Serenity Tool: Embrace, Don't Idolize Big-Name Writers

Yesterday, I wrote about Dan Baum's impressive archive of queries, available for any of us mere mortals to review and dissect. But I wanted to add something:

Baum makes a number of comments I disagree with. (And I'm not the only one to have that response.)

For instance, he states that when he calls people for queries, he tells them he's writing the story for X Magazine (Wired, The New Yorker, etc.).

"I say I’m working on a story for Wired magazine and I am," he told Linda Formichelli at The Renegade Writer. "My relationship with Wired magazine at that point is none of their business."

He also says he doesn't reslant and repitch stories:

Well, you have to write a proposal for the sensibilities of a particular magazine, so when people tell me “I have an idea for a story,” my first question is “You have an idea for a story for what magazine?” Because you can’t say, “I have an idea for a story, and if I can’t sell it Playboy I’m going to sell it to Rolling Stone, and if I can’t sell it to Rolling Stone I’m going to sell it to Harper’s,” because it just doesn’t work that way.

When Formichelli asked if that was specific to his particular realm of the freelance world, Baum conceded it might be.

"I want to keep saying this that this is just my experience," he added. "Family Circle and Woman’s Day might be similar enough. In the small number of magazines that I wrote for, you just couldn’t do it. I mean, if you were writing a proposal for Wired, there’s just nobody else you could sell it to. I tried, I’ve tried, I really have. I really have tried and it just never worked for me."

That's exactly it. I want to encourage all freelancers out there to embrace Baum but not idolize him. He's just one writer, and he and his wife live entirely off his earnings as a freelancer. (Best I can tell, Baum and his wife essentially co-write or at least co-report or co-research his work, but it's published under his name.) He, like you, is just trying to make a living.

This is one of the things I love about the freelance world. We're all just learning. We're all just finding what works for us and doing that over and over again to good effect. If we're in serenity, we're letting go of the stuff that doesn't work, which can be very hard. What Baum says is interesting, but it's not gospel.

For instance, I would never tell sources that I'm writing a story for a publication for which I didn't have an assignment. I tell them, instead, that I'm writing up a proposal for my editor at so-and-so magazine. It's important to me to be upfront with my sources in a way that makes me comfortable. Baum, obviously, is comfortable with how he does it. It's not my style.

Likewise, I try to reslant and repitch my work all the time. That's how most of us make a living as freelancers. Baum is right: A New Yorker story is nothing like a Wired story. But there's a difference between an idea and a story:

The story I pitch to Yoga Journal is nothing like a story I'd pitch to Reader's Digest. But the root idea might share a kernel. They're different pieces, though. And that has worked for me.

So my encouragement for the day: Find what works for you: Don't just emulate what works for someone else.

Photo by skye.gazer.

Writing the Dream Query for the Dream Job

Recently, the fabulous Renegade Writer Blog posted a q&a with former New Yorker writer Dan Baum, and he shares both an interesting approach to freelancing and a whole treasure-trove of detailed queries. Some of those landed assignments at The New Yorker.

I point this out because it's interesting to see the amount of detail and the work he's put into his queries. One query I read, which landed him an assignment writing about the "jake leg" for The New Yorker, was so compelling I couldn't stop reading. No surprise it landed the assignment. It taught me a couple things about long-form narrative non-fiction pitches:

• Write like you've got the assignment. Duh, right? But I know I've queried the New Yorker with far less narrative pitches, and I can see why his pitch sold and mine didn't. It's a case of show-don't-tell.
• Details, details. The pitch is like a short article--fully researched, sourced and well-crafted.
• Open access. All good queries should do tell the editor about access, but his do a good job of showing the editor that he's thought out how much background he'll need and where he'll need to go to get it. It makes the job easier on the editor and builds trust.

