On this edition of Mailbag, we tackle a question I get a lot: How can a freelance writer kick the content-mill habit and move up to better-paying clients?

On the recent post about Demand Studios’ IPO, reader Mike Biscoe was concerned about the revelation that DS doesn’t make a profit, which puts them at risk for going bust. An excerpt of his comments and questions:

I’ve been working for Demand Studios since 2009. Almost exclusively. I live in Thailand and because the cost of living where I am is cheap, I can pay the bills simply by writing DS articles. My only other income comes from occasionally writing articles for similar content mills that pay half of what DS does. Prior to 2009, I have no experience in writing anything other than regular letters to my grandma.

I am here on a tourist visa and therefore can’t legally work. If the [DS] job goes, I go. Since I am newish to writing I can’t say I know that much about what a logical next step would entail. Though I don’t think DS is going out of business tomorrow, it reminds me that I must look ahead.

I want to begin formulating a plan for more meaningful mid- and long-term goals.

Do I carry a scarlet letter for the rest of my life for writing eHow, Trails and Livestrong articles?

In spite of what good DS might do for me, there have been times when I’ve been so frustrated by the process that I’ve imagined jettisoning my laptop right through the window and listening with satisfaction as it crashes on the rooftop five stories below. In other words, I don’t want to believe that DS is my only hope for employment as a new writer.

Thanks for the information and clear-headed advice.

To get the easy stuff out of the way first: You’ll only be branded a mill writer forever if you put DS on your resume. Leave it off, and no one will know. End of stigma.

Here’s the nut of my answer to your main question about kicking mills and getting paid more: To move up, you’ll need to actively market your writing business. That’s the gist of it. Getting better pay involves getting off your tushy, and looking for better clients.

There are some basic ways to do that — plus one I’ll throw in that’s unique to your being an expat living in an exotic locale. Here are seven ways to break in to better markets:

1. Create a writer Web site and SEO it. If you don’t have a site that promotes your writing, create one as soon as possible. Make sure you use key words about the types of writing you want to do in your header and home-page copy. Put up some clips — yes, for now they’ll be from DS sites, but replace those as soon as you can with others. This will allow some prospective clients to find you. So once you’ve done the active work of creating and properly optimizing your site, you can passively snag clients with it. I’d put in “American expat in Thailand” somewhere, if I were you.
2. Create a personal blog. You can make a strong audition piece — especially if you’d like to blog for pay for others — by starting your own blog on your writer site. Don’t doodle on there — write each entry as if your career depended on it. It does. This technique paid off for me huge, and now some months I make half or more of my income from paid blogging.
3. Direct-mail or email prospects. Identify a type of publication or business where you know something about their subject matter, and then do some online research. Create a list of prospective publications or companies. Contact their editor, marketing manager, communications director or other likely target. Since you’re overseas I’m betting mail or email will be the way to go rather than cold-calling on the phone. Introduce yourself in your mail or email piece and simply ask if they use freelance writers. This has a low response rate, but you will usually get some clients, as Chris Bibey recently testified over on All Freelance Writing.
4. Seek out guest-post opportunities. If you’ve written for DS, there are probably blogs where you could guest post. Subscribe to Blogger Linkup and respond to sites seeking guest bloggers. Yes, it’s usually for free, but it’s a valuable form of marketing for you. Being seen on high-traffic blogs can get you clients — and it gets you clips from places that aren’t from DS sites. Try to spend some time on these guest posts and really make them strong. You’re auditioning for better-paying clients. The bigger-viewership site you can appear on, the better.
5. Network online. I’d ordinarily recommend getting out to some in-person networking events, but since you’re in Thailand, it’s probably hard to drop by a big-American-city Chamber of Commerce networking event. But you can meet and connect with lots of people on LinkedIn groups, and networking sites such as Biznik. The latter is another good place to create strong articles that could serve as example clips.
6. Leverage your locale. OMG,  you’re living in Thailand! I bet you’ve visited plenty of interesting tourist spots there. You could write a query letter to all sorts of travel magazines offering to share those. You could also hit all the simple-living mags and Web sites with your “how to live in Thailand on $1 a day” ideas. You’ll need to learn to write query letters, but it’s not that hard, and well worth it for the money you could make. You can read a book about querying if you need to learn more. You can resell your Thailand-travel story angles umpty-dozen times. You might start with tourism companies that need brochure copy or marketing letters, and work your way up to calling on airlines that fly to Thailand and pitching their in-flight magazines (these are usually top payers). Find editors online or in the Writer’s Market.
7. Apply for jobs you see online. Start diversifying where you write for — even if it’s at DS rates — by answering online job ads. You should be able to gradually increase your rates as you acquire non-mill clients. Problogger often runs ads for bloggers at rates at or a little more than what you’re making, and the work may make for stronger clips for moving up.

