Here’s Diane’s excuse: I always feel that I’m not good enough. I don’t have an MFA, I haven’t been writing for 20 years, and I am not a superior writer. I have issues with passive voice and prepositional phrases. I work hard to correct them, but it gives me a feeling of inferiority. Even if I meet a writer who says she is just starting out, it always seems that her writing is impeccable. Therefore, every other writer is better and an editor is going to use my query to windex her computer monitor.

Let me start off by saying that I don’t have an MFA, a degree in journalism, or anything close to that; my MA is in Slavic Linguistics. I know many successful freelancers, and very few of them have specialized degrees.

If you have issues with grammar and style, those are easy enough to correct. The Elements of Style is available for free online. It’s fun to read and will help you learn to write in a simple, effective style that works for most magazines. The good news is that you know where you need work, so you can check out those parts of the book first and pay close attention to those issues in your writing.

If you’re not already, become a voracious reader of everything from trade magazines to literary fiction. You’ll start to recognize what makes good writing, and will absorb the different styles that work for each market.

But most important, learn by doing. Some of my first pitches were embarrassingly bad, but I still sent them and eventually they improved and I started getting regular work. When I first started getting assignments — mostly for trade magazines — I would print out the article and go over the draft with a red pen multiple times. Now, after 13 years, I can write and edit an article on the screen and never have to print it out. You’ll experience the same growth in your abilities and confidence if you just keep pitching and writing.

If you feel you need more help than you can get from a book — or if you write and write but still feel that your writing needs work — you can hire someone to go over your queries and articles before you turn them in. I know a writer who speaks English as a second language, and she uses a freelance editor to polish her work. She’s a wonderful writer, but I’m sure the editor catches small grammatical and stylistic errors and makes her articles shine. Can’t afford a freelance editor? Barter something you do well (web design? coding? administrative tasks?) with a writer or editor whose grammar and style are impeccable.

Don’t compare yourself to other writers. What they do has no effect on your success. The best thing you can do to get over the feeling that other writers are kicking your butt is to write, write, write — and pitch, pitch, pitch. Don’t give yourself a mental rejection slip; send your ideas to editors and let them be the ones to say No — or Yes! [lf]

I find that when I invest in my own career, I often get an immediate boost. For example, I have phone sessions with my life coach several times a year, and it was with her prodding that I started my popular e-courses, cut my work schedule down to two days per week, and wrote a query that landed me a $2,500 assignment in Woman’s Day. And when I went on a Yoga of Writing retreat in New Mexico two years ago, the instructor convinced me to start offering phone mentoring for writers, which has gone ridiculously well. These career investments ended up paying for themselves — and then some!

To help you gear up for fall, I’m offering a 10% discount on my phone mentoring through Friday, August 20. The cost is normally $125 for an hour or $65 for a half hour, but with the discount the price is $112.50 and $58.50.

Here’s what a recent student had to say about her phone mentoring session:

In just a half hour session, Linda distilled years of information in a way that was instantly accessible. I started getting paying assignments in just ten days after following through on just one of many suggestions! Although I am a seasoned writer and have had my name in print, getting insider tips from someone in the know is invaluable.
— Yael Grauer

Here are some of the topics I can address during a phone mentoring session:

* Motivation
* Productivity
* Magazine querying
* Marketing
* Fear/confidence issues
* Article writing
* Idea generation
* Breaking in/getting started
* General freelancing issues

If you’re interested getting ready for fall with a phone mentoring session with a veteran freelancer, please e-mail me at lindaformichelli@gmail.com. I want to make sure I can help you before you send me any money.

You don’t need mentoring because you already have a query ready to go? I also offer a query critiquing service. Send me your finished query and I’ll give it a very thorough critique of everything from the idea to the organization to the writing. I pull no punches, but I’m not negative or mean. I’ll even suggest markets you may not have thought of if any spring to mind.

Happy writing! [lf]

Aargh, I hate when I get that response from a source! They don’t understand that you’re going to them only partly for information — but just as important, you need to get good quotes from them to make your query or article livelier and more readable. When people say that to me, I explain it to them like this: “While I’m happy to get background information from your book, I’d love to talk with you for just a few minutes to get some good quotes that will make my article more interesting to read. I need to provide some expert quotes, and I can’t quote from a book.”