He also has a great quote about how he pursues his sources for his queries. It fits with the persistence theme, but also gives a window into another freelancer's world (emphasis mine):

[To make it,] I think it takes relentlessness. When I’m starting to work on a story, I’ll start reading about something, and I’ll just follow every link, and as I’m doing it I’ll make a list in a Word document of the people that I need to find.

I start calling them immediately, and talking to them and taking notes on my computer. The expression I use with Margaret is “I had a red dog day today,” which means I had my nose down on the ground and I was going after everything today. Just hoovering in enormous amounts of information. And when I start a proposal, I try to have a series of red dog days where I am just relentless, going after everybody, and as soon as I encounter somebody’s name I pick up the phone and I call. When I finish the interview I say, Who else should I talk to? Then I call those people.

I don’t put it off — I don’t say these are people I’m going to call later — I do it right then. Man, there are times when in one day I can get enough information to write a proposal that will get me a $12,000 magazine assignment.

If you're a freelancer interested in long-form narrative, check out his archive and try an exercise:

• Take one of the queries
• Take a story you've written that you thought had narrative potential
• Start playing with your notes and research and practice making a narrative query from those notes and that research.

See how it works. Is there more research you need to do? What's missing? Do you know how to find the missing piece, or do you need to talk to someone about it?

It's fun. Try it and tell me how it works, and I'll do the same.

30-Day Persistence Challenge: Querying new markets

The economy is down. Your dream market list has been decimated by shutterings and late payments (or so you hear through the grapevine). So when you do query, you're sticking to the tried-and-true and bewildered by where to go next.

Has this happened to you? If you're not there, let me just tell you: It's a baffling and scary place to be.

Because I'm there.

I've realized in the past few months that I'm continuing to hit my query mark--the number of queries I aim to send out a week--but the risks I'm taking with contacting prospects has plummeted. Add this to the clients I've let go of in the past year, and I'm clinging dangerously close to clients that have started to pay later and later.

Talk about lack of workplace serenity!

So here's what I'm thinking of trying, and you can try it with me and we can check in at the end of the challenge to see how it went:

Create a bottom line for number of new prospects I contact a week/month. It seems reasonable to query a new market every week, or a total of four new markets a month, especially if I do it in conjunction with a marketing plan that directs my querying toward specific markets.

The things I'm thinking I'll need to make this work effectively:

Research on which markets are continuing to buy queries/not running through their inventory

One of my target markets is working through inventory, so I hear, so I've cut down on querying them. But I may still send one or four queries to them this year. You never know when they'll start assigning again.
An organized list of queries

I'll write about how I'm addressing that in another post.

Support

I don't do anything without support from fellow writers. Especially querying is too scary and challenging to do without a few attagirls from your cheering section.

Accountability

At the end of every month, I add up the number of queries I sent, to higher/lower paying markets and how many assignments I get. I think tracking this will give me more motivation--and persistence--because I expect that it will show results.
What do you do to get yourself to continue to query new markets?

Photo by Bistrosavage.

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Write Once, Sell Twice (or More)

Here's one more guest blog on a topic that's a big part of my marketing plan this year, Reprints. Speaker, consultant, and freelancer Kelly James-Enger is the author of books including Ready, Aim, Specialize! Create your own Writing Specialty and Make More Money and Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer’s Guide to Making More Money. Visit Become Bodywise for more about her work.

My favorite way to make money as a freelancer has less to do with writing than selling. Instead of writing a new piece, I prefer to sell reprint rights to a story that’s already done. Reprint income typically makes up 10 percent (or more) of my annual gross, yet many freelancers overlook this relatively easy way to boost their bottom line.

Here’s how you can transform completed articles into new paychecks:

Step 1: Read your Contracts
Obviously you can only resell work that you own the rights to. Check your contracts to make sure you’ve retained rights to your work, and that you’re not running afoul of any exclusivity provisions (e.g., you can’t reprint the story during the six-month period after it is first published).

