it comes to work but at the same time I have an anxiety disorder — not a good combo. Doing less and having less on my mind would help me chill more. Within a few days my husband and I had taken our son out of his ultra-expensive daycare and cancelled the cable. I quit personal training, and stopped renting the rent-by-the-hour office space I used when I needed time and space to get work done (which was costing me about $200 per month). Like I said — when I get an idea I like to take action right away!

With all the cuts, we’re saving over $13,000 per year. I did the math: That’s maybe two or three writing assignments, five Premium e-course students, or eight 1-hour mentoring sessions per month that I don’t have to drum up and manage. That’s 1,300 copies of my e-book Get Unstuck that I don’t have to work to sell every year.

Of course, there are trade-offs: My husband and I now juggle childcare duties depending on who has work when. I’ve been working out with weights at home in lieu of training. (So far, so good.) And when I need a quiet place to work, I’ve been heading to the reading nook in our bedroom or to the local bookstore instead of the rented office space.

But then, there are the advantages: Two mornings a week I get to spend time with our son at a friend’s house, where we plan activities like baking, singing songs, and making playdough. I learned enough from four years of personal training to create a fun routine I can do at home. And did I mention how nice it feels not to have to hustle quite so much?

If you’re ever reading old entries on this blog and wondering why I said X when I now clearly do Y, it’s because, as I mentioned, I’m always experimenting. I learn a lot as I go through this freelancing journey, and I’m always trying to share what’s working for me right now. As a freelancer — a entrepreneur, a business owner — you have the freedom to choose your own path, and to correct course along the way. Take to heart the advice you read here (and on other blogs, and in books and

You know why many writers don’t sell their ideas?

Because they don’t try.

I run into it time and time again: Students and clients of mine who say, “I don’t have enough clips to pitch [insert name of big magazine here].” Or “According to the editorial calendar my idea would have been perfect for their September issue, but it’s October now so I won’t bother pitching them.” Or “All of my clips are 10 years old because I took time off to raise my child, so I can’t pitch [insert name of another big magazine here].”

I tell these writers that they shouldn’t say No to themselves. Why second-guess yourself about what an editor wants? Send your work out there and let the editor decide whether she wants your idea — don’t decide for her.

Also, by thinking this way, writers underestimate editors’ reasoning powers, decision-making abilities, and capacity for understanding. If your clips are 10 years old because you left the field to raise your child, and you explain this in your query, an editor will understand. If your pitch is perfect for the magazine, an editor may be able find a space for it even if it would have been even more perfect for last September’s issue. If you send in a stellar idea with a brilliantly-written query but you have no clips to speak of, an editor can make the decision whether or not to take a chance on you. (And one of my students sold a short to SELF with absolutely no clips, which shows that sometimes the editor will take a chance on you.)

What I hear when writers give their reasons for not pitching their dream markets is, “I’m afraid of being rejected by an editor, so I’ll reject myself first to spare myself the grief.” And you know what? You will be rejected, sometimes. We all are. But is we persist and learn from rejection, the balance of acceptances versus rejections will shift.

Don’t say No to yourself — put your best work out there and give editors the chance to say Yes.

I have a guest post on Victoria Mixon’s blog today called How to Break Up with Your Writing — it’s about how to gain distance from and perspective on your work so that you won’t have a major freak-out when an editor does her job and, well, edits your writing. Please do check it out. Thanks for having me, Victoria! [lf]

Laura Vanderkam is the author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, which posits that we can make the most of the 168 hours we have in a week if we examine where our time goes and how to use it more wisely. She also runs the my168hours website.

In 168 Hours, you talk about how it takes people a certain amount of time to ramp up for projects before they become really productive.

With anything there’s accelerating returns up to a point and then a point of diminishing returns. It’s a concept in economics. I think that applies to our work and applies to home. If you were spending only one hour a week with your children, spending another hour would probably do a lot of good and spending another hour would do even more good. But if you’re already spending 40+ hours with them, at some point each additional hour becomes slightly less important.

I think the point of accelerating returns is really relevant to writers because a lot of aspiring writers who want to become full-time freelancers are working around their day jobs or their kids’ schedules, so they’re fitting their work into small bits of time here and there. But if it takes you a half hour to get into the flow with your writing, it’s not very productive to work an hour here and an hour there.

