When I started in the freelancing game, I had no idea what I was doing, so I started by reading a lot of books on being successful. Jenna Glatzer, Robert Bly, the inevitable copy of Writer’s Market…I invested in several tomes, boned up on query letters, story ideas and how to overcome writer’s block.

At the time I thought I had given myself the benefit of a lot of other people’s experience. Looking back now, I can see that all those books tried to say one important thing, but couldn’t quite put it into words. The one thing all those books couldn’t quantify is how personalized the freelancing experience is–there really is NO one path. I started off thinking that, like the steady gigs I had in radio and television, there was a set of accepted practices and procedures that could land you a freelancing job. All I had to do was to figure out the secret handshakes, submit in the accepted way and I could get my foot in the door in no time, right?

Wrong.

My first successful freelance writing assignment was published in a national magazine, just like Cath’s. I wrote up a Hunter Thompson-esque review of a film festival weekend and got published in Indie Slate Magazine. What a thrill it was to see that issue on the newsstand in Barnes & Noble! My first major credit, first time out! I thought this was going to be easy, based on that first success, but my submissions to other mags went unanswered.

I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong at first, until I realized that I was querying magazines I didn’t really read, on subjects I wasn’t that close to. The Indie Slate submission was easy because I am a filmmaker and videographer and could talk intelligently about my subject matter. Even though I was taking yoga classes at the time, a submission to one of the health and fitness mags was ill-advised because I didn’t really understand my subject that well–not that you need to be an expert on a topic to write intelligently about it, but I was pitching story ideas that had already been done to death.

That is where many freelancers miss the boat. They get what sounds like a great idea, but a thousand other writers have gone there before. The trick for me was to learn how to take a standard subject and put a new twist on the idea. I had spend more than a decade working in radio and television by the time I started doing freelance work, but I knew that most of my ideas were wrong for the trade mags–again, somebody else had already beaten me to the punch.

I started getting published when I took subjects I knew intimately and spun them for markets that would never think of touching them without a bit of creative prodding. I know all about how to prepare someone for a radio interview; who needs to learn how to do that? I took my expertise and turned it into a credit in a national fitness magazine. My hook? I made the article into a how-to piece for personal trainers who need a new angle to promote their business.

If I do say so myself, that is a bit of spin doctoring GENIUS. The good news is, you don’t have to BE a genius to come up with ideas like that. Anyone can do it if they think long enough about their subject matter strengths and apply it in a new way.

Those old, tired article ideas about parenting you had six months ago? Why not spin them into a piece of office psychology? Using the parenting model as your basis for office management, you could easily sell an editor on this concept if you spin it right. Why write a basic how-to piece on promoting an art gallery event when you could get published twice as quickly by writing one for a different market using the art gallery event as an example of how to apply self-promotion tactics used by artists and galleries?

Now, I am guessing, the light bulb is on and you’re already coming up with ideas on how to re-spin your old articles.

How did I get my first published clip in a national magazine? Like ALL writers who land their first freelance publication credit, I got a lucky break. Somebody saw my work and it resonated with them. Don’t let anyone tell you that’s NOT how it works. Luck is a big part of your early days. Here’s the secret—make your own luck by continuing to submit, over and over to as many publications as possible. One of them WILL take a chance on you eventually.

Good freelancers are the ones who learn that an acceptance is just one part of a long cycle. If you aren’t doing six things at once as a freelance writer, you really aren’t playing the game properly unless you are a part-timer or don’t really need the money. Those with an eye to doing this full time should be perpetually busy and wondering how they are going to get it all done. That’s the permanent state of mind for a successful freelance writer.

TO BE CONTINUED…