Tricks for contacting editors

Getting through to editors at magazines can be like trying to wiggle a limpet off a rock. Do they want submissions? Apparently not. Read the mastheads and it's a rare editor who lists their email address or telephone number.

However, if you read the masthead you will also find out there are precious few people running that magazine. It's stripped to the bones. Which is why they rely so heavily on freelance input. But if you're a new freelance, how do you get to the editor? Generic emails yield extremely few results.

I will reveal the secret. But if you use the secret you're going to look like a fool unless you have a slick delivery about your idea by phone, or you've got a professional looking, well-researched query letter. With that caveat (because I have been in busy newsrooms, and I do sympathize with overworked editors who get into a groove only to be interrupted by a nuisance call) use the following tips judiciously:

Go to the masthead on the magazine and write down the names of the editor, managing editor, assistant editor - whomever you want to reach. Then go down to advertising: they're the bunch that want to give out their email addresses. Look for the pattern -firstinitiallastname@mymag.com. You'll use that same pattern to email the editor with your white-hot, well-researched query (no attachments).

Then see where the editorial offices are located, and look for the number for the advertising or circulation department which is located in the same building. Now you've got the switchboard number and you can call the operator for the editor's number. If you get through to voicemail you can: call back, pitch to the mailbox, or go back to the operator and ask for the person's assistant. They don't really have assistants, I'm finding out. These magazines are horribly short-staffed.

This method takes a bit of sales practice. I like to have my pitch written out in front of me pared down to one sentence. Then they can ask for more information or send me away if it's not right for the magazine, or I can try to pitch a second article. I think if I had a list of articles it would either be impressive or annoying. I haven't tried that one yet. I'd love comments from other freelances about this method.

Technorati Tags:contact editors, freelance, freelancer, renegade writer, freelancing, how to contact editors, how to contact magazine editors, freelance success
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Has it really been that long since I posted? Time's all crumpled up these days. I could have sworn it's only been a week.

But since then, I've had my first interview broadcast on Bexley Public Radio (Local Power FM - 102.1 in Columbus), and sat down with our engineer Eugene to edit tape for a couple news pieces. We've had lots and lots of snow, so that's been a distraction. At one point we were under a level 3 winter weather warning, which means you're not allowed to go out in your car.

Since last week I've signed up for the ASJA conference in New York, booked my flight, found somewhere to sleep; and signed up for a 'write your non-fiction book proposal class' through Freelance Success on-line. Jennifer Lawler teaches the class, and although I won't be able to take part of it due to other commitments, I thought I'd better have my proposal ready for the conference to punt to agents and editors. I've also joined the Freelance Success query challenge, and have to get some queries shifted off my desk today so that our group gets some points.

It's been a HUGELY busy and productive ten days. Almost overwhelmingly so. On Saturday night I dreamed this amazing dream, and spent Sunday with my head in the computer turning it into a short story. It's a firecracker - but now it needs redrafting before it's in shape to send out. The week before that, a whole novel plot landed in my head ready-born, and I'm very, very excited about that project too.

I've shut down my healing practice for the month of February. That's because I concentrate so hard during the day, I'm too tired to give clients full focus once my evening office hours roll 'round. (I will be back up and running in March). However, one client came in under the wire. She's a writer too, and asked a question about writing sad or dark stories. For people who believe that intention creates our world, or that thoughts can turn into things, writing dark stories feels like contributing to the evil in the world, rather than being part of our Earth's healing.

I found a diary entry I'd written while re-drafting The LightCatcher. I had real problems with that book trying to make it dark enough. I'd become so deeply involved with my healing practice, and identified so strongly with the characters, that I couldn't give them enough pain to make the story interesting.

"One of my many blocks to writing I discovered yesterday. In all metaphysical texts they talk about not only the importance of action, but also of thought: how it's important to send good thoughts, pure thoughts, into the world, for the health of other people and also for your own health.

"Writing a dark book is an action, and it makes negative thoughts concrete. As a healer I don't want to participate in that cycle. However, the canvas (flat or sculpture or a novel) is a place where we can safely manipulate imaginary icons without damaging real people as we explore human nature for ourselves and others.

"That's why art is such an important spiritual medium, and a safe and right place to direct emotion, our wonderings and our wonderment. It's another vehicle of birth which allows the expression of emotion and the safe passage through to communion with ourselves...with others. Snapshots of other minds, other situations. Birth, and out the other side."

