www.inkthinkerblog.com — I’m liveblogging the AIW Going Freelance! seminar today at Johns Hopkins University. Forgive the typos, as I’m trying to keep up. You can handle it. Trust me. -kk

Cathy Alter on pitching…

Figure out if your idea is even pitchable, then identify the right market. And test your pitch before you send it out. Cathy always goes for her “reach” option first and then works down from there. She recommends researching the market so you can match the style and tone of your query to that of the publication. And to find out who to send the pitch to, check the masthead. Avoid the general mailbox if you can. Putting a name on it essential. She recommends starting small. If you haven’t written for a publication before, pitch a front-of-book piece first rather than a feature to get yourself in the door and prove yourself.

Why now? What’s the news peg to hang your story on? Why is this a story. What’s timely and relevant? Make sure the publication hasn’t run anything similar in the last 3 years. Do homework, read the archives, and make sure.

Until you can say what your piece is about in just a few sentences, the pitch isn’t there and it’s not thought out enough for an editor to understand when you have in mind. When someone gets interested in what you have to say, you’re on the right track. Watch for when their eyes glaze over. Get to the point quickly and briefly and explain how you would write hte piece.

Pitches nowadays are much different. It used to be that she could just go out to lunch with and editor and talk a good game and she would get the assignment. Now, you need to show your style, why the subject is worthy, and what the idea really is. There is now a hierarchy that maybe didn’t exist so much before. An editor has to show it another editor and there are a lot of yeses to get through. The more you can show the editor what you can do, what you will do, and what you’re capable of. Make sure your pitch is complete — they shouldn’t have any questions at the end of your pitch. The only thing she hasn’t really pitched is personal essay, which she accompanies with a short e-mail stating what she has done in the essay and a brief overview of her background.

Make sure you’ve spelled everything correctly including the editor’s name. Editors move around, so don’t burn any bridges. You want to be on time. Fact check, spell check.

Cathy is still so appreciative to have an editor say yes to an idea, and it’s even better when an editor calls and gives you an assignment.

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www.inkthinkerblog.com — I’m liveblogging the AIW Going Freelance! seminar today at Johns Hopkins University. Forgive the typos, as I’m trying to keep up. You can handle it. Trust me. -kk

 LESTER REINGOLD: The “serendipity” approach to finding work as a freelancer

In short, make your own luck and capitalize on opportunities. He didn’t start off with the intention of writing commercially, but he ended up doing it. He transitioned from full-time to freelance work. He went to Columbia for journalism but found himself not really using it. He wrote for some steady clients, including a trade pub, Conde Nast Traveler, and the magazine of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.

Principles that have worked for him

• Achieve the right amount of specialization. The right amount is the amount that makes you credible but doesn’t close you off from other fields. Identify subspecialties within your specialty. For aerospace, you have air safety, regional carriers, national and international carriers, etc. The value in specializing is that you learn the jargon and the issues you’ll need to be able to speak the language of your field. You don’t have to be a professional in the field to be a specialist in the field. You might not fly planes, but you can right about them.
• As you write in one field, be on the lookout for related areas. There are many organizations in a single field, as well as organizations interested in the field or in the organizations within the field — and they all need writers. Very often, they want to hire people to write their publications.
• Build on ideas, topics and research you have compiled for previous assignments. Repurposing your research, knowledge, and concepts can yield dozens if not hundreds of articles.
• Maintain enough momentum in a field so you become a known quantity. When people know who you are and know what kind of work you do, they will prefer you over unknowns.

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www.inkthinkerblog.com — I’m liveblogging the AIW Going Freelance! seminar today at Johns Hopkins University. Forgive the typos, as I’m trying to keep up. You can handle it. Trust me. -kk

The Business of Freelancing

AL PORTNER: So you want to be a freelancer…

Before you dive in, you need some perspective. There are only 3 jobs in the whole world.

1. People who make things
2. People who sell things
3. People who account for the people who make and sell things.

Freelancers do all 3 jobs at once.