Step 2: Analyze your Inventory
The more stories you have available, the more opportunities you have for additional sales. Popular reprint topics include articles on lifestyle, business, health and fitness, diet, parenting, and travel. “Evergreen” stories—those pieces that never go out of date—are always good bets. My bestsellers have been fitness, nutrition, and relationship pieces. One bridal piece on getting along with your in-laws has been resold seven times to different markets over the last decade.

Step 3: Locate Reprint Markets
So, you know what you have to offer. Now comes finding the markets that want to buy what you have. I’ve found my best reprint markets simply by looking around. Smaller, regional, and special-interest magazines are all possibilities; check out publication directories like The Standard Periodical Directory (your local library should have it on reserve) to look for potential markets.

Step 4: Sell as Many Stories as Possible
I don't try to sell one story at a time; that wouldn’t be worth my while. Instead, when I find a potential market, I send a cover letter and list of story titles and topics to the editor there. I briefly tell her about my background, and offer to send a couple of sample stories for her review so she can see the quality of my work. And make it clear in your letter that you’re interested in selling reprint rights (I use language like “interested in purchasing one-time reprint rights to my work?”), not giving work away for free.

Step 5: Stay in Touch
You also make more from reprints when you develop a client base that will buy stories from you more than once. I maintain a "master list" of stories, divided into categories like "nutrition," "fitness," "wellness," and "relationships." I update the list every few months, and send it with a short email to editors who have purchased from me in the past. The hour or so I spend doing so always results in a few more sales.

As long as your story topic is still relevant and the information it contains still accurate (I do confirm the latter before I send a story out), you can resell the same piece as many times as you like—and multiply your checks in the process.

Have you had reprint success? Tell us about it in the comments.

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Crafting Bull's Eye Queries

This week, I've invited fellow writers to share their marketing tips and tricks, either as guest bloggers or by answering a few of my questions. Today's guest blogger is Bridget Mintz Testa, a freelance writer in the Houston area who writes about human capital, business strategy and technology. Today she talks about her querying style: She sends few queries but gets an amazing return on her marketing investment.

Have questions for her? Email her at bmtesta at gmail.com.

Some writers like to send off lots of queries at a time, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach. It can be quite productive. I prefer, however, to target specific publications that interest me, study them extensively and then send a detailed, customized query. So I’m slow. I might generate one query a week, maybe three if I’m pushing it, but I also get a fairly high rate of acceptance.

For example, I sent 11 queries to new-to-me editors in 2008 (most of my work came from markets I’d worked with for a while). Of those, four generated assignments. That’s almost a 40 percent success rate. Most people consider 10 percent a big “woohoo!” for marketing efforts. Three of these pubs generated work throughout 2008, and two still do even in this annus horribilis, 2009. In fact, one of them just assigned me seven articles for 2009, taking me all the way through the year’s editorial calendar.

So if sending off a bunch of queries as fast as you can isn’t your cup of tea, rest easy. You can try my approach. Here's how:

Learn the topic
Most of the time, I have only a vague idea of the subject area of a new-to-me publication. You need more than that, especially for trade pubs, from which most of my work comes. So I’ll spend some time, often several hours over a period of days, to learn something about the subject matter and what the key issues are.

These are the issues the industry is grappling with. It’s what you want to write about, because the readers are also grappling with them. But you need to know more than the issues; you need to know how they’re working out in reader’s lives. For that, you need industry research. You don’t have to become an industry expert; you just have to know what the field is about and what its current challenges are.

For example, a couple of years ago, I wanted to break into an engineering association publication that I knew paid a good, standard rate. Because engineers in this association work in many fields, I had my pick about what to write. I wanted to write an article about nuclear power’s resurgence. So I went looking for the challenges facing an industry that was dealing with sudden growth after years of decline.

Over a week, I spent several hours—maybe 10 or 12—scanning and reading nuclear industry publications and industry association press releases and position papers. A couple of issues emerged that seemed like they’d be of interest to engineers: new reactor technology and a new regulatory regime for licensing nuclear power plants. I had my topics; now I needed to see if they’d been covered by the pub.