People do get good at seizing 30 minutes when they can — but if you’re good at seizing 30 minutes, giving yourself a full three hours would probably be even better. Partly this is a matter of taking our work seriously. Often people think that freelancing is something you do while the kids nap or that you can just do on nights and weekends. It’s true, you could do some of it that way. But where people really start to see the money coming in and their careers moving forward is when they make it their full-time occupation. The brain focuses on it. If this is how you make your money then you will work harder, you’ll start seeking out new opportunities — and that’s more difficult to do if you’re writing only during naptime or only on evenings after your day job.

So do you encourage people to make the leap into full-time freelancing?

I do. Obviously, there are things you could do to make the leap easier or more safe and secure for your family, like having a couple of months’ worth of expenses in the bank. It’s also good to make sure that you’re making a leap with open eyes, as opposed to just closing your eyes and hoping nothing bad happens. That said, yes, you do just have to make the leap because that’s when you start to see the real returns.

I hear even full-time freelancers say, “I don’t have time to write” or “I don’t have time to market.” Why do people love to feel so busy that they can’t get everything done?

Partly this is a way of showing how dedicated we are to our jobs and our families, and of reminding ourselves that we’re important. If we say we’re busy, that means we’re in demand and that people want our time and therefore think we’re important.

I think we also have a tendency to confuse being busy with doing thing that are important. Often people will take on things that are not necessarily advancing them toward their career goals or helping their families become happier.

Can you talk about the myth of the time crunch?

There are 168 hours a week. If you’re working 40 hours a week and sleeping 8 hours a night, that’s 56 hours a week. That leaves 72 hours for other things. If you look at time diary studies, people are no

Today I interviewed the treasurer of a local university for their alumni magazine, and at one point in the conversation he said, “Your processes are geared towards getting you the results you’ve been getting. If you don’t like the results, then your processes are no good.”

I love this. It makes a lot of sense for the freelance writer: If you’re not getting the work you want, then you need to tweak what you’re doing.

The statement also resonated with me personally. Lately I’d been wanting to attract new magazine clients and mentoring/e-course clients, but felt stuck. How could I expand my business? My usual M.O. wasn’t working as well as I would have liked.

I had been viewing social media as a distraction to be used as little as possible, but by chance Eric got me a book called The Zen of Social Media Marketing from the library. As I read it, I realized that this is what I’d been missing. I can connect with people through this blog, but the way to bring people to the blog is to actually, you know, get out there and build my expertise on other platforms. I definitely need to keep tabs on the amount of time I spend on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but I’m excited about this change in direction and look forward to connecting with writers in new ways.

I call situations like this, where you suddenly take a leap into a new way of thinking and working, mind shifts. It was a mind shift in the summer of 2009 when I decided to cut my workweek down to two days (while maintaining the same income), and it was a mind shift two years ago when a coach talked me into offering phone mentoring (when I was previously scared of the idea).

Sometimes mind shifts come on of their own accord, but there are ways to help spur a mind shift when you feel stuck. So if you’re having trouble finding article ideas, thinking up new markets, or dreaming up new ways to sell your writing, here are some ways to force a mind shift.

Meditate. Sometimes we get stuck because we spend so much time running around putting out fires that we have no time or mental space to tackle the big issues. When this happens, I force myself to take a few minutes to lie on the floor and meditate. I often come up with fresh new ideas as, ironically, I’m trying to not attach to random floating thoughts.

Sometimes, opening yourself up this way brings on benefits without your even trying. The other day I was feeling harried and worried about not having enough work, so I shut my laptop and lay down on the floor. When I got up a little while later and checked my e-mail, there was a message from one of my favorite editors asking if I’d like to write a column for her magazine! That night before bed, I did a guided meditation from The Meditation Podcast. When I woke up in the morning, there was an e-mail from a custom publishing company I had written to weeks before, saying they were looking for freelance writers and would be in touch. I checked the time stamp and realized the e-mail had been sent at 10:30 pm the night before — the exact time I was doing the meditation.

Ask a coach. Whenever I feel like I’m stuck in low gear and need a mind shift, I set a session with my life coach. She’s the one who talked me into teaching e-courses even though my initial market research was less than positive. And it was a coach at The Yoga of Writing re

I’ve started noticing a theme that comes up with most of my e-course students and mentoring clients: They tell me they want to break into national magazines (usually women’s magazines) so they can make enough money to quit their jobs and make a living as a full-time freelancer.