Of course, you can quote from a book, but I would use this as a last resort — meaning you really need this source (no one else will do) and she refuses to speak to you. And even then, you need to tell readers you’re quoting from a book, not an interview: “‘Parents need to set boundaries,’ says Ima Kidd, PhD, in her book How to Have Kids and Stay Sane (Ten Speed Press, 2008).” Be careful not to overdo this — once in an article is probably fine, but you want the bulk of your quotes to come from actual interviews. I’ve written hundreds of articles, and I can count on one hand the times I’ve quoted from a book.

Have a question for the Renegade Writers? Send it to rwclasses@therenegadewriter.com and we may answer it on the blog.

First, congratulations!

A query should be as long as it needs to be to get your idea across. However, one mistake many new writers make is give too little info for the editor to be able to get a good idea of what you’re pitching. A query needs to have an eye-catching lede, describe the idea, give examples of what you plan to include in the article, and convince the editor that you’re the right person to write the article. You want the editor to be able to envision the article in her magazine. It’s hard to do all that in one paragraph! My first sale to a national women’s magazine resulted from a three-page query.

However, if you’ve worked with the editor before and have a good relationship, you may be able to get away with quick pitches. I have sold ideas that I described in just a paragraph or two, but these were to editors who already knew my work.

One rule of thumb: Your query shouldn’t be longer than the article you’re pitching. That’s why some writers prefer to just write up FOBs (Front of Book pieces — in other words, shorts) instead of pitching them — they say it would take longer to sell the idea than to just write it. And that’s fine!

One other thing: Don’t think that as a relative beginner, you have to pitch FOBs. If you have a great idea for a feature, go for it! If the editor thinks your idea would make a better short she’ll let you know — but why limit yourself? [lf]

Multiple streams of income. You’ve probably heard that as a freelancer you should have them—but how? And why?

Simply put, having multiple streams of income means you earn money from various sources. A staff reporter has one source of income, her employer; a freelance writer may have ten or more, depending on how many clients she’s juggling at any given time.

Beyond that, though, and what I think is most important for freelancers, is the concept of having a variety of types of income. This makes intuitive sense to most people. If you have one spigot, and it gets turned off, you’re going to go thirsty. If you have ten, and one gets turned off, well, you still have nine to draw water from.

That’s the key to surviving the often-turbulent waters of freelancing. For many years, writers who wrote exclusively for consumer magazines did very well for themselves—and then the economy tanked, and print media was devastated, and those writers were left scrambling to regroup when assignments stopped coming. Going from 80 to 0 in a couple of months is like slamming into a brick wall. It takes a while to shake it off. Writers who weren’t so heavily invested in writing for consumer magazines had an easier time of navigating the new waters.

The problem—which I’m sure you can immediately see—is that you can get too scattered chasing all kinds of opportunities and end up with nothing much to show for your efforts. Everyone has a limited amount of resources (time, attention, energy, knowledge). If I’m trying to break into magazine writing, should I also be trying to break into book publishing and corporate writing at the same time?

Probably not. Although I now have many sources of income—book advances, book royalties, magazine writing, teaching, editing, coaching—I certainly didn’t start that way. I didn’t pursue all of the possibilities at the same time.

I started with books, mostly because I’d always wanted to write them. I focused on martial arts related topics (a subject matter I knew pretty well). Then I started to write for magazines: first, I wrote for magazines that published martial arts content, then I wrote articles with a martial arts slant for general consumer magazines. Then an opportunity arose for me to edit a martial arts magazine, so I branched into that. In the meantime, because I had become familiar with book publishing, and I had some editing skills and deep intimacy with the Chicago Manual of Style (from grad school days), I started doing copyediting and developmental editing for book publishers. Then came chances to teach writing and editing skills at various universities (as well as online courses I develop myself).

What’s effective about this approach is that I got pretty good at one skill (say, writing books). Then I branched out and got pretty good at another skill (say, writing magazine articles). Then I spent time mastering yet another skill (editing magazines). Each time, I was getting paid for mastering the skill, and I didn’t try to take on too many new skills at one time.