Learn the pub
Over the course of another few days, I spent maybe six or seven hours reviewing past issues of the pub, which were fortunately online. If they hadn’t been, I’d have probably gone to a university library to find this particular engineering association magazine. It wouldn’t be on newsstands. Few association pubs are.

Turns out they had published some articles on reactor technologies, but not on all of the technologies. The pub also hadn’t looked at efforts to standardize the reactor technologies for easier operations and maintenance. So I decided to query about the different reactor technologies and how the industry was going to standardize them.

Writing the query
I wrote the query in an hour or two, but didn’t send it right away. I let it sit overnight, revised it, then sent it. I detailed how I’d cover the main technologies and why they were worthy of interest, how they’d be different from the previous generation of reactors, and what standardization in design meant. I suggested possible people to interview (which I’d gotten from my subject area research) and gave my bio at the end.

Rejection
The next day—an amazing turnaround time for most queries—I got a very nice rejection from an editor. He said my query was well-targeted, and how nice that was, but that the editors felt most of their readers were probably well-acquainted with the different technologies. It was a very personal and complimentary rejection, and he warmly encouraged me to query again.

Re-slanting
So I did. I went back to my research and reviewed the material on the new licensing regime, nailing down more details. Then I wrote a new query, explaining that I’d look at two or three of the first new licensing applications and how they were also serving as tests of the new regulations. I’d explain a couple of the regulatory/technical challenges the applicants were encountering and how those challenges were being addressed.

From my pub research, I knew none of this had been covered in its pages. It was new, and that was important. Another important aspect of the query was my focus on industry problems and how they were being solved. Nothing excites an engineer, or an editor, for that matter, than real problems that readers can identify with—as long as you show how someone like the reader is solving those problems.

This time, I got the assignment, and I’ve now written four feature articles for this publication over about 18 months. The editors like me, I love working with them, and I’d be doing more work for them if their freelance budget were bigger. As it is, I’m doing about two or three pieces a year for them, which is several thousand dollars worth of work. They give me a chance to write about topics I probably wouldn’t get to otherwise, and the beautiful clips serve as wonderful samples for other new-to-me publications.

If you want to send out a bunch of queries in a hurry, go right ahead. The targeted, carefully researched query works for me, and it can be part of your marketing arsenal as well.

©Bridget Mintz Testa
Photo by Viewoftheworld.

30-Day Marketing Challege: Fear not the cold pitch

This week, I've invited fellow writers to share their marketing tips and tricks, either as guest bloggers or by answering a few of my questions.

Today's guest blogger is Jeanine Barone, an independent travel, food, wine, design and architecture writer and blogger at J The Travel Authority. During her 20-year freelance career, her work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Town & Country, Conde Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure, among others. Today, she talks about what she loves about querying.

In the beginning, I thought of querying as a chore, something I dreaded and did infrequently. As a result, I would churn out what I now realize were anemic queries: short with few details. However, I soon realized that if I spent a lot of time developing well-targeted, detailed, dazzling pitches and allotted a good amount of time each week to marketing myself, it paid off.

I get most of my assignments from querying, not just the editors I regularly work with but also cold pitching. And, I'm probably one of the few freelancers who enjoys crafting a query. I think that I became more enamored with the process when I did it, if not every day, then at least several times a week, every week. It became an intimate part of my writing life. And, for each and every query I produce, I put as much care into it as if I were writing the full-blown article for that editor. My pitches are so detailed that editors have complimented me as one of the few writers they've worked with who clearly spends time devising a quality pitch.

I always make sure that I continue pitching, following up on pitches (via email or phone), researching new outlets for my queries and doing other marketing, even when I have tight deadlines. Obviously the amount of time I spend on marketing varies depending on the number of deadlines I have. If it's a week where I have a terrible time crunch, then I might spend several hours on the weekend as marketing time: devising new pitches, finding new markets, preparing emails to follow-up on queries that were already sent, and so forth.

If it's a week where I have a lighter load, I'll spend at least a full day or more just on marketing. (I should say, by the way, that when I'm not traveling, I work seven days a week -- something I have always done and can do because I'm not married and I don't have kids and I'm naturally a workaholic.)

I'm also meticulous about following up on queries. If I haven't heard back after four weeks max, then I immediately send an email wondering if the editor had time to review my pitch and, in case it never made it to her inbox, I re-paste it in the body of the email. I actually never give up and have a whole different variety of follow-up emails depending on how long it's been since I still haven't heard.

But I also do phone follow-ups.

And I've found that professional and polite persistence pays off. I know I've heard other writers say that if you haven't heard, it means editors aren't interested. But I've not found that to be the case. There are all kinds of reasons, and not being interested is only one. In fact, I have gotten many, many assignments after repeatedly following up on a query for many months.

In order to maximize my marketing time, at the beginning of the week, I set out my marketing schedule in terms of what I want to accomplish:

• Finding several new outlets for my work,
• Determining how many queries I want to send out, and
• Determining how many I need to follow-up on.

I really stick to this schedule, unless a crazy deadline unexpectedly comes up. And, if that happens, then I make up the time the following week. As a writer, I also always wear a marketing hat. When I'm reading the newspaper or magazine, or browsing through postings on blogs or tweets on Twitter, I'm always thinking of new outlets to cold pitch, new story ideas, and so forth. For me, marketing is challenging and strategic and it's something that suits my personality.

What do you like about querying?

30-Day Marketing Challenge: The Power of Persistence

This week, I've invited fellow writers to share their marketing tips and tricks, either as guest bloggers or by answering a few of my questions. Today, I'm kicking the week off with the best story of querying persistence I've ever heard, from a writer I greatly respect.

This is the story of how Damon Brown broke in to SPIN Magazine after four years of pitching every month. You read right--four years! Here's his story, and then some follow-up questions:

I pitched SPIN magazine, which was technically the first professional pitch I ever sent, in September 2000. I pitched them roughly once a month and received no response until about two years later -- a short, "Thanks, but it's not right for us" email. Of course, that was motivation to keep going!

I kept getting rejected, but the rejections became longer, more elaborate, until fall 2003, when I got a two-paragraph email rejection that was as detailed as an assignment letter! The editor explained why the story wouldn't quite work and expressed detailed regrets on not giving the green light. I was flabbergasted, as I never experienced anything like that before. And, sure enough, the following Spring I got my first assignment! I would go on to freelance for SPIN nearly every month for three years - and even through a major editor shift. The experience taught me that literary brilliance is great - which I'm still working on! - but persistence is king.

You said your experience taught you that "literary brilliance is great--which I'm still working on--but persistence is king." What do you mean by that?

For me, any success that I have all comes down to focus. Early in my career I would subscribe to 30-plus magazines, publications that I thought would appreciate my voice and would be a good fit for me as a freelance writer, and reading them week after week or month after month helped me craft queries and ideas best suited for the audiences. Every single publication has a clear audience and editorial voice - even the most general interest one. The key is to study it long enough to know them, and then pitch enough times so that it is very clear to the *editors* that you know them, too.

How did you choose which stories to pitch to SPIN? Did you reslant and resend them after you got radio silence or a rejection from SPIN?

I did a lot of reslanting and resending. The biggest challenge for me early on was remembering that it is about the publication, *not* the story I want to tell. It was important to find the angle that would best fit the publication. For instance, a new music focused magazine like SPIN would probably not be interested in a historical piece on a legendary rocker, just as much as the acid-tongued New York Post, for which I also write, would probably pass on a touching story about lost puppies. I had to be merciless -- if a story idea didn't fit the publication, I didn't pitch it. Now, I've occasionally been able to talk up a story and make it work when I've already built a relationship with an editor, but it is wasteful, and perhaps a little arrogant, to assume that an editor will take on your risky story right out the gate.

