Category Archives: advice

editorial

Top Ten Uses For Rejection Letters

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Rejection letters are great, aren’t they? I remember getting one from the Slamdance Film Festival for a short subject film submission I sent way back in 2002. Now that’s a strange one to write about in context of freelance writing, but it was one of the first rejection letters I actually put up as a badge of pride. “See? I TRIED!”

It stayed on my refrigerator for two years. Then one day I spilled some coffee and I looked at that damn thing and decided that its time had come, especially since I had just run out of paper towels.

But there are actually plenty of uses for rejection letters besides the obvious. If you are struggling, maybe a little discouraged and fed up with all the trees being killed to tell you that you aren’t wanted at Publication X Inc, try these cathartic recycling methods to put those rejection slips to good use.

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advice

Not Getting Paid? Five Tips For Resolution

Freelancers are always running into little problems…shifting deadlines, clients who don’t know what the hell they really want, and the worst one of all–the publisher who won’t pay for some reason. Handling this situation calls for a tactful blend of psyhological warfare and extreme tact, but you can win if you play your cards properly. In a recent dispute with an editor over payment, I used the following five tactics for successful resolution of the problem. I’m happy to report that I did get paid, I’m still writing for the publication, and everyone seems happy. Here’s what I did:

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advice

Writer’s Market Guides: Top 5 Ways To Avoid Wasting Your Money

I have a very low threshold for B.S. in the writing game. One of my all-time pet peeves? For-pay services that actually deliver very little useful information. There are plenty of books, websites, and blogs offering products and services, but the signal-to-noise ratio makes investing in them a potentially risky proposition for the new writer. Want to cut through the crap and find the guides that actually have something to offer? Here are my top five strategies:

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advice, photography

5 Photography Mistakes To Avoid

by Catherine L. Tully

I provide photography for many of the articles that I write, and this has not only been fun, but has been a nice addition to my income as well. I won’t pretend the learning curve isn’t fairly steep, but I will say that it is worth a writer’s while to head on down the road to learning some things about photography. Having a few ideas in mind of what you don’t want to do is a great way to begin…  Continue reading 5 Photography Mistakes To Avoid →

editorial

Why You Really Need to Start a Blog

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freelance-switch.jpg

According to a Freelance Switch survey, only 15% of surveyed freelancers write a blog. To the 85% of you who are not writing blogs, I say a hearty thank you. Thank you for making my quest for more paying gigs that much easier by taking yourselves out of the race. Self-promotion is one of the most important parts of this crazy business of ours, and by not promoting yourself, your expertise, and years of experience in the game you seriously cut down the competition for yours truly. You guys are awesome.

When I read that 15% factoid as reported in Mike Gunderloy’s post at Web Worker Daily, I admit I was fairly surprised. I would assume a much higher figure. Any freelancer who wants to get paid should be taking a serious look at how they market their number one asset–themselves. If you aren’t pushing your skills, you sell yourself short. Doing a blog is not going to drive employers to your virtual doorstep in droves, they won’t be beating down your door just because you have your shingle out. But any time you apply for a new gig, you should use every tool at your disposal, every advantage over that other 85%.

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advice

Six Signs You’re Working For A Clown Company

WTF is a “clown company”? An easy answer if you’ve ever had to write for one. For those who haven’t yet– a clown company is one that has lofty aspirations, big ideas, but absolutely no idea about how to implement them. They usually go out and hire some college grad with little experience who will work on the cheap, let them flounder around for a while, then step in and ruin everything. OR they let the college grad set up some kind of woefully inefficient system and run the operation into the ground.

Some of these disasters-waiting-to-happen are dedicated to writing products, others need writers for PR, web copy, and other material. One thing clown companies do is hire freelance writers to try and keep their costs down. That’s good for us…for a while. The problem with working for a clown company is that eventually you’ll either get stiffed in the pay department, you’ll get paid very late on a consistent basis, you’ll be asked to do more and more unreasonable things for the same money you started with, or worst of all you’ll be given an attractive offer to work full-time, or you’ll get dropped in favor of someone who can work cheaper than you.

Why is the job offer the worst part of all? Read this list of danger signs you’re working for a clown company and all will become clear:

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