There’s more about how to market your writing here and here.

How would you advise Mike to move on beyond content mills? Feel free to add more tips in the comments below.

To earn more, you’ve got to market your writing services. Learn how live next Tuesday at my Webinar, 40 Ways to Market Your Writing, with co-presenter Anne Wayman of About Freelance Writing. Only 150 can participate. Sign up here.

Photo via Flickr user extranoise

Hi all –

I know. I don’t ordinarily post on Tuesdays. But I got a question from Christine Champ, who’s participating in the 40 Ways to Market Your Writing Webinar, that can’t wait until the Webinar on Dec. 7!

She wrote:

Do you think it’s a bad idea to send out new pitches during the holidays? Like with Thanksgiving coming up, would you not send any new pitches until the following week? I have a few pitches I planned to send out [Thanksgiving week}, but then thought should I wait ’til after the holiday.

Quick answer: I’d wait.

Editors’ schedules are crazy enough on a normal, five-day week. On the short weeks, they’re really nuts. I think it ups your odds of just getting passed over.

I actually wouldn’t send any out the Monday after a long holiday weekend, either. If I don’t miss my guess, editors will spend the entire day just digging out of email and putting out fires. So I think that’s not a good day either.

It’s frustrating to hit these periods where you have a story idea you love, but you need to sit on it. But I think it’s probably the right thing to do.

I’m sure there’s another school of thought, that a lot of workaholics tend to sit and catch up on email during the holidays, and maybe that means in a weird way they might be more likely to take time to read yours. But I guess I don’t want to encourage workaholism, so I don’t add to the pressure by sending queries in a holiday period.

Finally, if you’re snail-mailing queries, go ahead and send them out — they won’t look at them until next Tuesday, but that should work out fine.

Are you sending out any queries during the holidays? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

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Photo via Flickr user hurricanemaine

One of the biggest hurdles many writers face is sending query letters. They don’t want to take the time to research, write and send them because of the seemingly low odds that a particular query letter will result in an assignment.

In summary, they can’t take the rejection!

In an age of social-media connecting and online blogging, some see querying publications as hopelessly old-fashioned. But sending a well-crafted query letter is still one of the most powerful methods available to freelance writers who want to make great new connections with editors at publications where they are currently unknown.

Like a ninja throwing star, your query can slice through all the barriers to seeing your byline in great publications and vault you straight to an assignment. You don’t need to know anybody — the power of your story can take you there. Isn’t that awesome?

Also, despite the complaints you see on many writer forums, crafting query letters doesn’t have to be an all-day project. If you know how to re-slant and re-pitch similar topics to different publications, you can have plenty of queries out without doing a ton of work.

This year, I had a goal of adding to my client list at least one or two more national publications that pay $1 a word or more. I sent many query letters in pursuit of this goal. Most of them were rejected.

This did not bother me in the slightest.

After nine months of making time to send a few queries each month, I finally connected with two new publications — one online, one off. Both pay at or above my target.

How did I keep from getting discouraged? Why didn’t I give up?

The many queries I sent that flopped didn’t bother me because I never experience rejection.

How do I avoid feeling rejected? I follow these four simple rules for querying:

1) Maintain an unshakable belief in your abilities. Many writers seem to take the echoing silence that greets their query as a personal condemnation. They suck as a writer!

Instead, consider the likely reality — the editor never had time to read the query, they already had a story on that topic planned, they’re ceasing publication, remaking the pub and not needing that type of topic anymore, just hired a staffer to  handle those type of stories, etc. There are a million possible reasons you didn’t hear back from the editor, or got a polite “pass” email. Often, it’s not about you.

Resolve not to take a “no” personally. Believe in your talent, and press on.

2) Don’t get emotionally attached to any one query. This is a big problem for many writers. They spend way too long crafting one, single query. It’s for a big, national magazine. They’re so sure this idea is perfect for this magazine — it’s definitely their ticket to the big time!

So the writer waits anxiously for a response. They’re paralyzed into inaction on their other query ideas. When they never hear back, or get a “no,” they’re crushed!

This is like the person who decides they’ve met their future spouse on their first date. You’re getting too committed too soon.

