The teleconferencing system had some quirks — like not letting people use Skype to call in, and kicking me off halfway through the call so I had to dial back in — but the price was right (free) so I’ll likely be using the service again for next month’s teleclass. However, I’m thinking about trying a webinar format in the future, so if anyone knows of a free or cheap webinar service, please e-mail me.

Many people who weren’t able to attend have asked me for a recording of the teleclass. Your wish is indeed my command. There are actually two files because when I was kicked off the line, the recording stopped and I had to start a new one when I was back on the call. The first recording contains my lecture, and the second one is the Q&A.

Querying with Confidence Part 1 (Lecture)

Querying with Confidence Part 2 (Q&A)

You’ll also want the handout, which has two queries that I refer to during the class. You can download the handout here (PDF format).

Unfortunately, the special offer that I made for teleclass participants to get a discount off my courses and a free 20-minute coaching call is no longer available. But there is still space in my January 11 Write for Magazines e-course and my October 26 Get Unstuck! for Freelancers e-course. More info on these courses on my Write for Magazines site.

Thanks to everyone who attended my first teleclass and helped make it successful. I’m working on setting up the November teleclass now. You can get the scoop on where and when it will happen by subscribing to my e-mail list on the Free Teleclasses for Writers web page. [lf]

What’s really neat about Gist is that it brings together everything you could want to know about your editors: Their blog posts and Twitter posts, media mentions, and even their photos. So if you want to query an editor, you can look her up in your contact list and see what she’s been up to. For example, you might see that an editor of yours has recently been promoted, or has blogged for her magazine. This is invaluable information to help you target your pitches.

For full details, check out Thursday Bram’s post. I just started using Gist based on Thursday’s recommendation and I’m thoroughly impressed. Try it yourself! [lf]

My writing buddy and fellow FLXer Elaine Grant mentioned to me that she’s recorded calls on Skype. In case you’re not familiar with it, Skype is a free program that lets you make phone calls through your computer. If you have a video camera in your computer, you can even make free video calls. (My husband video Skypes with his mom often so she can see her new grandson!)

I did some research, and here’s what I found out:

• It’s free to call another Skype number, but to call a non-Skype number, you need to buy credits (in increments as small as $10) or sign up for their monthly service (which is around $13 per month and gives you unlimited worldwide calls — cheaper if you want only a US plan).
• Calls to US numbers (and many non-US numbers) if you use credits cost just over 2 cents per minute. There is a small connection charge per call.
• Ecamm Network is one of the companies that makes a Skype recorder for Macs. They give you a free one-week trial, and if you want to buy it, it costs $14.95. (If you’re looking for a Skype recorder for the PC, try this one).

Last week I bought a $10 credit on Skype and downloaded the Skype recorder. Whenever I open Skype, the recorder automatically pops up. All I have to do is press the Record button — it automatically stops when you hang up the call. The recorder saves the call as a .mov file. The files are pretty big, so instead of e-mailing them to my transcriptionist, I upload them directly to her server using Fetch FTP. This usually takes three minutes or so.

I’ve done three interviews this way so far, and have made a few other short calls, and I still have $7.45 left on my account.

The sound quality on Skype has been excellent; I’ve asked my interviewees, and they say they can hear me just fine. Do test the system out before jumping in with all your cash, though…I’ve heard reports from other writers that they experienced terrible sound quality.

Anyway, thought I’d share in case anyone is looking for a cheap, good call recording solution!

How do you record calls? Have you found a really cool set up? Please let us know! [lf]

The Renegade Writer: Since we’re all freelance writers, I think a lot of us are going to be interested in how you came up with the concept for The Seven Minute Difference.

Allyson Lewis: Well, a long time ago when I wanted to write my first book, several people said to me your books will come out of what you teach. I teach public seminars and basically the first 197 pages of my book was verbatim the class that I teach. I think the easiest thing that you can do is teach… it forces you to create content that people want, and then you take that content and translate it into the written format.

RW: How is your book doing?

AL: The book came out two years ago and it’s done fairly well. Most people understand that with the average business book, only 2% will sell more than five thousand copies in the entire time in publication. So business books are pretty tough because there’s not a huge market for them. This book has actually done fairly well; it sold forty thousand copies, maybe a little more. For a young author who is new, I think that’s pretty exciting. But where you really make your money as a writer is on the speaking circuit, and there’s a huge need for educational content from writers who have a message.

RW: How did you get on the speaking circuit?

