Last week I got to head into Seattle to watch part of a photo shoot for an article I’ve done for a local magazine – very exciting! But I wanted to talk about what it took to get to that point, because I think it underscores some of the problems with freelancing. It would be lovely if all a freelancer had to do was sit on their rear and spew verbiage onto the page. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of other stuff that gets in the way.

So how did this article come about? I’d picked up a couple of copies of the magazine in question and thought about what they might like. I came up with a topic that I had a lot of information about and wrote a pitch – three or four sentences that explained my idea and (important) why I thought their readers would be interested. I included information about my writing credentials and why I was particularly qualified to write about this topic. I put a good bit of time into that pitch, trying to make it interesting enough that the reader would want to know more about the topic. I made sure the e-mail was professional and error free, as well as showcasing my ability to craft a sentence. Once it was ready, I poked around on their masthead and found what looked like the logical editor to mail my pitch to. And I did.

To no reply. A month later, I sent a nudge asking about the pitch. This time I got a reply from the publisher saying that she liked the idea and that they would discuss it at their editorial meeting and get back to me.

More time passed. I sent another nudge asking about the story and mentioning that if they weren’t interested, I’d love to pitch them a couple of other ideas. This time I got an actual assignment, with word limit and due date. It was on.

I mention this because I’ve found that the most important characteristic a freelancer can have is tenacity and a willingness to keep nudging when necessary. The reply to a pitch is, more often than not, silence, and it’s easy to get discouraged by that. It’s important to not assume that silence is a hostile or negative response and to be willing to keep on flinging e-mails into the void until you get a reply. People are busy, editors have five million things on their to-do list – being patient and professional when dealing with that fact is crucial.

Editors don’t have a stack of story assignments that they’re ready to hand out to freelancers, unfortunately. They want story ideas and they want to know a) why that story will appeal to their readers and b) why you’re the person who should write it. Figuring out what might work as a pitch involves looking at the publication and also at your qualifications, trying to find an idea where the two overlap. Pick publications where you have some expertise or unique experience to offer, rather than making the mistake of trying to write about something you aren’t interested in or don’t know much about.

And then be prepared to be persistent.

Why Talk About Twitter Basics and Best Practices?

This year I switched the focus of my social media efforts to Twitter, because it seemed to me Facebook was an increasingly ineffectual way to reach fans. Because of that, I’ve been spending a lot more time looking at the people following me on there as well as thinking about Twitter, its philosophy, and its uses overall.

Why does a writer want to be on Twitter? The reason is more than just “sell books”. It’s often a way to network with existing fans (who will buy more books in the future), cultivate new fans, connect with peers and other industry professionals, to find out industry and writing news and yes, of course, to procrastinate in a thousand different ways.

I used to automatically follow people who followed me but nowadays I spend a few minutes to click through and look at their page and the tweets it contains. I’ve noticed that a lot of people are doing it “wrong,” or at least in a way that ends up detracting from their purpose. Most of these are easy fixes. Here’s some tips for setting up an account on there and as well as for maintaining a presence.

The Basics of Setting up a Twitter Account

If you have never experienced Twitter, it’s basically a way to post short messages. I suggest reading some of these basic tutorials on it. Once you’re ready, create your account, keeping the following things in mind.

1. A picture’s worth a thousand words. Include both a profile and a background picture. Please don’t just make it the default Twitter “egg”.
2. Give people a reason to follow you. Tell them who you are, but do it in an interesting way.
3. Give people a way to find out more. Include your website in your profile.
4. Remember that profiles include SEO keywords. Think about what sort of searches you want readers to be finding you by and include them (gracefully!) in your bio.
5. Don’t sell stuff via an overt link in your profile picture, background picture, or bio. It comes off as over-eager and clueless.
6. Make it look nice. Proofread!

Best Practices on Twitter for Writers

Part of successful social media is consistency. You have to do something on at least a monthly basis, and really probably a bit more often than that unless you’re determined to be as barebones as possible, in which case you might as well just renounce the world electronic and move to the woods to live off the grid. (IMO).

1. Don’t sell, sell, sell. If your stream is nothing but links to your book on Amazon, I’m not following you back. My rule of thumb is at least four non-selling Tweets to every selling one. Examples of nonselling? Promoting other people’s stuff, cat or child pictures, observations about life, interesting or enlightening quotes, links to articles that interested you, and snippets from your own #wip are all valid.
2. Don’t be negative. Don’t be jaded or whiney or bitter or angry or mean. Just don’t. Studies show people prefer a positive or cheerful Twitter stream.
3. Answer and acknowledge. When people RT, my habit is to thank them and also to add them to a special Twitter list. When I’m skimming through Twitter for things to amuse/entertain/idly chatter about/RT, I often look at that list because it’s people who’ve proven they want to build a Twitter relationship.
4. Be a little selective about your followers. On a daily basis I look to see who’s following me. No profile info? Nothing but book selling? No tweets at all? I don’t follow back. Periodically I run the justunfollow tool and clear my follower list of people I don’t know but am following while they’re not following me back.
5. It’s okay to repeat yourself (a little). Think that latest blog post was particularly noteworthy? Repeat the announcement the next day, and then again the following week. Build a list of such posts for a “best of” category on your site.
6. Automate SOME things. Don’t auto-message followers, for example. But do use a tool like Buffer to schedule tweets so you catch a variety of times, such as those repeated posts.

Want to know more about how to use social media and your Internet presence to sell books and find new opportunities without wasting all your time staring at kitten pictures? Check out my book, Establishing an Online Presence for Writers.