Of course, I’m very willing to help them. I’ve written for dozens of newsstand magazines, from Family Circle to Fitness, and I have a pretty good idea of what they’re looking for. However, I don’t know anyone who makes a full-time living writing only for these types of magazines, for one good reason: They’re very difficult to work for. It seems pretty sweet to make $2 per word and up writing for a newsstand magazine, but let me tell you — you work your ass off for that money.

Because ideas have to go through multiple layers of acceptance, it often takes months to hear back on a query — and then, when you do, sometimes the editors need the article turned around very quickly. Then, once you turn in the article, the multiple rounds of revisions start. Finally, once the article is finally accepted, you have to wait to get paid. One newsstand women’s magazine accepted my idea in June, the article wasn’t accepted until November, and I wasn’t paid until the following April.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s not worth it to pitch and write for national magazines. Not at all. They make excellent clips that can help open the door to other magazines. And the per-word rate is a factor: I definitely felt like I had “made it” when I got my first assignment that paid over a dollar a word. Finally, I’ve developed relationships with many wonderful editors at national magazines.

But if your goal is to make enough income to freelance full-time, I’ll tell you what I tell my students: You need to write for other markets as well, and trade magazines are a great, often overlooked market for freelance writers. Trade magazines are publications that are created for the members of a certain industry. For example, Credit Union Times is for execs in the credit union industry, In-Plant Graphics is for people who run on-site print shops, and you can probably guess who reads Sheep! magazine.

Here are some of the benefits of writing for trades:

* They’re easier to break into than national magazines. I’ve written for more than two dozen trades, including Funworld, Multi-Channel Merchant, and Call Center Management Review, and I broke into almost all of them with letters of introduction. While many trades are happy to receive pitches, they also often come up with ideas in-house and assign them to freelancers.

* They’re less competitive than national magazines. So many writers overlook this great market that trade magazine editors tend not to be overwhelmed with pitches like their national magazine counterparts.

* They make great clips. A clip from a trade magazine can help open the doors to other magazines. I used mostly trade clips to break into national magazines.

* They’re fun to write for. The people I interview for trade magazines are usually excited to share information about their industries, and that excitement is contagious. You may think it’s boring to write about, say, how to set up a cleaning schedule for your restaurant (which is a topic I wrote on last year), but I disagree. A true freelance writer can find interesting nuggets in any topic.

* They can pay well per hour. The per-word rates can look stingy compared to national magazine rates &md

I tend to have Seasonal Affective Disorder — for a month or two in the winter, I’m exhausted, unmotivated, and down. I use a light box, take vitamin D, go for walks, do yoga, meditate — all the things you’re supposed to do — and still the winter depression comes. My life coach suggested that I simply work my ass off the rest of the year and then take the winter months off as much as I can to do what I need to do, like sleep. A Harvard researcher I interviewed for an article on emotions recommended the same thing: He called it “honoring the season.” I love the idea, but I can’t figure out how I could put off clients for a month or two without turning them off completely.

However, I DO “honor the season” on a day-by-day basis. We all have days when we feel down and dragged out, and we just can’t bring ourselves to work. We haul our butts into our ergonomically-correct chairs and try to will ourselves to write, but all that happens is that we spend the day in front of the computer surfing the web. Then, at the end of the day, we still feel down and dragged out — only now we feel guilty, too.

I’ve learned that when I have a day like this, it’s best to just go with it. Here are my tips for “honoring the day” so that tomorrow, you can feel rejuvenated and ready to get back to work.

Get an Early Start

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, as soon as I get an article assignment I start lining up interviews and doing research. That way, I’m not knocked off track if a key source is unavailable or some snag crops up; I have plenty of time to deal with the snafu. There’s another reason to start early, though: If I have a down day, I can take the day off and it won’t affect my current deadlines. Unless it’s the actual day before deadline and my article isn’t done, I can usually take off a day and pick up the thread again the day after.

Make a List

It’s hard to honor the day if you’re feeling guilty and frantic about all the to-dos that are running through your brain. Yesterday, which was a down day for me, I took a few minutes to make a list of all the things I needed to get done the next day. Then I was able to relax.

Ban the Computer

If you have a down day, use it to really relax and rejuvenate. Don’t veg in front of the computer all day trying to work and not succeeding, or Facebooking other people who aren’t working. Turn the computer off. The e-mails can wait until tomorrow. Instead, read a book, call a friend, watch a movie, or do some light exercise (more on that below).

