www.inkthinkerblog.com — One of my biggest clients has been strangely silent lately, and my bank account has been wondering what’s going on. So, after some deliberation, I decided to send a quick note their way and let them know that they’re welcome to take full advantage of my capacity.

SUBJECT: I have two kitties to feed

Dear CLIENT,

I’m not sure what the work load on your end is like these days, but I wanted to give you a heads up that I would cheerfully accept more work than I’ve been getting lately. I don’t like to be one of those people who e-mails three times a week begging for articles, but I do want to let you know that I’m here and am interested if you can use me more.

Yours,
Kristen

The almost-immediate response:

Poor kitties! Here’s 123 pages.

Works for me! The way I see it, I didn’t have work from them, so if I asked and they didn’t have anything for me, I’d still have no work. Nothing to lose! And look, I got two to three days worth of work out of it.

Lesson learned: There’s no harm in asking.

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www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — I’m very grateful to my friends Cory Jubitz, persnickety proofreader, and Audrey Owen, book doctor extraordinaire, for recommending me as a solution for folks seeking services they don’t offer. I appreciate the votes of confidence–and the links!

Do you have a fellow freelancer whose work you know and trust, and who offers some services you don’t provide? Take a moment to show your appreciation for their good work by linking to them or adding them to your list of colleagues to refer clients to when your plate is just too full. It may seem counterintuitive to send work away from you, but it comes back many times over when folks return the favor–and those potential clients will remember how kind you were. If they don’t come back to you, rest assured that some of their friends will be coming your way in no time.
__________________________________________
www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — I belong to several writing- and editing-related discussion lists and forums, and I’ve never paid for membership to any of them. That’s why I was so surprised to find that over at Ask Nick Usborne, the price for membership is $14.95/month.

There’s no doubt that Nick knows his stuff, and he can run his forum however he wants, but I’m just turned off by this idea. However, as of this writing, there are at least 72 people who didn’t have that reaction, because there are currently 72 members. (I can’t say how many of them are ones taking advantage of the 24-hour free trial, but I also don’t know whether free-trial folk are counted in the membership total.)

How do you feel about paying for forum membership?
__________________________________________
www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — In the tradition of NaNoWriMo, BlogYoNoMo is going to kick off on October 1. As mentioned by Medardo Manrique, Jr., who created the post proposing this idea, it’s been done. But the goal is to make BlogYoNoMo a separate entity from NaNoWriMo, which takes place in November.

Aside from the suggestion that perhaps distancing it further chronologically from NaNoWriMo would further delineate the two events as separate entities, I’m wondering how you feel about this. I’m a little uncomfortable with it myself. Yes, anything you write is protected by copyright as soon as you put it in any fixed format, electronic included, but publishing your entire novel on your blog seems like, well, maybe a bad idea. I’m not one of those fanatic anti-free-access people, but as a writer who would like to publish my novel through commercial channels, I would be very reluctant to make the whole thing publicly available prior to commercial publication. Doesn’t that kind of kill the whole first rights thing? Yeah, it does. Some publishers won’t care, but I don’t want to take that risk.

I welcome your comments!

__________________________________________
www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King