In practice, how does this work? Each year, I look at my income, creative, and personal goals. I look at the mix of work I have, consider what I would like to be doing, and make adjustments. If I have too much of one kind of work, I will tend to solicit another kind. For example, a few years ago I felt I was relying too heavily on magazine income, so I started doing more teaching. If one area is dead (nonfiction books is an area I’m not spending much time in now), then I concentrate my efforts elsewhere (right now I’m doing more editing).

How do you get started creating multiple streams of income? First, look at where the opportunities are. I recently got a question from a reader who wanted to know how to make a living writing short stories and poetry. If I had that secret, I would sell it for ten million dollars and go to the islands. There just aren’t many opportunities to make money selling short stories and poetry. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth doing, but that work needs to be filed in the “personally fulfilling” category and not the “how I’m gonna pay this month’s rent” category.

The opportunities are going to be a little bit different for everyone, depending on what your skills are, what network of freelancers you’re linked into (they’re going to be one of your best sources of leads to new opportunities), and what you find interesting to do. In other words, you need to make logical connections. If you write articles about a certain subject matter, could you write a book? Could you give classes? Could you edit other people’s writing on the subject?

One of the best ways to get started is to expand your horizons with your current clients so you can get the skills, experience, and portfolio you need to work in another field. So, for example, if you write for a website, and you’d like to do more photography, it’s a fairly simple proposition to propose a photo-heavy piece to your editor. Now you have a solid credential to show to potential clients. I know one writer who has turned his photography skills into a steady stream of business shooting other writers for book jackets and promotional material. He happened to make the connection between the facts that 1) he had good photography skills and 2) he knew lots of writers who needed photos for various PR-related purposes. It didn’t take him a huge investment of time, money, or effort to let these people know that he could help them solve a problem (how to get a flattering photo from someone who understood their needs).

What skills and relationships do you have that you can make connections between? For example, I’m a member of a nonfiction writers’ group that includes people wanting to write books. After I’d been a member of a while, it became clear that I knew more than most of the members about how to write book proposals because I’d written so many of them. I realized that many of the writers would happily sign up for a class on how to write a book proposal. So I connected with the group’s moderator/owner, got her blessing to develop the class, and have been offering it periodically for several years. It is one of my most lucrative streams of income, and I don’t have to do that much work to promote it. In fact, many members of the group actually promote the class for me. It fills a need, so I don’t have to do any arm-twisting to get people to see the value in it.

The key to developing multiple streams of income is to make those kinds of connections in your own career and life. What do your clients wish they had that they don’t? Who is the connector in your life—the person who knows everyone and what they’re up to? Does that person know that you’re looking for connections? Be open to new possibilities, but also let things evolve. When Linda first proposed that I teach a class for the Renegade Writer, I knew I wanted to do it, but I didn’t know what I wanted to teach. I already had a successful book proposal class and didn’t want to just duplicate that. I tossed around various ideas. Then, as I was teaching a copyediting class for UCSD, I got so many questions from students about how to find freelance editing work that I realized that was the class I should teach. So I am. But Linda and I first talked about my teaching a class for her several years ago.

The lesson? Plant the seeds, cultivate them, make adjustments as you go along. We’re looking for a flower garden here, not a field of corn, so your seeds shouldn’t all look the same.

Here’s Rebecca’s excuse: I’m just beginning my adventure as a freelancer. Recently I was all ready to send in my very first pitch to a magazine. I was excited with the idea I had, as I started to do the research. Then one tap of the scroll button, ended it all for me. I looked up at my screen, and the same topic staring at me, only written by someone else. It even had closely related comparisons. Instead of persevering, I became instantly intimidated, and shut down, leading me to completely give up.

Yikes! If there’s anyone who shouldn’t give up, it’s you. If you came up with an idea and then saw it published in a magazine, that means you had a good, publishable idea. That’s one of the hardest things for new writers to do, and you did it! Don’t throw that talent away by giving up.

Only your timing was off, and that’s often more a sign of bad luck than anything else. You wouldn’t believe how often, according to my editors, writers come up with the same ideas at the same time. And it happens to everyone — in fact, it happened to me the very day I received your excuse.