Get Moving — Slowly

I always find that light exercise helps me relax, take my mind off the work I’m not doing, and feel more positive. I prefer yoga. A local yoga studio offers gentle yoga classes, so that’s what I opt for when I’m feeling down. Also, if I have personal training scheduled that day, I ask my trainer, who’s also a certified yoga instructor, if we can do yoga instead of weight training that day. Another option is to get outside for a casual walk (no power walking!).

Sleep

Okay, I’ll be brief with this one: If you need to sleep, sleep!

Meditate

At the end of a down day, I like to do a guided meditation from my iPod. The Meditation Podcast offers free — guess what? — meditation podcasts. My favorite is the one titled “Positive Thinking.” Another good source for free podcasts is

Last week an editor at a custom publication made a crazy request: She wanted a revise of an article — by the next day. It wasn’t her fault; the pub’s client stalled on reading over the article, and then decided they needed the revise right before the publication was being laid out for printing.

My mind spun as I tried to figure out how I’d juggle my other commitments to accommodate this request. I groused to my husband about clients who sit on copy for two weeks and then need changes in a day. I called a friend and did some more kvetching. Then I sent an e-mail to my editor with three words:

“I’m on it.”

I then worked my ass off to make the requested changes. At the end of it all, my editor looked like a hero to her client. Even better, she doubled my fee without my asking.

Another editor e-mailed to let me know that a product my source picked for a product review piece –which I turned in over two weeks ago — was no longer in production. Could I get another recommendation and write up a description today?

I complained to my poor husband (he hears a lot of it), then sent my editor a three-word e-mail:

“I’m on it.”

Then I had a back-and forth via e-mail with the source until we found a product that was a good replacement for the original one. My editor, who was rushing to meet a deadline of her own, was grateful. A week later, I had another assignment from her, and I noticed that my payrate was slightly higher.

When an editor makes a request, you have three choices:

1. You can decide that it’s unreasonable and that you can’t (or won’t) do it, and let the editor know.

2. You can decide that you can do it, but because of the rush/extra work outside the scope of the original assignment/etc., you’ll need a bump up in your payrate.

3. You can tell your editor that you can help her — and tell her with a smile.

All three of these options are valid and you’ll use all of them in your freelance career. But if you know you’re going to do it, even if you really don’t want to, it doesn’t make sense to complain to the editor, use passive-aggressive language in your e-mail, stall, or otherwise make yourself into a PITA. Grouse to your significant other, call a friend to bitch, punch some pillows to get the frustration out of your system, and then tell your editor you’re on it and apply butt to chair to get it done.

I’m not talking about major work here, like rewriting an article with five additional sources and 800 additional words. You should certainly say no to any attempts to take advantage of you. I’m talking about requests that are inconvenient because they disrupt your schedule, that may seem a bit unfair because they’re so last-minute, but that in reality don’t take a ton of extra work. When I get requests like these, I often get a little upset because I have to get back into the assignment mindset when I finished the copy weeks ago and have moved on to new things. But I suck it up and get it done. Maybe that’s why I get assignment after assignment from a core group of great clients.

I guess it’s all about attitude.

When an editor comes to you with a last-minute request, decide which of the three options will work for you, And if it’s #3, tell the editor, “I’m on it!” [lf]

I answer freelancers’ burning questions on the blog. Got a question? Send it to [email protected]. Got a lot of questions? Consider signing up for a phone mentoring session.

Kim asks: If I wrote a blog post about a subject that I later edited (months or maybe even years later) and submitted to a magazine and the editor purchased it, do I need to tell the editor about the blog post? I have a couple of other blog posts I plan to edit and submit to various publications and I’m beginning to think maybe posting these topics to my blog was not such a good idea. I don’t have many readers or followers, mostly just close friends and family, but I wonder if I should inform an editor that I previously wrote about the topic and that it’s technically “out there” on my blog.

If you edited the pieces enough I don’t think you need to tell editors, but if the articles are essentially the same, you should let editors know because technically it counts as having been published, and many magazines like to buy First North American Serial Rights at least. You’d need to ask them to buy print rights but not online rights.

I’d wager that many editors won’t care if a similar piece had been published on a small personal blog. However, here’s a Catch-22: You wouldn’t want an editor to know that you published a similar piece years (or even months) ago because then it sounds like you’re offering the editor stale goods. I would recommend reusing the topics but rewriting the articles totally so you avoid the whole issue. You’ve probably grown in your writing in the past months and years anyway, so this way you can also apply your newfound skills to the new pieces.

