"Sorry. I thought I had emailed you back." This editor hadn't, as promised. "In any case, we're just not interested in any of those ideas." If there were a list of necessary qualities for people wanting to be writers or freelancers, having a thick sick would certainly be near the top.
Editors make decisions quickly and decisively, which means they either like your ideas and will go with them quickly or they will reject them off hand. Rejection is not fun, and I've had to stifle my desire to try to explain why I think the story is worthwhile.
In the end, you can't expect that every story you pitch will get accepted, especially at the beginning. It helps to know which outlets are interested in what sort of stories; how to pitch to that outlet specifically; and which stories they normally accept freelance for (for instance, I've found a fair number of newspapers in the US use their own writers and wire services exclusively).
Another thing that can be difficult is the staggering number of emails that you have to send, of which almost none get responses. When I was getting started, there must have been a handful of weeks during which I sent out hundreds of emails and got exactly zero responses.
Editors are busy people, so if they don't have an urgent need to respond to your email, chances are they won't. Rejections may be hard to take, but don't expect to get too many of those. Editors save rejections for people they've had long contact with. Most normal rejections consist simply of silence.
I was surprised to get a response from the travel editor of the Seattle Times on Monday in response to a pitch I had sent him half a year ago. At least it was response.
Finally, another reason for thick skin are all the dead ends. Editors will express interest, only to saunter off. Editors will send an inquiry about a story and then never follow up. It has happened several times that I thought I had a promising lead with a story in a publication, only to have things not pan out.
The bright side is that, with a thick enough skin, a story will pan out sooner or later. That story will lead to another story, and it all gets easier from there.
2008年10月27日星期一
2008年10月20日星期一
How does pay work?
One of the biggest questions I had getting started was how pay would work.
If you're established and a good writer with articles in demand, you may be able to name a price when you pitch articles. This only works, though, if you're in demand and if publications are willing to go out of their normal pay rate to get your articles.
If you name your prices with your pitches, chances are you're limiting the number of acceptances you'll get. So in getting started, where the most important thing is simply getting articles published and building up clips, naming your own price is pretty much out of the question.
So, in most cases publications have their own pay rates, and they will tell you (or you should ask) when they tell you they're interested in your article. Some pay per word; some pay per article.
It's likely that pay will increase (or that you'll have the leverage to ask for a pay-rate increase) if you've worked with a certain publication for a long time.
Furthermore, pay rates don't always work as you might expect. Some large, famous publications pay little, but still get lots of pieces thrown at them because of their fame. Other publications, particularly industry publications or publications for businesses, pay better even though your audience is smaller and the prestige of writing is lower.
Since editors are busy people who like things that cut to the chase, I've found that it's best to slim down my email pitches. Thus, I don't mention payment in my emails. If my emails are too long, most editors will just ignore them. As a result, I wait until interest is expressed in an article before I mention pay, which publications usually have a set policy on.
There have been times when I've been asked what I normally get paid, which is hard to answer when you're getting started at freelancing. This seems to me like the beginning of a bargaining situation, which makes me uncomfortable, but I've always responded with a per-word figure that is on the mid to high range.
In sum, pay rates are not a huge difficulty, since most publications have their own rate policies. This saves the headache of having to haggle and argue over pay rates.
If you're established and a good writer with articles in demand, you may be able to name a price when you pitch articles. This only works, though, if you're in demand and if publications are willing to go out of their normal pay rate to get your articles.
If you name your prices with your pitches, chances are you're limiting the number of acceptances you'll get. So in getting started, where the most important thing is simply getting articles published and building up clips, naming your own price is pretty much out of the question.
So, in most cases publications have their own pay rates, and they will tell you (or you should ask) when they tell you they're interested in your article. Some pay per word; some pay per article.
It's likely that pay will increase (or that you'll have the leverage to ask for a pay-rate increase) if you've worked with a certain publication for a long time.
Furthermore, pay rates don't always work as you might expect. Some large, famous publications pay little, but still get lots of pieces thrown at them because of their fame. Other publications, particularly industry publications or publications for businesses, pay better even though your audience is smaller and the prestige of writing is lower.
Since editors are busy people who like things that cut to the chase, I've found that it's best to slim down my email pitches. Thus, I don't mention payment in my emails. If my emails are too long, most editors will just ignore them. As a result, I wait until interest is expressed in an article before I mention pay, which publications usually have a set policy on.
There have been times when I've been asked what I normally get paid, which is hard to answer when you're getting started at freelancing. This seems to me like the beginning of a bargaining situation, which makes me uncomfortable, but I've always responded with a per-word figure that is on the mid to high range.
