Or do you mean they won’t come to me because I turned them down in the past? In the case of the Olympic athletes article, the editor was thankful that I came clean with her rather than taking an assignment that I couldn’t handle and then screwing it up! In other cases — say the money is way too low — I don’t care if they don’t approach me with more work.

Sarah, great idea to try to build up some regional clips. They (usually) pay, so you’ll have money flowing in while you try to break into bigger magazines. Good luck

Still quite a newbie to freelancing, I feel like I spend hours searching job boards, and applying for jobs just to receive responses that I usually end up turning down because they don’t really sound legitimate or the pay is extremely low. So, for now, I have been focusing my efforts on trying to build up my portfolio with some clips from regional mags and am also trying to get into copywriting.

By the way, I am glad that you are able to offer the free teleclasses – I learned a lot through your first one, and am very much looking forward to the next one. Also, I can’t wait until the day comes when I can finally afford to take one of your classes! (I’m waiting until I can pay for it out of my writing earnings.)

I recently passed on a job doing social networking and marketing writing for a company. I loved the company, loved the products, but it just seemed too time consuming and the social networking part of it–well, I barely keep up with my own!

I don’t just turn down work that I don’t want to take for whatever reason though. If the pay is decent and the topic just doesn’t interest me, I’ll recommend another writer for the job. That’s why I said “passed on” rather than “turned down.”

Before I turn down a low-paying assignment, though, I ask about a higher rate. That recently worked for me, too!

It’s so true that when you turn down the things that don’t interest you, better stuff comes your way!