AL: You have to have a very strong niche. I’m in the financial services industry; I’ve been there twenty-six years now. I actually created some software in 1993 and they hired me to go out and teach technical software. I found out while I was teaching about this technical stuff that what people really wanted was life skills — which is what The Seven Minute Difference is about. They wanted to find out how they could be more productive, enjoy life more, and understand their purpose. But we are all so busy, so how can we do that with a laser focus in seven minutes at a time? That’s where the idea of micro-actions and really intense focus came in, and that’s what The Seven Minute Difference is about.

RW: Why seven minutes? Why not six or ten or eight?

AL: There was a Harvard study done and they found that the average length of attention span for a corporate executive is seven minutes. So I felt we have to work within what we have — and I would say that in my industry, the financial services industry, seven minutes might even be stretching it. Writers are probably the same way. We’re so creative that we work for about two or three minutes, then our mind goes on a mental vacation. It was a great breakthrough for me when I realized I wasn’t crazy, I was just unfocused.

RW: How can you lengthen your attention span if you’re at two or three minutes like most of us writers?

AL: I think it’s discipline. I work with a kitchen timer — actually now I work with my iPhone timer — and I would start out with ten minute increments and would say to my team, no phone calls, the door is closed, I’m going to work on this project for ten minutes. I would get more done in those ten minutes than I would get done all day. Then I started lengthening it and said okay, I’m going to try it now for fifteen minutes. Then I would lengthen it to twenty minutes until finally I can actually concentrate for up to an hour at a time but without interruption. It probably tripled my productivity.

RW: That’s a great idea. About the micro-actions, what if you have a task that you can’t get done in the seven minutes?

AL: Yes, life isn’t actually a seven-minute field, obviously. Like if you’re writing a book, you can’t do that in seven minutes. But what I do think you can do in seven minutes is I think you can create game plans, I think you can create time tables, I think you can get rid of clutter that’s holding you up. There are a lot of little minor obstacles that we use as excuses every day, to say “I can’t write my book.” The best thing I get done in seven minutes is to have what I call a written plan of action. The worksheet is on our website and it’s the one page that has changed my life. It’s called The Daily Progress Report; I have it sitting on my desk right this second.

My goal is to come in at the end of the day, at 4:30 before I leave, and write down the three, four, five things that I need to get accomplished the next day. The little exercise of writing down three or four things that I have to get done takes two minutes; it doesn’t even take seven minutes. It does take another five minutes or so to clean off my desk because the human brain cannot stand unfinished tasks. Even if you just have to hide it from yourself or file it, start out the day with a clean desk. The only thing that’s on my desk is this Daily Progress Report with three, four, or five things.

My goal is to come in and do what we call the five before 11: We’re supposed to accomplish five important tasks before 11 o’clock each morning. If I can do those five before 11, I assure you I’m way ahead of where I used to be. Then the rest of the day is mine to be creative, to explore, to not be under such pressure. So the seven minute part of it is getting the list together the day before so I can come in and know what I need to do.

RW: Do you use your timer for the five before 11?

AL: I don’t use a timer on that unless I have a project that’s going to take long enough that I have to specifically be timed. Here’s something else I use the timer for: I don’t like to be late to anything. In fact, I like to arrive about ten minutes early to every meeting or every call. So I’ll set my timer for about 15 minutes before I need to leave or about 30 minutes before I have to drive somewhere.

RW: When set the timer for 15 minutes before you need to leave, it must help you focus because you’re not always thinking, “Oh, I have to go soon, I have to go soon.”

AL: I like to work right until it goes off, and then I just stop. It is hard sometimes to just stop midstream but you can come back and pick it up.

RW: What is the Two Percent Rule?

AL: We’ll see writers write these great outlines for books, or great book proposals but they won’t write the query letters. They won’t do the last step right. We call it the Two Percent Rule: We’re good at doing 98% of the work but somehow we can’t finish the last 2%. I think what we have to do is we have to find mentors, like you — someone who has done it before us. And we have to be trained to close that final loop in our work lives. If we’re going to do something, don’t do it until it’s good enough, do it until it’s finished. Don’t do it 98% of the way, do it 100% of the way on every task…finish every task so you don’t leave things open all across your work life.

RW: Are there any productivity tools or tips that you’ve heard that don’t work for you?

AL: The to-do list is my biggest problem…I would start a to-do list and it would just roll over and roll over and roll over. I don’t do well with twenty things on a
to-do lists because I’m just frozen. I do so much better with two or three things with an accountability person looking over my shoulder saying, “Hey, I want you to finish this tomorrow, let’s create our top three or four priorities and let’s do them.”