Another reason to substantially rework pieces before submitting to magazines: You never know what an editor’s threshold is for revised articles. Years ago I wrote an article for an online health magazine, and then sold an article on the same topic to an online business magazine (with a business slant, of course). The markets were different enough (health versus business) that I figured this was safe to do, and to be even safer I interviewed all new sources and changed up the writing as well. And guess what? One of the editors saw the other article and she was pissed. I don’t think I was in the wrong but I still felt like a jerk, and I lost a good client to boot. So rework the pieces as much as you can — change the slant, find new research, interview different sources, change your packaging. You’re a writer, and spinning off new slants from old work is a key skill. If you think at all that you might be cutting it too close, ditch the article or offer a reprint instead of first rights. I’d rather miss out on a single sale than burn a bridge with a client.

I encourage all writers to be Renegade and do what’s right for them, but you still need to consider the viewpoint of the people who pay you money. It’s within your rights to get as much mileage out of your old research as possible, but be prepared to defend yourself if you overstep a line — and know that it’s hard to know where the line is, as I learned from experience.

I hope that helps! [lf]

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

I have a guest post on the FreelanceSwitch blog today: When NOT to Invest in Your Freelance Career. Please read and leave comments…I hope you enjoy the post! [lf]

I offer to bust readers’ excuses for not pitching magazines — or, if they’re pitching, for approaching only low/no-pay pubs. (By the way, if you have an excuse you’d like me to bust, you can send it to [email protected].) Have a lot of excuses — or a lot of questions? I’m offering a 10% discount off my phone mentoring through August 20. Here’s what a client I helped last week had to say:

“In one half-hour telephone session, Linda covered a lot of ground—she answered all of my questions, offered specific, detailed advice and gave me some fantastic tips and resources. As a freelancer who has experience but is ready to move to the next level, it was a huge boon to be able to speak with someone so knowledgeable and so willing to share her insights. Exactly what I needed!”
—Fiona Kirk

Here’s Jan’s excuse: My problem with NOT writing is that I’m 52 years old and JUST started writing. I know I have a lot of wisdom from my experience but I also have doubts as in I’m too old to be writing this late in life. Am I too late in starting out? Can I learn enough to still be successful? I’m not 25 and starting, or 35, or even 45.

There’s a Dear Abby (or maybe it was Ann Landers) column that I love and always remember when this excuse comes up. A woman wrote in that she wanted to go to college, but she was 70 years old. “When I graduate, I’ll be 74,” she said. “Should I do it?” Abby (or maybe it was Ann) answered, “And how old will you be in four years if you don’t go to college?”

Her point was that time was going to pass anyway, so you may as well follow your dreams no matter what your age is now and what your age will be when you succeed.

Fear of failure is an insidious thing, and sometimes it crops up wearing different masks, like “I’m too young” and “I’m too old” and “I’ll start when the kids are in school/I feel more confident/I take five thousand writing classes.” See your excuses for what they likely are — a fear of trying and failing.

You can learn the basics of freelance writing at any age. You have access to the same tools and resources as everyone else. And as you said, you have the benefit of wisdom from your life experience.

The even better news is that editors rarely care — or even know — how old you are. Heck, they don’t much care about you at all except for whether you can turn in a great piece! I wrote for Parenting before I even planned to have a kid myself. I now write for magazines aimed at women in their 20s and 30s, even though I’m 41.

The trick is that you need to know how to think like your market, and that’s a skill you’ll need as a magazine writer no matter what age you are. For example, if I were pitching AARP: The Magazine, I’d need to understand the issues that people face in their 50s and beyond. When I wrote for parenting mags, even before I had a kid, I had to get into the minds of moms with young children. And when I wrote for a magazine aimed at college-age, minority employees, I had to think about what they wanted and needed to know about the issues that affect them. (And I’m not college-age, a minority, or an employee.)

This is a skill you can pick up by reading magazines, books, websites, and online forums that target all different markets.

I hope tha

Since we brought our son Traver home in early 2009, work seems to have gotten so much easier and I seem to have even more free time than I did before. How can that be? After all, as any freelancing mom or dad will attest, trying to get any writing done with a squalling baby or toddler in the house is like trying to work with an adorable jackhammer going in the next room. And as a parent, I’m doing much more housework and cooking than I did pre-baby.

Here are my random thoughts about this phenomenon.