Technorati Tags:metaphysics, metaphysical, intention setting, intention, spiritual practice, asja, agent, editors, editor, energy healing, freelancing, freelancer, freelance success
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Which agents actively trawl for writers? Plus a cheerful look at conference etiquette

Don't have an agent? Don't have conference fees? Feeling out of the loop?

The best way back into the loop is through conferences. There you can hear all the tips and advice and find out what the industry needs as it moves in this rapidly changing information-driven world.

BUT if you've been to the conferences at a time when your work wasn't ripe to sell, and need to know who's trawling for authors now, then go to writers' conference websites and find out who's touring. Agencies will send people who need to build their list of authors; newly-opened agencies will cherry-pick from conferences; and one-man bands will also trawl for writers.

It's best to get your butt to the conference, get your mug in front of the agent with a good-looking business card that lists your website and your blog, practice your thirty-second pitch speech in the mirror the night before, and give it to the agent with lots of direct eye contact and a firm handshake. Professional. That's what sells and that's what you've got to appear to be.

I learned two conferences ago not to have pretty folders with my tear sheets and the first ten pages of the novel ready to hand to the agents. Each person said they never accept manuscripts at conferences. They prefer to receive your information by email. So don't look like a dork and try to thrust anything on them bigger than your business card. And be ready with pen and paper in case they've run out of cards and want to give you their contact details.

I'm like all writers. I sit in my office, most of the time with a makeup free face and my weight-lifting gear still on. If I remember to put on earrings and extra deoderant after my workout (I do shower every morning, so it's not as stinky as all that), it's a bonus. But the dog and the cat don't care. However, as my children continue to remind me when I get too freaky - looks matter. As much as I hate it, people respond better to people who look normal. They give you more attentive service for looking normal. They want to please you if you make an effort to please them by wearing nice clothes.

Clothes at conferences - I consider them tax deductible. These are clothes I will never wear other than at a conference, or some job interview I may attend in another incarnation. Makeup for conferences - same. I don't wear makeup, (despite the blue lady), except for eyeliner and mascara and lipgloss from CVS. So if I have to get my nails done and put Crest strips on my teeth and buy shoes, foundation and the whole Eddie Murphy, I think that goes down as a conference expense.

Do not go to conferences on what you cobble together from your existing wardrobe, ok? I did that my first conference. What was I thinking with those beaded cream party shoes and a sensible skirt? Apart from falling off my shoes regularly because of the hefty case - full of all those useless folders for agents, remember? - I felt stupid and out of place. Wear a black pumps and black trousers, a decent jacket and a nice sweater or not-too-dressy blouse.

Get the Mary Kay lady to show you the latest tips for applying makeup, and then practice at it. Hold dry runs. Makeup is a real pain-in-the-tuchus for me. I played in trees and wrestled with the neighbor boys, instead of Barbie. I was disappointed to learn the makeup I'd bought and worn forever - blue eyeshadow and silver eyeliner - had to go, despite the 80s being 'back' this season. In came various shades of brown, with matching shades of brown lipstick. Sadly, sparkles are out.

You're going to be at it for a couple days, back and forth to the coffee table and in and out of sessions, so be comfortable while you look nice. Show your personality through your earrings and your manicure, rather than mis-matched I-live-in-a-garrett clothes, or drama queen scarves you bought because you wanted to look like a writer.

Writers who make it are extremely together and professional. Be her.

PS - Thanks for the comment Isabel! (Previous post). I'm glad I wasn't the only bluesy chick scrabbling for inspiration last week. Hope you found yours!

Technorati Tags:agent, find agent, find an agent, writer, writers conferences, writing conferences, freelance, freelancer, freelancing, freelance success
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

The business of freelancing

It's hard to face the computer and the tasks I know I have to do today. We've had freezing temperatures in the below-zeroes for the past two days, and now there's snow falling horizontally outside my window.

Weather isn't any reason not to write. (Ok, revise that. It's very hard to write in August when it's blazing sunshine and the cool pool beckons). I don't know why I'm feeling discouraged. I've got two wicked-awesome tapes in the recorder - the first a collection of stories from the non-violent communication conference, the second the drug story I'm doing with the OSU professor. Both I like. I also got a 'good' rejection from Natural Health magazine for one of my stories today, and reminded them of an outstanding query on another story they might like. And emailed a contact to thank him for an interview, and sent him an idea. All good stuff.