In sum, pay rates are not a huge difficulty, since most publications have their own rate policies. This saves the headache of having to haggle and argue over pay rates.
2008年10月15日星期三
Difficulties
Difficulties
As Ned explained to me later, one of the biggest difficulties of being a freelancer is payment. Freelancing, especially in the beginning, is a rough and uncertain path to take, and poverty is probably the foremost obstacle.
Because you're not working a steady job, you don't have a salary coming in at the same time of the month. Furthermore, you're entirely at the will of the publication to pay you. They pay you when they want to pay you and you have to put up with it because that's how the game works.
Now, editors are a bit like college professors: they're incredibly busy and terrible at responding to emails. (Although I have to say that professors have been great at responding to my interview requests...) The more urgent the email, the better the chance that you'll get a response. Emails that freelancers send in about when exactly their pay will be deposited are not high on the priority list.
Ned told me stories about writing articles that he was not paid for until weeks or months after they were published. This can be quite a difficulty if you're living hand to mouth, so it's usually necessary for people starting in freelance to take another job.
If you're in Asia like Ned and me, private English teaching positions are great, since they're well-paying and flexible, allowing for time off for travel. I'm still having to support myself with teaching, although it's entirely possible that I will be able to support myself entirely on writing soon enough.
With freelancing, it's the beginning that's the hardest. It's hard to establish yourself, but when you start accumulating clips and editors start to get to know you, pay can become more regular and opportunities start to open up. That doesn't mean that you won't have to bug editors for payment anymore.
As Ned explained to me later, one of the biggest difficulties of being a freelancer is payment. Freelancing, especially in the beginning, is a rough and uncertain path to take, and poverty is probably the foremost obstacle.
Because you're not working a steady job, you don't have a salary coming in at the same time of the month. Furthermore, you're entirely at the will of the publication to pay you. They pay you when they want to pay you and you have to put up with it because that's how the game works.
Now, editors are a bit like college professors: they're incredibly busy and terrible at responding to emails. (Although I have to say that professors have been great at responding to my interview requests...) The more urgent the email, the better the chance that you'll get a response. Emails that freelancers send in about when exactly their pay will be deposited are not high on the priority list.
Ned told me stories about writing articles that he was not paid for until weeks or months after they were published. This can be quite a difficulty if you're living hand to mouth, so it's usually necessary for people starting in freelance to take another job.
If you're in Asia like Ned and me, private English teaching positions are great, since they're well-paying and flexible, allowing for time off for travel. I'm still having to support myself with teaching, although it's entirely possible that I will be able to support myself entirely on writing soon enough.
With freelancing, it's the beginning that's the hardest. It's hard to establish yourself, but when you start accumulating clips and editors start to get to know you, pay can become more regular and opportunities start to open up. That doesn't mean that you won't have to bug editors for payment anymore.
2008年10月7日星期二
Getting started, part II
Before I graduated from U of M, the co-op that I lived in held a small career how-to from a house member and graduate student Aaron Traxler-Balew. I'll always remember Aaron's advice about how to get started in a field that you're interested in but have no experience in.
Because most jobs are passed through acquaintances and because you have no experience in your desired field, he recommended combing friends and relatives to see if they could put you in touch with anyone in the field you're interested in.
As I was looking to get started in freelancing, I told my idea to friends and family, and the people who knew writers and editors offered their help to me. It didn't hurt that my sister was a journalist for the Associated Press at the time, but truthfully a lot of my support came from elsewhere.
According to Aaron, when you find somebody in the field that you're interested in, you should approach them as a newbie and ask them how they got started, what advice they have for someone looking to enter their field, and what opportunities they know of.
It sounds like you're pestering them, but, as Aaron said, most people are flattered by the chance to talk about themselves and their career to someone who's aspiring to do what they do.
The sources that I ended up finding were varied: a editor at a South Carolina newspaper that my sister used to work at (who was extremely encouraging); an email to my former Freshman English teacher put me in touch with a writer in Beijing; an email found me through my upper-level writing requirement teacher who had a former student now working as a freelancer looking for help with an article about Chinese (after helping him, I asked for advice getting started freelancing); I even sent emails to writers that I had seen in positions that I envied (although my email to a New York Times writer didn't get a response).
Some offered encouragement and general ideas about writing and pitching, others offered specific avenues for where I could get work published and who was looking for writing. Their help was different, but their effect was the same. Thanks to all those who have helped me along the way and to Aaron who advised me on how where to put my feet first.
Because most jobs are passed through acquaintances and because you have no experience in your desired field, he recommended combing friends and relatives to see if they could put you in touch with anyone in the field you're interested in.
As I was looking to get started in freelancing, I told my idea to friends and family, and the people who knew writers and editors offered their help to me. It didn't hurt that my sister was a journalist for the Associated Press at the time, but truthfully a lot of my support came from elsewhere.
According to Aaron, when you find somebody in the field that you're interested in, you should approach them as a newbie and ask them how they got started, what advice they have for someone looking to enter their field, and what opportunities they know of.
It sounds like you're pestering them, but, as Aaron said, most people are flattered by the chance to talk about themselves and their career to someone who's aspiring to do what they do.
The sources that I ended up finding were varied: a editor at a South Carolina newspaper that my sister used to work at (who was extremely encouraging); an email to my former Freshman English teacher put me in touch with a writer in Beijing; an email found me through my upper-level writing requirement teacher who had a former student now working as a freelancer looking for help with an article about Chinese (after helping him, I asked for advice getting started freelancing); I even sent emails to writers that I had seen in positions that I envied (although my email to a New York Times writer didn't get a response).
Some offered encouragement and general ideas about writing and pitching, others offered specific avenues for where I could get work published and who was looking for writing. Their help was different, but their effect was the same. Thanks to all those who have helped me along the way and to Aaron who advised me on how where to put my feet first.
2008年10月4日星期六
Getting Started
Since this is a career blog and I'm at the beginning, I should probably write about how I got started in freelancing.
I've had lots of encouragement along the way, but the person responsible for truly planting the seed of the idea in my mind is a fellow Princeton in Asia fellow who's now a reporter with Hong Kong-based Finance Asia, Ned Russell.
I met Ned when I was traveling through Thailand just after graduating from the University of Michigan and before starting my Princeton in Asia fellowship teaching in Guangzhou. (Anyone interested in interning, doing non-profit work, or teaching in Asia should check PiA out. It's open to graduates from any university.)
Ned was finishing up a business internship in Bangkok and agreed to meet up for dinner as a fellow PiAer was passing through town. When we met for dinner, Ned told me about how he was starting freelancing.
I was intensely curious and filled with questions. I had always pictured writing as a mysterious career that some people had magic access to. I hadn't imagined that you could just get started on your own and do it.
Ned was naturally interested in airplanes, airports, and transportation development, so he had a writing niche from the start. While he was working a full-time office job that he didn't find fulfilling, he was researching airports in the area and pitching ideas to airline magazines--essentially magazines for airline industry people.
Ned was gracious at answering my barrage of questions, telling me that he was working on getting up his number of clips (articles that you've previously published that you provide to publications as proof of your previous work, kind of like a freelancing resume).
My interests lay more in culture and travel, rather than airports, but the fact that someone in the same position as me had put himself in his own freelancing position was enough to plant the seed of the idea in my head. As I settled down in Guangzhou for a year of teaching English, the seed grew.
I've had lots of encouragement along the way, but the person responsible for truly planting the seed of the idea in my mind is a fellow Princeton in Asia fellow who's now a reporter with Hong Kong-based Finance Asia, Ned Russell.
I met Ned when I was traveling through Thailand just after graduating from the University of Michigan and before starting my Princeton in Asia fellowship teaching in Guangzhou. (Anyone interested in interning, doing non-profit work, or teaching in Asia should check PiA out. It's open to graduates from any university.)
Ned was finishing up a business internship in Bangkok and agreed to meet up for dinner as a fellow PiAer was passing through town. When we met for dinner, Ned told me about how he was starting freelancing.
I was intensely curious and filled with questions. I had always pictured writing as a mysterious career that some people had magic access to. I hadn't imagined that you could just get started on your own and do it.
Ned was naturally interested in airplanes, airports, and transportation development, so he had a writing niche from the start. While he was working a full-time office job that he didn't find fulfilling, he was researching airports in the area and pitching ideas to airline magazines--essentially magazines for airline industry people.
Ned was gracious at answering my barrage of questions, telling me that he was working on getting up his number of clips (articles that you've previously published that you provide to publications as proof of your previous work, kind of like a freelancing resume).
My interests lay more in culture and travel, rather than airports, but the fact that someone in the same position as me had put himself in his own freelancing position was enough to plant the seed of the idea in my head. As I settled down in Guangzhou for a year of teaching English, the seed grew.
订阅：
评论 (Atom)