My priorities have shifted. Before, work was on my mind all. the. time. If I wasn’t brainstorming article ideas, I was worrying that a key source hadn’t gotten back to me or bemoaning the fact that I had a looming deadline. I never forgot an interview or a deadline because those to-dos were seared into the backs of my eyeballs where they would be visible to me wherever I went. But now, I have something much, much more important to think of. I actually need to check my calendar every day to make sure I don’t miss an interview, and am often surprised to see that I have a phone call scheduled in just a few hours. And somehow…it all gets done.

With Traver, I find that I have many more “in the moment” experiences, which is saying a lot for someone who has ADHD. Instead of thinking about all the work I have to get done, I’m becoming engrossed in a hot air balloon book or playing “criss cross applesauce” and marveling at my toddler’s little gap-toothed smile.

I’ve also set boundaries. Pre-kid, I had no problems working whenever someone needed me. Now, I generally work on Tuesdays and Thursdays so my other days are free to spend with my family. I do check e-mail on the other days in case an emergency comes up (and it rarely does), but I try to set my interviews for Tuesdays and Thursdays. And if I need to set interviews on another day (as I will this week), I set them during Traver’s naptime. (Luckily he takes three-hour naps!) I used to respond to e-mails within minutes, and now it often takes a day or more. And you know what? It doesn’t matter.

I parent, freelance (and earn most of our family’s income), and keep up the house — and still have plenty of free time, while a student of mine who is retired and has no kids recently told me that she didn’t have time to complete the course assignments. Part of it is setting priorities. Would I rather work or spend time with my kid? Spend time with my kid. Would I rather watch TV or work? Work. Would I rather surf the Internet or clean the house? Well, you know what I’d RATHER do, but guess which one I choose?

All of this has happened since we brought home our son. Does anyone else feel that having a kid forces you to reorder your priorities, often for the better? Parents, have you become more efficient in your work? Do you find, like I do, that you have more free time simply because you aren’t spending 100% of your time rehashing your to-do list? [lf]

I’ve been reading Dan Ariely’s new book The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. In it, he talks about how humans and animals alike need to find meaning through labor.

Ariely conducted an experiment where subjects were asked to complete a simple puzzle on a sheet of paper. For the first successfully completed puzzle, the subject would receive $.55; however, for each subsequent page after the first, the subject would earn five cents less.

In the first setup, the researcher asked the subject to put his name on the paper and then complete the puzzle. When the subject handed in the completed puzzle, the researcher looked it over with an approving nod and then put the sheet in a stack and asked the subject if he would like to do another puzzle for five cents less.

In the second setup, the subject was not asked to put his name on the paper, and the researcher would take the completed puzzle without looking it over and put it in a pile before asking if the subject would like to continue with another puzzle.

In the third setup, the researcher would take the completed puzzle from the subject and, without looking at it, feed it immediately into a shredder right in front of the subject’s eyes. Then the researcher would ask if the subject would like to do another puzzle.

The results? People who were acknowledged completed on average 9.03 sheets, compared with 6.34 sheets for the people whose puzzles were shredded. And those subjects whose puzzles were ignored but not shredded completed on average 6.77 sheets — not much more than the “shredded” subjects.

What this told Ariely is that money, while an important motivating factor, is not the only reason we do work. We also crave meaning — we want people to see and appreciate our work.

This got me to thinking about my own writing career. If I had to choose between having all my work read and appreciated but not paid for, and earning a very high income but having no readers, which would I choose?

On the one hand, I write this blog. I post two to three times per week, and I’m not paid for it. Sure, some people who read the blog also take my e-course, but when they pay $240 it’s for the work I provide during the e-course, not for the posts I write on the blog. They get $240 worth of work from me. The blog is additional and free.

Now, I could stop posting to the blog and try to sell my post ideas to Writer’s Digest. They pay me $.60 per word. Multiply the number of words I’ve written on this blog and multiply it by $.60, and you’ll see that I would make quite a bit. But when I pitch Writer’s Digest, not every idea is accepted. Also, I have to wait to see the article in print, and I rarely receive reader feedback. But when I post on the blog, I get to write what I want, see it published immediately, and read feedback in the form of comments and e-mails from readers. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing for Writer’s Digest — the topics are fun and the editors are top-notch. But the fact that I don’t try to pitch every blog idea to Writer’s Digest instead of writing it up immediately for the blog tells you I might value getting read over getting paid.