But I feel blocked. I'm having a difficult time with this drug story, wrestling it on the page. Problem is, it seems like two stories, or even three. It has angles to sell to mens and women's health magazines, Psychology Today, as well as military and mainstream magazines.

I think what it needs is a day at Borders, going through magazines and collecting names of editors - but why don't I just use the Writer's Market? Because I get a better feel for the pitch when I see the real magazine in front of me. Sometimes there are magazines I've never seen, either - like the day I ran across Tea Experience Digest and that sparked an essay idea for me. Borders, Writer's Digest, or the Internet? What will it be? Of the three I like Borders best because I can buy magazines and bring them home to precisely target my piece.

So that's why I'm blocked. Because I really need to be at the bookstore instead of watching incessant, falling snow.

Technorati Tags:freelance, freelancer, query, queries, natural health, psychology today, borders
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Non-Violent Communication conference

The Non-Violent Communication movement is big in Columbus. Following the work of Marshall Rosenberg, NVC teaches people how to speak heart-to-heart and connect to their feelings and needs when handling difficult conversations.

I went to the two-day conference as a paying guest yesterday, but took along my digital recorder and a microphone to get some tape for the community radio station. I talked to several people and came away with about five interviews. It's a balance - I wanted to participate in the workshop but also knew that with the growth of this movement in our city, it'd be a great story for radio.

So that meant taking time to chat with people at lunch, and slipping interviews into break time. I made myself work when I wanted to relax, but I'm happy I did. Today I'm exhausted.

Marshall Rosenberg spoke for two days, and broke us into pracitise groups only twice. This gave him almost no breaks in his speaking, story-telling, ceaseless demonstrations of the techniques of Non-Violent Communication, and songs. His energy filled the room, making him seem younger from a distance than he appeared up close.

Time after time he coached participants through difficult conversations, helping them to breakthroughs of empathy and understanding. I saw profound healings of old emotional wounds all day, and believe that, on an energetic level, the healers in the audience also participated in making this happen through their attention, presence, and engagement.

But there was also a strange thing happening to me. Because I wanted to cover the story for radio, I'd emailed the organizer ahead of time asking for an interview with Marshall Rosenberg. I'd been a bit sloppy and left it to the day before. However, I knew another reporter would be at the conference, and that she'd emailed well in advance. So I thought we'd get one interview between us, and expected a fifteen - at the outside 30 - minutes shoed in somewhere.

Instead, I got an extremely chilly shoulder from the organizer when I introduced myself on the first morning. And continued to receive the same chilly demeanor when I bumped into him for the next two days. On the morning of day two, my colleague revealed that the organizer said he hadn't even asked Marshall about an interview. We put together a note with our bios and left it on his chair.

Funny thing was, I knew the organizer! We'd actually conducted a conference opening some years previously, and had attended a couple meetings together. I thought he'd at least put together half a smile at some point in the day. But it felt like I'd received the label 'Press' and he couldn't see past it. I felt sad that at a conference where we learned for two days to speak heart-to-heart, I'd been labeled. And also sad that the radio station for which I'm creating the story, was put together by the same organization (Simply Living) whose conference we'd opened together in 2004!

We didn't get the interview with Marshall. Although we approached him during a break, he referred us to his team. And when we approached the team at the end of the conference for one final bash at it (reporter 1: if you go up and ask, I'll give you lots of empathy if you get rejected. reporter 2: Deal.) their manner was closed down and brisk. Get rid of the press.

I loved the conference. I received tools I'll use for the rest of my life. But I wanted to share that joy with a wider community through my gifts of communication, and got blocked by being labeled as a pest.

Do I have a point? Maybe. Perhaps they've been burned in the past. Perhaps he's too frail to give one ounce of extra energy during two days of teaching, that he must reserve all juice for his healing work. Fair enough.

An editor once said to me: "Don't be a reporter unless you enjoy sticking your head in a meat grinder." In situations like this, that piece of unfortunate advice still seems to ring true.

Technorati Tags:non violent communication, marshall rosenberg, nvc, nvc conference columbus ohio, editors, reporting, reporter, community radio, simply living
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator