Highlights from the 2006 WIW Freelance Success Seminar (Part 2 of 4)

Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Highlights from the WIW/JHU Freelance Success seminar continue! Here’s part two of four.

PART TWO
Beyond Magazines and Newspapers, with panelists Mary Collins (JHU’s Master of Arts in Writing program) and Pat McNees (author of Dying: A Book of Comfort).

Mary Collins said…

It’s important to figure out what you want to write about. Being a generalist can take you only so far.
Keep your queries short. If the idea is good, it’s sold.
You’re selling a skill set. You’re not necessarily selling your knowledge or your expertise, you’re selling a set of skills: reading, synthesizing, thinking like an entertainer, being a meticulous reporter, identifying the most interesting information (it’s often the human element, she says), presenting research creatively and interestingly. Be confident in them.
Good writing is also part of the skill set (obviously), and good writing, particularly for educational work, means varying sentence length, making the writing aurally appealing, being a storyteller, and keeping the pace up.
Go to the experts, spin off of other work in the subject area, and find your angle. Be clever, and be willing to do the legwork.
Be a resource. For example, when submitting and article or manuscript, identify appropriate artwork (and there’s a pretty penny to be earned in photo research, so that’s something to consider).
Someone once told her that for every story you report (or book you research, for that matter), you should be able to write at least three pieces: a profile, and investigative piece, and an opinion piece. You might be getting a flat fee for a work-for-hire project, but you can use the research and knowledge you gained for countless other projects.
Target the audiences you know you want to work at. One idea is to take a small on-site contract job to get to know the people on the inside, such as a researcher or fact checker for an organization for whom you’d like to write.
Remember for work-for-hire projects that you’re simply the content provider. Keep a professional distance. It’s about what the client wants, not what you want, so figure out the client’s voice and mimic it.
Never send your query or inquiry to the top person. That person’s job isn’t to read your query, but rather to generate revenue for the publication or house.
Diversify within your ideal area. (Translation: It’s hard to earn a living as a one-trick pony.)
Good money in the alternative markets (such as educational or nonprofit writing) will finance the work you love, your art and your craft.
Constantly look for the little openings, and don’t underestimate the value of contacts.
“Writing should be joyful because it is a hard business. If it’s a grind and you’re not making any money, what is that? There needs to be joy, or at least pride.”
Don’t cater to the demographic (eg, don’t dumb it down when writing for kids)–your editor will do that. Write the best story you can that you’re interested in. To learn how, look at good writers in the genre. Examine their voice, their, pacing, and their word choice. E.B. White is a great example.

Pat McNees said…

The more boring something is, the more you can charge for it. (Amen, sister!)
Don’t just get sucked in by the byline. You never know where something will lead.
You’ll be successful if you’re curious and have the confidence to say, “I can do this,” and the skill to show that you can write.
Do lots of things and have lots [of samples] to show people. “You don’t know what’s going to strike people, so you need to give them a lot of things to choose from.”
If what you’re interested in is writing about something you’re interested in, fine. “If you’re interested in making money, you need to figure out who can pay a lot and who can pay a little, and put yourself in front of the people who can pay a lot.”
In order to make yourself valuable, you need to make yourself appear valuable. Sometimes that means quoting a figure that doesn’t feel natural to you, but you need to do it. There’s pay by prestige (yours or the client’s), pay by market or region (usually the client’s), and pay by skills (yours).
When estimating cost, time is the biggest variable, and sometimes you do have to educate a client about how long something will take.

Don’t forget to read the other parts of this four-part highlights series! Part one is available now, and parts three and four will be up next week.

PART ONE