On the other hand, I write beauty product stories for a health magazine, and I love doing it. The editor asks me to write in an edgy style, and always says that I get the tone right on. But when the articles make it into print, I see that for space reasons they took out my clever bon mots and went with bare-bones descriptions

Last week I posted on Facebook that an editor at Women’s Health was interested in my query. Another writer posted a comment saying something like, “A query to the glossies, how quaint!” I laughed, but then I started thinking…are queries passé?

I don’t query nearly as much as I used to. Since I’ve been writing full-time for 13 years, I’m in many editors’ stables, so they come to me with work. For example, most of the articles I’ve written for Health were the result of the editor contacting me. The benefit of this is, well, I don’t have to write a query letter. The drawback is that the idea I’m assigned is something the editors came up with in-house, so it’s often not as interesting to me as an idea I generated and pitched myself.

Also, I write for a lot of custom publications — that is, publications that are produced for businesses and organizations like Cleveland Clinic, Sons of Norway, The Vitamin Shoppe, Stop & Shop, and so on — and I broke into all of those through letters of introduction. (And LOTS of follow up — these custom pubs are not fast responders!) Trade magazines have been the same for me…while I do pitch a few of my favorites, I broke into most of the two dozen I’ve written for through letters of introduction.

But I still do query, especially when I come up with an idea I really want to write. For example, the feature I wrote for Fortune Small Business, which later turned into a photo spread and short for Inc., was the result of a researched query. The essay I’m working on for Parenting, about adopting our son, also came from a brief query. (True, you don’t normally query essays, but the one I was proposing was different from the typical essay model so I wanted to pitch it before writing.) And now Women’s Health is interested in an idea I pitched them about a week ago, which stemmed from an issue I was grappling with at the time. These topics were all near and dear to me, and I really wanted to write them — so I queried them.

When I’m writing for a national newsstand magazine, the relationship almost always started out with a query letter. Sure, Health came to me with most of the assignments, but my first assignment came from a pitch. Then, after I proved myself to the editor, he started assigning me stories. I developed a relationship with my Family Circle editor (way back when; I haven’t written for them in years!) through multiple queries, and eventually the editor started assigning me ideas that were developed in-house.

I think that query letters are still very important for aspiring and new writers who haven’t yet had a chance to prove themselves to editors. Queries show not only that you have a great idea, but also that you know how to organize an article, find good sources, and do interviews. They take the danger out of saying “yes”; because the editor can see how well you write through your query, she doesn’t risk as much as if she assigned an article to a new writer sans query.

True, you’d think that your clips (if you have any) would suffice to show an editor how well you can write. But how does an editor know how much of the clip is your brilliance, and how much is the result of a good editor? My editors have told me that some of the worst writers have some of the best clips.

Also, queries are key when you want to write about a certain topic, since of course an editor — even if she wants to assign you stories that were deve

Last year I rented an outside office in downtown Concord, NH. I loved it, but when I cut my work week down to two days in August of 2009, I realized it wasn’t worth $300 per month to spend a mere eight days in my office every month. So I sublet the office to a nice yoga instructor, and now I work from home again.

If you’re like me, sometimes you just have to get out of your home office (or dining room, or living room) and work at a freelancer-friendly place like Starbucks, Borders, Barnes & Noble, or a local café or bookstore. But while these are great for a change of view, they can also create major hassles for busy freelancers. Sometimes I go to Borders and all is fine and dandy, and other times I go there and end up sitting next to a lip-smacking loud-eater, getting approached by every weirdo in the store, and having to fight for a table near an electrical outlet. So I compiled this list of advice on how to get the most out of your visits to your “office away from home.”

1. Get there early. If you get to the café or bookstore at noon, forget it — every freelancer, telecommuter, and computer-game addict in town will have commandeered the tables near the outlets. If I get to the store by 10 am, I can usually find a good spot.

2. Bring a cord. Sometimes all the tables by outlets will be taken, but the tables that are almost-but-not-quite near outlets will be free. I always bring the extension cord that came with my Mac so I can sit a little further away from an outlet. If you do this, just be sure that you’re not stringing your cord halfway across the floor; you don’t want to trip up any innocent old ladies.

Also, I hope it’s kosher to pull out a tip from the comments. Thursday Bram of the Constructively Productive blog left a great comment: “I make a point of going beyond just bringing a cord: I bring a plug that turns your average outlet into a charging station. It’s got a couple of extra outlets, as well as USB slots for charging phones and such. A power strip will serve the same purpose. This way, you can always get extra folks plugged in, making you a favorite at the coffee shop and making it easier to find a seat.” Thanks, Thursday!