All you can do is try again with another idea, and be sure to pitch your ideas six or so months ahead of whatever season or holiday they’re appropriate for; for example, I just got an assignment for the Thanksgiving issue of a newsstand magazine.

Also, keep in mind that just because an idea has been done, that doesn’t mean it’s dead. Heck, some magazines run the same ideas every year or even every issue. Is there any way you can change it up a bit to turn it into a new idea? Can you change the presentation (for example formulating it as a chart or adding clever subheds), turn the idea around into its opposite, find better sources, or find a way to make the idea work for a different audience, such as for kids or for men instead of for women?

Let me know when you make your first sale! [lf]

For most freelance writers, there are two very simple ways to measure how productive we are: how much money we earn in a given day and how many words we write. Of course, there’s an obvious connection between the two, but I’ve found that many freelance writers seem to focus on the word count as the ultimate indicator of productivity. Maybe it’s because we typically don’t get paid for our work immediately or maybe it’s because most of us seem to have personal writing projects on the side. But the bottom line is that we want that number to be as high as possible.

But How Many Words Does a Freelance Writer Need to Write a Day?

In order to keep up with every other freelancer out there, we start thinking about how many words we need to write a day — how productive we have to be. The problem is that there is no good answer. There are freelance writers who turn out 4,000 words in a day. There are freelance writers who turn out 400. And, while this may seem counter-intuitive, writers at both levels may be earning the same amount of money.

The question shouldn’t be how many words do we need to write to consider ourselves productive writers, but how do we find the right words? Take Ernest Hemingway (who had a good journalistic career, beyond his better known novels and short stories). He wrote between 500 and 1,000 words a day. But, whether or not you’re a Hemingway fan, it’s hard to argue that they weren’t the right 500 words.

Where Are Your Limits?

My record for writing in a given day is just under 10,000 words in a 14-hour period. They certainly weren’t great words, but they were down on paper by the end of the day. I couldn’t write at all for the next four days. I may have been sitting at a desk the whole time, but I was physically exhausted by the experience. I certainly don’t recommend that any freelance writer shoot for 10,000 words a day on a regular basis.

But it is important to know where your limits are. When I first started writing, a few hundred words exhausted me almost as much as 10,000 words does now. It took me days to write an article, even a short one. But practice does improve writing muscles. I set myself a quota — a daily word count — to meet that was right on the edge of what I was comfortable with. Slowly, but surely, that word count has moved upwards.

If you measure your productivity as a writer on the basis of the number of words you write each day, it’s important to keep building on both the number of words you can comfortably write as well as the quality of those words. Practice is the best way to do both. Ideally, you’ll be practicing on assignments you’ve already landing, but even writing magazine assignments that you’ve created for yourself when you don’t have a full plate — you can offer them to magazines on spec, turn them into blog posts for your own site or even think about putting them into a longer format — can help you continue to move forward.

[Note from Linda: You can also practice by writing query letters!]

Thursday Bram is a full-time freelance writer. She blogs about perspectives in productivity at Constructively Productive. You can find more about Thursday on her website, ThursdayBram.com.

Jessica wrote to me about her excuse: Contacting interviewees before I’ve gotten the assignment to get quotes for the query letter fills me with dread, and I have a hard time overcoming this. I’m also a bit overwhelmed by exactly how and where to find my expert sources – I’ll find someone and think “Yeah, they seem to fit the bill.” But then I start looking and thinking “There are TONS of people who fit the bill. How am I supposed to be discerning about this when I’m so not the expert?”

This is a common fear, but it may make you feel better to know that my e-course students each have to contact three to four experts for pre-query interviews, and I can’t think of one time the students were treated with anything but respect. And I’ve probably done hundreds of interviews before getting the assignment, and most sources say yes.

Here’s my trick: When I write or call the source, I say something like this: “Hello! My name is Linda Formichelli, and I’m a freelance writer based in New Hampshire. I’m working on a proposal for Health magazine for an article on common period problems and how to solve them. Would you be available for just five minutes so I can interview you to get a few quotes for my proposal? Then, if I get the assignment, we can set a more in-depth interview.”