I’ve had really awesome ideas that I thought were perfect for Parade and other major mags, that never went anywhere. Such is life. Happens to all of us.

The antidote to falling in love with your query is to have lots of great ideas and send many queries. Make querying a routine part of your monthly marketing plan. Then you won’t stake too much emotional capital on any single query.

3) Seek a match, rather than an acceptance. Rather than thinking of querying as a one-sided activity — “I need an assignment! Please give me one!” — I think of it more like the old Match Game TV show. I have ideas, and I know editors have needs for interesting articles. I play the querying game until I find a match. You really want it to be a fit from both sides.

If a publication passes on my query, I’m not bothered, because I know editor relationships are a two-way street. And there’s lots I don’t know about this publication and editor.

Maybe the editor is a raving lunatic. Maybe the publication is about to go under. Maybe they’re the type who’d edit my piece into an unrecognizable mass of goo. Or the kind that would have me gang-edited by three different people.

So if it’s a ‘no,’ I assume I’ve just been saved a ton of heartache with a situation that would have turned out to be a terrible fit. It wasn’t a match! So what — no biggie. Move right along and send more queries.

4) Be unstoppable. Back when I covered home-improvement retailing as a staff writer, I once went to a great trade-show seminar on how to break prospective customers’ existing relationships with their current lumberyard and get them to buy from you instead. The speaker advocated staying in touch with prospects even if they seemed very happy where they were.

How long did he advise continuing to try to sell the prospective customer?

“Until they buy…or they die,” he said simply. If they die, the company will name a new person to that buyer’s job — and you can start right in trying to sell the new guy.

I think of querying the same way. Keep going until you get the acceptance you need. (Like Dory in Finding Nemo says, “Just keep swimming…”) Keep learning and sharpening your skills.

One day, a new editor may come on at that publication you’ve always wanted to bag. Then, query them. Never stop trying. Those who take this attitude usually get where they want to go eventually, while those who’re easily discouraged give up.

How do you cope with query-letter rejection? Leave a comment and tell us your strategy.

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Photo via Flickr user Orin Zebest

Now that I’m looking over many of my mentees’ query letters, I’m finding some of the same mistakes repeated over and over again. So I’ve put together a list of query “don’ts” to help writers avoid basic errors that can be big turnoffs for editors.

• Don’t let your query exceed one page. Even if you’re emailing, don’t run on and on. Remember, most articles commissioned these days are fairly short, so show your editor you know how to be concise.

• Don’t begin with “I want to write an article about…” Of course you do. When you begin by stating the obvious, you tell the editor you are not a very imaginative writer. Begin with the proposed opening paragraph of your article, or with some interesting facts about your topic that draw the editor in and gets them interested in your idea.

• Don’t tell the editor how long your article should be. Often, writers include a sentence such as, “I’d propose writing a 1,200 word feature on this topic.” This is a very bad strategic move. Do you want to not get an assignment because the editor only has freelance budget for 800-word stories? Or be excluded from consideration for a 3,000-word feature? Let the editor decide how much space your idea should have in their publication.

• Don’t say, “I’m sure your readers would be interested in this.” Remember, you are writing to the person who knows the most in the world about what their readers like. Don’t ever presume to know more. Instead, say something that connects the publication’s audience to the idea and shows off your research: “With all the recent coverage of health insurance, I believe this update would be of interest to your small-business audience.”

• Don’t make your bio too long. A couple of sentences at the end is great. You’ll mostly prove you’re right for the assignment with the strength of your query, not your resume. This isn’t a college paper, so don’t put a long bibliography citing past articles. Instead, provide a few links to current clips online. If you don’t have anything online, make PDFs of a few articles so you can put them on your Web site and link to them there.

• Don’t throw in sources without explanation. If you mention sources you’ll use, be sure to connect them to the story – explain their expertise or how they’ll be used. Are they an example business, for instance, or perhaps an industry expert? Say, “I would interview the director of the Boys & Girls Club in Monterey about their years of experience helping the disabled,” not “Interviews would include the director of the Boys & Girls Club in Monterey.”

• Don’t fail to proofread. A single typo spells a quick trip to the trash can for query letters.

• Don’t forget to polish. This little query letter is your writing showcase! If you write a really standout query that shows you know the publication and its audience well,  you may get an assignment even if the editor doesn’t like this particular story idea. So buff it to a high shine. It should be so well-done you almost want to frame it instead of mailing or emailing it off.

Are there other query “don’ts” you see a lot out there, editors? Leave a comment and let us know.

Photo via Flickr user Horia Varlan