I just think we have to do what we say we do. Everyone can have a to-do list but a to-do list is of no value if we don’t do them.

RW: In your book, you talk about checking your goals and working on them every day.

AL: The theory comes from Brian Tracy. He thinks that you have to have long-term goals. I feel better working from ninety day goals. You need to write them down every day because they burn them into your mind. It’s the same goals, you’re just restating them again and again and when you restate the goals, they must be in present tense as if they’ve already happened: “I am a best selling author; I am a best selling author. I am in the best physical shape of my life; I am in the best physical shape of my life.” So you’re just searing them into your brain until you’re basically forcing yourself to believe them.

RW: Do you have any advice for freelance writers?

AL: I am a freelance writer: I write for Morningstar.com and for Advisor Today magazine. I think really the only thing that matters for an article is the title. I think that the title is going to drive readership and the title has to be very specific as to what it is. I don’t think we have to be so clever with innuendos; the best titles are those that say exactly what you’re writing about and draw the reader in. The Seven Minute Difference is a great title because that’s what it is, it’s about making a difference in your own lives…I don’t want to be the same tomorrow as I am today, but I am a busy businessperson — so how can I do that seven minutes at a time? Working from the title down has been the best thing I can do. [lf]

But where are these markets? Writer’s Market, a print and online directory of magazine markets, is a great source to start with, but there are tons of magazines out there that aren’t listed in its pages. And then there’s the newsstand, which has an even smaller selection of magazines. You won’t find most custom pubs or trade magazines at Borders.

Here’s how to find markets that aren’t found in Writer’s Market or on your local newsstand.

• The Custom Publishing Council. As I wrote in a post last year, custom publications are magazines that are published for corporate clients and organizations. For example, the magazine you get if you’re a Wells Fargo business customer is a custom publication. The free magazine you pick up at Shaw’s is a custom publication. That magazine at the checkout in Pier 1? A custom pub. You can often break into a custom publication by sending a letter of introduction. The Custom Publishing Council lists many of these magazines and even gives e-mail addresses for the pubs’ editors or publishers.

• The Renegade Writer Markets Wiki is the place to share information about magazine markets for freelance writers, including price info, editorial contacts, e-mail formats, phone numbers, tips, guidelines, and your own experiences with the magazine.

• TradePub.com offers links to the websites of trade magazines in dozens of categories, from agriculture to utilities. As with custom pubs, you can sometimes break into trade magazines with a letter of introduction.

• Mastheads.org has a list of the 600+ magazines in its database. Once you find a title that interests you, Google it to find its website. If you shell out $24 per year, Mastheads.org says it will give you “complete magazine staff lists for every department (editorial, art/photo, advertising, marketing, & business) with phone, fax, mailing address, and e-mail formats.”

• Freelance Success, for $99 per year, offers a weekly market guide that gives a how-to-pitch for typically well-paying magazines.

• Mr. Magazine is Samir Husni, the Chair of the Journalism Department at the University of Mississippi. His website gives you the scoop on new titles every month.

• The Internet Public Library has a directory with links to magazines, journals, e-zines, and more.

• Writer’s Market, but not for the reason you think. When you find an interesting-sounding trade magazine in Writer’s Market (or in any of the directories on this list), take note of the name of the company that publishes the magazine and search for its website on Google. Chances are, the publishing company puts out other magazines that are not listed in Writer’s Market.

• TheMagazineBoy.com is another directory of magazine links, with such who-knew pubs as Bus Conversions and Medal News.

• Your mailbox. One of my phone mentoring clients last week shared with me a great idea he had for a financial article, and mentioned that it would be a perfect fit for members of the military. I told him, “You should check out USAA, a financial custom pub I write for that targets the military,” and he said, “Hey, I get that magazine! I never thought of pitching it.” So don’t overlook those magazines that show up in your mailbox from your bank, your insurance provider, your hospital, and so on.

Do you have any other suggestions for finding markets to pitch? Please share them in the Comments below. [lf]

Last September I was getting ready to start writing again after spending most of the previous seven years at home with my kids. I was totally out of touch with the freelance world and way behind on the subjects I’d once specialized in, technology and the workplace. So when I friend told me about a social network for businesspeople, I was all ears. I signed up the same day and was immediately hooked. Within a month I’d reconnected with a bunch of former colleagues. One of them even gave me an assignment — I was back at work.