3. Plug your ears. For some reason, I seem to be a weirdo magnet — and my local Borders has a lot of weirdos. One time, a drunk man sat at my table while I was clearly working and started babbling about his “&^$# VW van.” Another time, a young man dressed like a caricature of a gang member sat down at the chair next to me and regaled me with stories about how he was thrown in the clink for beating the $#!^ out of some other guy. He also recited lines from A Clockwork Orange. That’s one of my favorite movies, but I really don’t need some freak whispering “The old ‘in and out’” in my ear over and over.

Another writer suggested I wear a pair of headphones to deter anyone who’s thinking of making themselves comfortable at my table and bending my ear. This works on airplanes — why not in cafés and bookstores while you’re trying to work? If you find music distracting, you don’t need to listen to it; no one will know that you’re just listening to the sweet sounds of silence. (By the way, the headphones also block out the sounds of the loud eaters you’ll inevitably find yourself sitting by.)

4. Buy something, dammit! Starbucks, Borders, and so on don’t

Did you ever think it’s not the economy, of the toughness of the industry, or just plain bad luck that’s keeping you from flourishing as a freelance writer — but your own limiting beliefs? Many aspiring freelancers are wonderful writers with salable ideas, but they can’t break out of the writing-for-cheap (or worse, writing-for-free) stage and make a full-time living doing what they love. And even while they complain about their lack of success, they have plenty of seemingly-reasonable explanations for why they aren’t even trying.

Here are some of the excuses I’ve heard from my mentoring and e-course clients — and how you can bust those limiting beliefs.

Excuse #1: “I have to pay my dues.”

Many writers believe they can’t write for magazines that pay a decent fee until they “pay their dues” by writing for markets that pay peanuts. But who decides what constitutes paying your dues, how long you need to do it for, and even that you have to do it at all? The term “paying your dues” is meaningless, because no one has defined exactly what it is and when it ends.

When I hear someone say they have to pay their dues before pitching the magazines they really want to write for, I know it’s a stalling tactic. I never hear a writer say, “Well, now I’ve paid my dues and it’s time for me to get cracking on my dream markets.” Because there’s no defined limit to paying your dues, writers just keep toiling away at sure-thing markets instead of risking rejection by the big guys. It’s the perfect excuse for not making the leap to better markets.

I’ve never heard an editor, when approached by a writer with a brilliant query and stellar writing, say, “I can’t possibly accept this — this writer hasn’t paid her dues.” In fact, consider this:

* I have a friend whose very first clip was for Cosmopolitan. She went on to have a successful freelance writing career and even write books on freelancing.

* Last year one of my students landed an assignment to write a short for SELF magazine. She had not a single clip before that. Now, she’s working on an assignment for Parenting that’s worth $1,300. She’s had only two assignments and she’s never worked for less than $1.50 per word.

* I recently had a mentoring client who kept “paying her dues” by writing for exposure and wondering why she wasn’t making more money. I convinced her to stop writing for free and cheap, and within ten days she had an assignment that was worth twenty assignments from one of her el-cheapo clients.

* My very first assignment, based on my very first query back in 1996, paid $500. I never paid a dime of dues.

Look: Paying your dues is just an excuse. No one is tracking what you do and judging whether you have written for enough peanuts-paying clients to start pitching your dream markets. If you have a great idea and you present it well, no one will care whether you slogged your way up from the bottom or just burst onto the scene.

Excuse #2: “I need to learn more.”

I hate to say this since I teach e-courses of my own, but some writers take every writing course they can find yet never feel like they know enough to actually get started pitching markets. “I can’t get started because I don’t know every single thing there is to know about query writing.” “Well, now I know how to write a query, but what happens when I get an assignment? I

My husband and I spent last week visiting our families in the NY Metropolitan Area.  When we returned to our home in Central Pennsylvania, we were greeted by bursts of yellow on our street.  The forsythia bushes had bloomed while we were gone.  In the past five days, I’ve noticed April springing into action with [...]

Thanks to Justin for pointing out to us that someone at amazon.com has a sense of humor — or is  simply a frustrated freelance writer filled with existential angst.

Check out the page for The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock. The best quip about the mixup in the comments below will win a signed copy. Signed by me and Linda that is. Winner announced on Friday, March 12 at 5:00 p.m ET. Or maybe not.  – DB (follow me on Twitter!)