What kept you pitching those first two years when you got no response? How did you motivate yourself?

It helped me to come up with a mission statement. When I first started, my goal was to examine subcultures respectfully and honestly, and to write about them for the masses so that the mainstream may find another level of respect for a discounted or seemingly second-rate culture. Video games are a $20 billion industry, but, especially when I first started a decade ago, were still considered a kid's medium. Sex, and specifically porn, was another multi-billion industry with real issues, real people and real business that was not being covered seriously. Finally, specific music genres, such as hip-hop, were lumped in with "ignorant" cultures, again despite being a multi-billion industry.

My motivation was and is when I see a subculture written about in an incomplete manner or, worse, in an ignorant or stereotypical light. I realize that I could have pitched that article and helped represent the subculture in a more complete light. Drives me nuts!

A more distant, but important motivation is setting and reaching firm financial goals. There is no formula that X number of queries equals Y number of assignments and totals Z amount of dollars, but there is a solid relationship between "sweat equity" and results. I like the freelancing lifestyle, and I know that I'd have to leave it if the bills weren't getting paid!

Did you have resistance to continuing to pitch them? If so, what kind of resistance and how did you deal with it?

Not really. I mean, this is really our job - pitch publications that we feel would welcome our voice and would be improved with our contributions. I knew I belonged in SPIN, and if anything the years of pitching proved to me that my feeling wasn't just about ego (otherwise, I would have quit much earlier!). For instance, I'd love to see my writing in The New Yorker, and have actually gotten some pleasant rejections from them, but I don't feel like I belong in The New Yorker. It is a bit of a stretch, and that's OK. On the other hand, for Playboy, SPIN and the other publications for which I currently write, I started pitching them aggressively when I knew my voice and my stories matched their need. There is a difference between ego and actual qualifications.

How much querying/marketing do you do today?

It actually varies quite a bit. If I'm in the middle of a book project, I can query as little as once or twice a week. I just finished off two big deadlines, so right now is a queryfest! I go in spurts, and can send as many as 5 queries in a day. Regardless of cycles, I always make it to major journalism conferences, such as the ASJA in April, and network with my colleagues over coffee or online through Twitter, Facebook or journalism websites. It is important to be open to new work before you need it.

What are the top marketing mistakes you've made--or seen other freelancers suffer from--and how do you overcome them?

Wishing for downtime during insanely busy periods - and getting downtime in spades as soon as the projects are wrapped up! I write primarily for magazines, so financially the work I do in February affects my budget in April or May. This creates the need to plan well in advance and to plant seeds early. It's OK to slow down the marketing, querying and networking while working on a big project, but it should never, ever grind to a halt. We should always be open to new work.

The second lesson I've learned is to be ahead of the curve -- particularly important in my focus areas of sex, tech and music. For instance, in summer 2007 Penguin released my Pocket Idiot's Guide to the iPhone, which was the first book on the popular device. The iPhone was announced six months earlier, and I knew the device was going to be insanely popular. I also suspected that people, and the media, would get burnt out on the iPhone very quickly.

In January 2007 my agent and I talked to Penguin and got the book deal in place, and I started pitching lots of iPhone stories. By June, when the iPhone was actually hitting stores, I actually started moving on to other technology topics. By the time my book came in August, I pitched one or two iPhone-related stories, but I knew my focus had to be on other, more cutting-edge topics. I was fortunate enough to be talking about new, refreshing tech topics while others were just pitching more iPhone stories. You have to know what's going to be big six months from now - particularly if you want to make it into long-leadtime magazines.

How do you keep yourself focused on marketing even when you're busy with assignments?