Notice that I name the magazine I’m pitching; I think this sounds better than telling the source that you’re working on a pitch you’ll send who-knows-where. Also, I make sure to say “proposal” and not “query,” because I don’t think most people outside of the freelancing world know what a query is. Finally, I ask for just five minutes of the source’s time. That’s hard to say no to — and often the source will end up chatting with me for longer than that. (However, when I say five minutes, I mean it — if the source needs to hang up after five minutes, that’s fine.)

As for how to vet your sources, that’s a more difficult question. Some people become experts because they call themselves experts. And some sources have something to sell, whether it’s a product or a viewpoint, so no matter what question you ask it will come around again to that product or viewpoint.

I tend to look for expert sources in the following places:

* Professional schools: For example, a well-known business school or medical school. Contact their PR department to ask for sources, or go directly to the school’s website and read through the bios of the faculty members.

* Associations: Organizations like the American Dietetic Association and the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons (yes, I used them recently) can often put you in contact with knowledgeable sources. Just look up the topic you’re writing about and “association” in Google.

* Amazon.com: I usually assume that anyone who has authored a book on a topic can be considered an expert. However, I always check the publishing house to make sure the book is not self-published. I have nothing against self-published books, but anyone can write one and there are no barriers to entry, while with traditional publishers you have at least some reassurance that the author has been accepted by a board of editors, and that her work has been checked over by fact checkers. Maybe I sound like a snob, but there you have it.

* Studies: Since I write a lot about health, I like to search the research studies at PubMed. Then, when I find a study that relates to what I’m writing about, I track down the author for an interview. You can also find studies by looking up “study” or “research” plus the topic on Google, or use Google Scholar, which lets you search through scholarly literature.

Finally, remember that if an expert turns out to be a lemon, you can always ditch him and find someone else. You are not obligated to quote someone just because you interviewed him! [lf]

My wife had spotted a story in a local community paper, a history making event with regard to young woman with major health problems and a rare ailment who, against many a doctor’s advice except for one, gave birth to twins. She was the first woman ever to do this.

The couple was looking for a co-author for a book about their experience, so I emailed them. There were a multitude of article possibilities and angles there — and I let it sit.

Until today. When I phoned the husband to follow up, he told me a co-author for the book had been found, and that the story was going to be in Woman’s World, a state publication, and a magazine about twins. Not all possibilities had been exhausted of course, but I didn’t/haven’t jump(ed) on it like I should have.

This is perfect proof to anybody that in this profession you can’t be lazy and NOT follow up fast or at all.

I gave myself a bit of a mental beating when I was done with the phone call, but I’ve moved on from it, considering it a HUGE lesson.

Steve, thanks for sharing. Renegade readers, don’t let this happen to you! When you see a good story: Move, move, move! [lf]

Here’s Steve’s excuse: It’s not that I don’t pitch or query, but that I don’t do it enough. There are mindsets that tell me that I can’t truly pitch unless I visit the bookstore and read up real well on the market, and also the fact that is has been drummed into me to avoid magazines and just write for businesses.

I certainly don’t want to tell you that you shouldn’t research your markets, but if it’s something that’s keeping you from pitching, you need to find a way around it. Here are a few tips:

1. Research the market online. Most newsstand magazines now have websites with content and even sometimes their editorial masthead. There are many directories of newsstand magazines online, and I recommend tradepubs.com to find, well, trade pubs.

2. Pitch the magazines you already read. No research required! (You do read magazines, right?)

3. Find a niche. It’s not very efficient to come up with an idea on, say, martial arts and then spend five days at the bookstore examining every magazine in the martial arts section. You probably know what topics you’d like to write about most. Get to know the magazines in those areas over time. Whenever you head to the bookstore, read through an issue or two. Soon you’ll pick up a good, broad knowledge of the markets. You don’t need to cram for pitching!

4. Idea first, then market. Many writers, like our own Diana Burrell, like to find the market first, and then formulate a pitch for it. I prefer to come up with an idea and then find a market to match. Both ways are fine, but in your particular case, if you brainstorm ideas first, you won’t be stymied by the fact that you don’t have a perfect knowledge of the market yet.

As for writing for businesses instead of magazines: Well, business writing certainly pays more! But it’s always good to diversify so that if one market dries up, you still have others to rely on.

I hope that helps! [lf]