by changeling 6 Replies latest jw friends
How do you "freelance"?
Do you send your articles to several magazines at one time?
If you get multiple "nibbles", do you pick one or publish in several?
Do they "own" your material once you've sent it?
Any ideas would be most helpful and appreciated.
changeling
AlmostAtheist has had articles published...you might want to get in contact with him.
You can offer first north american serial rights if it has not yet been published.
I would recommend that you go to library and get a copy of Writer's Market. It has all the info you are looking for.
Thanks tula!
Back again. Got cut short.
Wanted to tell you also, that it is unethical to submit manuscript to more than one publisher at a time. So it helps to be very familiar with the publication you are submitting mss. to so you won't be wasting your time.
Writer's Market will give you good synopsis of a variety of pubs. It may take 6 to 8 weeks to get an answer...usually a rejection. Don't take it personally. Keep trying. If you do get an ed. who makes comments even if criticisms, that's at least a good sign that your work has been read. Don't be defiant about criticisms and be flexible if ed. wants or suggests changes.
Other avenues...usually you can find writers club or guild that meets at library. They read and critique each others work. Good start. Colleges have "continuing ed" classes in creative writing. You do not have to be a college student to attend. These are classes for general community.
I made my living as a freelancer for about 7 years. For the past five years, I've been the assistant editor or editor of a weekly newspaper with 27,000 circulation. I'm also the editor of a new monthly magazine and contributing editor for the past 7 years to another monthly magazine. About a quarter of my income is freelance now.
It's not always the same for every magazine, but you usually start with a query letter - send them an idea you have for an article along with your qualifications as a writer - where you've been published in particular. You can see examples of those kinds of letters in Writer's Market. You can sometimes submit multiple query letters, but you need to let everyone know that. Do the query first, then do the article once you have an interested magazine.
Depending on the market, a lot of writers I know take one idea and sell it to three or four different magazines and do seperate articles for each one. For example, a good friend is a music writer, and he'll do a profile of a band for one magazine, a concert review for another, a CD review, and maybe a 10-questions kind of piece with one of the band members for yet another magazine.
I've had about 20 magazine articles published this year, but I'm at a point now where I'm a known quantity with some magazines, so I haven't sent out a query letter in quite a few years. The editors just call or e-mail me and ask me to do the piece. They know what they are going to get. That's the best arrangement to work out.
PM me if I can be of help and I'll let you know how to get in touch with me.
S4
Thanks S4. I'll be in touch.
changeling