I get excited! My focus over the past six months has been my new book, Porn & Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture, but focusing on this one topic has made me restless about other ideas. I simply write them down as I get them and, when I get a spare moment, shoot off a query. Promoting the book has also served as an excellent excuse to revisit or touch base with old editors, letting them know about the book and perhaps pitching stories.

Damon Brown covers sex, music and technology with much aplomb, but he is first and foremost a pop culturist. A Northwestern grad, he is a feature writer for Playboy, SPIN, the New York Post, Inc., AARP The Magazine and Family Circle. Damon also writes several columns, including the weekly Inspector Gadget series for PlanetOut, the largest gay and lesbian website. His most recent book, Porn and Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture, was published in the fall.

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Little and often

That title is taken from a recent blog post of the same name by Janine Adams at Peace of Mind Organizing. I loved it because it fits in so well with my approach to marketing my business.

Here's what she says:

A little phrase that’s been going through my head a lot lately is “little and often,” something Mark Forster writes about in his books and something that’s really come to the forefront of my mind as I work with his Autofocus task-management system. Little and often simply means working on a project a little bit at a time, frequently (or at least regularly).

I think some of us—including me, particularly in the past—feel like we have to have a large chunk of time available to work on a large project before we can get started. Trouble is, that large chunk of time rarely becomes available. But if we apply the principle of little and often, we can chip away at the project bit by bit and get it done.

It can also be applied to routine tasks. If you wash what few dirty dishes you have every single day, you’re applying the principle of little and often. And you never have a big pile of dirty dishes to contend with. If you let them pile up until you have a whole sink (or dishwasher) full, it feels likes more work. And it’s more stressful to look at all those dirty dishes.

She's talking about organizing, but it applies to marketing, too. In fact, it applies to all of time management. One of the primary obstacles I hear from self-employed folks is that they don't have the time to market. I often wonder how much time they think they need, or how much they've found they need in practical experience.

My approach to marketing is to take it in 10 minute or 30 minute chunks. In 10-30 minutes I can do one or two of the following:

• Start to draft a query.
• Seek the name or email of a potential client.
• Research one or two markets.
  
• Update my standard letter of introduction and send it out.
  
• Contact a source to use as an anecdotal lede in the query.
• Follow up on a query I send two weeks ago.
• Ask fellow freelancers via email to suggest a good market for a potential story.
• Polish up a query and send it.
• Reslant and resend a previous query.
• Ask an editor to lunch.

Most days, "query" is a task on my to-do list, but since I don't feel like I have to complete a query from inception to submission at one time, I can make a tiny bit of progress on each one. That's how I make time for marketing.

In a way, it's like writing a business plan in Tim Berry's model:

You don't have to stop time and suspend life and business while you do the whole thing from start to finish. On the contrary, start anywhere, get going. Pick a module to do first, whether it's target market conceptually or specific sales forecast or whatever, and do that, start using that, and go on with your business. Then do another, then another. A good business plan is never done. It's also useful from module one on day one.

Apply this to your marketing efforts, do a little often, and it will become not just a working part of your business, but an easy part of your business.

What time management techniques help you fit marketing into your day?

Photo courtesy of fdecomite.

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Contract bottom lines

Yesterday I shared my bottom line for the number of queries I send a week. Today, I'll talk about why I have bottom lines for how much I earn and contract terms.

In my first year freelancing, I regularly took assignments that paid 10 cents a word, on publication--and I was happy to get it. I was thrilled to see my name in a magazine I'd read for years, even though I often found myself in the odd position of occasionally receiving a check for $50 and wondering what it was for. It might even buy a dinner out--but it didn't pay my bills and it left me having to churn out tons of work--and tons of queries to make ends meet.

So it shouldn't be surprised that my other marketing bottom line goes like this: Those three queries go to markets paying $1/word or more on acceptance. Period.

If I'm only going to send three queries a week, I need to make them count. Spending them on a publication that isn't going to meet my financial needs is a waste of time. I'm pretty adamant about this because I remember clearly what it was like to work nights and weekends and still barely be able to afford my rent. I don't want to go back there--and I don't want you to suffer the same fate.