Ask yourself why you want to freelance, what kind of work you want to do, why you’re qualified, who you will work for, what’s our business plan, how you will market, whether you have a natural client base, whether you’ve set benchmarks to signal success, how much you will charge, and what you expect to earn.

Remember that business is separate from your personal life. However small, it’s still a company.

Things new freelance writers believe they will write largely for publication. But most of your income will come from work for hire projects, not magazine and newspaper articles. This is in part because of a shrinking pool of traditional magazines and other publications, and the time lag in periodical publication in terms of the lengthy process of pitching, writing, revising, and then getting paid.

Potential customers include AD and PR agencies, associations and nonprofits, general business, colleges and universities, foundations, government, embassies, health care providers, newsletters (a vertical population, or those who need information for their jobs), internet, technical documents (lots of money to be made), think tanks, etc. Commercial writing generally pays the best and is the most dependable source of income, including advertising, PR, annual reports, editing, grant applications, marketing materials, newsletters, photography, RFP responses, speeches, etc.

Consider certificate programs through professional groups, such as JHU’s editing program or IABC, PRSA, and Council of PR Firms, Association of Proposal Writers, etc. Those three or four little letters after your name make you more marketable in certain areas.

In a tough economy, some of the bet jobs are the ones that lead to revenue for your customers: grants, proposals, and fundraising materials. You become an investment rather than an expense. Also, any required documents like annual reports, technical manuals, documentation, etc.

Keys to freelance success:

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www.inkthinkerblog.com — On Monday, I posted about my experience thus far with My First NaNoWriMo. Today, I did my first “morning pages” before settling down for my NaNo session (I fell asleep on the floor of my office on some comfy pillows before I got to the NaNo part, so that’s to come as soon as I finish this post).

For those not familiar with morning pages, it’s a technique devised by Julia Cameron that grabbed the writing public through her book The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. In simple terms, first thing every morning (after peeing and brushing your teeth, before working or doing chores), you sit down and write three (3) pages of longhand. You can write whatever you want so long as it’s something and you fill up three pages. Says Cameron in The Sound of Paper: Starting from Scratch,

Work with the Morning Pages awakens our intuition. Synchronicity becomes a daily fact. We are more and more often in the right place at the right time. We know how ot handle situations that once baffled us. In a very real sense, we become our own friend and witness. Morning Pages are the gateway to the inner and higher self. They bring us guidance and resilience. They make us farseeing.

Most if not all of the extremely prolific writers I know, the ones who immediately spring to mind when I think of when I think of the label “writer,” do morning pages. And now I do. I’ve decided. Today was the first day of a new habit. Who cares if it supposedly takes 21 days (depending on whom you ask) to form a habit? I’m declaring it a new habit. Just like NaNo aside, I’m going to devote time each day to write 2,000 words for myself before I write anything for anyone else. These are my new writing habits.

In the three days of NaNo, I’ve realized that I lost something of my identity as a writer when I began writing for a living. Bizarre, isn’t it? But as I have shared with some of you previously, I am often so busy writing for others that I hardly ever write for myself anymore. I have become a person who writes, rather than writer. This is not what I want for my life. This is not what I fantasized about when I dreamed of my life as a full-time writer.

Don’t get me wrong: It doesn’t totally suck or anything like that. I do work I enjoy and I do it from a home I love and it allows me the lifestyle I want. But writing only for others is not what makes me happy.

I feel like I’ve been on a road trip on a major highway and I just realized that I missed my exit about 50 miles back. It’s been a pleasant ride and I’m going approximately in the right direction, enjoying myself, but if I keep going this way I won’t make it to my destination. So, it’s time to backtrack.

Are you astonished at this great revelation, which has come a mere three days into a month of writing with reckless abandon and a mere day into these miraculous morning pages? I know I am.

Whether you’re NaNo-ing or not, what have you learned about yourself as a writer in the last day, week, month, year? Leave a comment. Let’s talk about what it means to be a writer.

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