That was my introduction to LinkedIn. Since then, LinkedIn has grown substantially — to 26 million people — and the ways I use it have too. Today it’s one of my workday mainstays, something I use to research companies, find sources, organize contacts and a lot more.

I also joined LinkedIn to get up to speed on the whole Web 2.0 thing, which had passed me by during my extended hiatus. LinkedIn was my entre into the world of social networks, and from there it was an easy jump to blogging and learning new forms of online storytelling. I immersed myself in it so thoroughly, I now write about it for several clients, and happily answer questions about LinkedIn for freelance friends who are where I was a year ago.

If you haven’t taken the plunge yet, or just want to get more out of it, here are my top 10 secrets for how writers can successfully use LinkedIn:

Flesh out your profile. Include all your previous jobs and schooling. The more companies, schools and organizations you affiliate yourself with, the bigger your circle of contacts will be able to grow. Add a picture or some kind of illustration that lets a little of your personality shine through. Be aspirational: describe what you want to do, not just what you’re doing now. The LinkedIn police aren’t going to call you out for dubbing yourself a freelance magazine writer with only one or two published pieces under your belt. If that’s what you consider yourself, say so.

Join groups. There are lots of groups on LinkedIn. Joining writers’ groups is one way to build up a virtual support system. Joining those or other groups also gives you the ability to send group members invitations to join your network. So if you see an editor at a magazine you’ve been interested in writing for in a LinkedIn writing group you belong to, you can use the connection to send them an invitation.

Build a network.The more people in your network, the wider the net you can cast when you’re searching for story sources. If you haven’t already, use the tools LinkedIn provides to import information from Outlook, Gmail or another contact manager, then go through the list and pick out people you’d like to invite into your network. When you happen upon sources you think you might want to use again in the future, ask if they use LinkedIn and offer to send them an invitation.

Create a phone book. In late August, LinkedIn expanded the amount of information you can store on your LinkedIn connections. In addition to their profile information, you can now input office and cell phone numbers, IM addresses, address, Website and birthday date; there’s even a notes section for adding anything else you’d want. This makes it possible to store info on a source in one place so you don’t need to toggle between Outlook and LinkedIn.

Troll the Answers section. Forget ProfNet or HARO. This is probably the No. 1 way I use LinkedIn. Use the Answers Advanced Search feature to look for keywords related to subjects you’re researching. If you find someone you want to interview and you don’t pay for LinkedIn’s premium-level service — frankly, I haven’t found a reason to — look at their profile to see if they’ve listed their email address or blog. If they did, jackpot! If they didn’t, go to the Website for their company, group or agency and track them down through a company PR representative or even a main phone number.

Query your contacts. Another way to find sources on LinkedIn is to send group emails to subsets of your connections. LinkedIn lets you slice and dice connections list by geography or industry, which makes it easy to put group emails together. You can also hand pick a group of names to send a message to.

Update your Status line regularly. The Status line is LinkedIn’s answer to Twitter or Facebook’s “What are you doing right now?” Use it to point people to your blog, solicit sources for a story or brag about your latest publishing achievement.

Check for work on the Jobs board. Most of the positions on the Jobs board are full time. Every once in a while, though, there are listings for freelance, part-time or temporary full-time gigs. And the caliber of available jobs is much higher than what you see on Craigslist.com.

Use Companies feature to research new markets. If you identify yourself as a writer in your profile, the Companies directory will automatically show a list of industries related to writing and editing. Click on any of the industry links — book publishing, newspapers, magazines, education, marketing and advertising, public relations, software — and you’ll see lists of all the companies in those industries LinkedIn has in its database. Clicking on the Newspaper listing, for example, brings up 930 newspapers. Like everything else on LinkedIn, they’re ranked according to your LinkedIn network connections, so newspapers where you have a 1st degree connection come up first. This is a great feature when it comes to pitching stories. First, you’ve got a list of who’s got what position at a paper or magazine — again, if they subscribe to LinkedIn. If you see someone you want to pitch but don’t know and there’s another editor you do know, you could use your LinkedIn connection with the second editor to ask for an introduction to the first. Of course, you could do that without LinkedIn too.

Mind your manners. Do you really want to notify your entire LinkedIn circle every time you make a minor change to your profile? Probably not, so make sure to adjust your account settings accordingly. Likewise, it’s easy to reach out to people, but don’t overdo it. Sending group emails to every source on your list every day, or even every week, might be OK with some but others could start to think you’re a spammer.

Copyright 2008 Michelle V. Rafter