Does that mean I never query lower-paying markets? Of course not. But I don't count those queries toward my weekly total. The practical reality of it, then, becomes that I accept assignments that pay less than $1/word, but I don't spend my precious marketing minutes trying to get that work. And I don't accept pay on publication work. Ever.

Limiting my querying to what I consider higher-paying markets makes my marketing life so much more serene. Suddenly, my marketing decisions aren't personal. They're professional. Just like me.

And limiting my querying to pay-on-acceptance brings me one step closer to having a guaranteed income--as guaranteed as it can be in this economy. Pay on publication is essentially an interest-free loan to your client, with no guarantee of payment. Especially in this economic climate, publications can go out of business between the time your work is accepted and the time your story is slated to run. If that happens, you're out money and a clip. I don't know about you but I'm not rich enough to provide a mini-bailout to my clients in the form of contract terms.

The payoff of this system is I don't feel like the victim of my marketing anymore. I mean, really: If you have to query, do you want to make it any harder on yourself than you have to? I don't. Bottom lines make sure it isn't.

Bottom lines eliminate from my work life the kind of unnecessary drama that comes with financial panic. I have more energy and attention to spend on my work, I'm more able to show up for my clients and have time to do the last-minute edits that are an inevitable part of this business.

I can spend my days full of gratitude for my work instead of resentment.

Just like in yesterday's post, your terms may vary. You might not get out of bed for less than $2 a word (and if that's the case, I want to buy you coffee and pick your brain). Or, you might feel that 50 cents a word is a fine fee. Whatever it is, the key is to know it and live by it.

How good are you at sticking to your marketing bottom lines? What stands in your way?

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Week 1 Marketing Results

It's a short week, since the challenge just started, but I want to know:

How many marketing efforts did you make this week? What did you do to market your business and increase your income?

What was your biggest hurdle and how did you clear it?

Leave a comment with your marketing efforts and enter to win a consultation with me!

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: 2009 Modules Part 3

This is the fifth in a series of modules you can choose from to start making a business plan as you go. The first post laid out modules for your values and mission. The second laid out modules for assessing 2008. The third laid out your financial goals for 2009. The fourth helped you come up with a plan for reaching your financial goals.

Today, we'll complete the modules--and help you meet your goals.

Remember: You can start anywhere. I've suggested an order, but please don't let it stop you. Pick one, do it, and go back to work.

Coverage Areas 2009
Looking back on your breakdown of the types of stories you do and the beats you cover and assess. And look at the financial health of your current clients.

Now, make a list:

• Coverage types you love;
• Coverage types you tolerate; and
  
• Coverage types you want to quit in 2009.

Maybe you're sick to death of service pieces. Maybe you love profiles but only did one this year. Make a goal to find and pitch more of the types you like and to let go of the ones that drag you down. Be specific. Do you want to do five profiles? Cut service pieces down to 10 this year? Just make a goal.

Do the same for beats.

New beats 2009
Now that you know what you want to cover next year, look at what new beats you want to add in 2009. Are there areas that are more profitable into which you want to expand? Are there topics that you don't cover but would like to? Maybe there's a coverage area that seems more profitable that you want to explore.

Make a list and spend a few minutes brainstorming stories and markets.

Market Changes
Now that you know who you've worked for this year, how much you like them and how much money you need to make to support your dreams, revisit your list of current clients.

Divide it into:

• Clients you love;
• Clients I'm on the fence about; and
  
• Clients to let go in the coming year.

Target Markets
You may have discovered that you need to pitch. Where will you do it? Look at the magazines, custom pubs and corporate clients you want to break into and choose five primary ones. If they're consumer pubs, subscribe to them and study them. If they're corporate or custom pubs, make a list of 10-20.

Hey guess what? You've done it!

Now go reward yourself!