I’ve been a full-time freelance writer for over four weeks now and in an annoying way, things seem to be moving more slowly than they were while I was working.
The ratio of responses to pitches has dropped significantly since I left work, but that’s only because I have more time to dream up new ideas and send more pitches. Also, I tend to aim high and pitch to the national newspapers before considering smaller publications. The effort is not completely wasted. I’ve had two commissions in the past few weeks, both in smaller magazines, but their deadlines are months away and they certainly won’t pay the bills. It’s time to go where there’s less competition and hopefully more money. (We wants the money, Lebowski!)
I’m going to take a short break from pitching to dream publishers and try to tap the “customer publisher” market. I don’t know the exact definition of a “customer publisher”, but I do know that they create magazines and websites for corporations like the British Heart Foundation and Weight Watchers for the consumers of their products. For example, PSPRare Publishing publishes the magazine heart and soul for the BHF. It’s a magazine aimed at the South Asian community and distributed at Asian Mela festivals.
There are loads of these publishers out there, and according to freelance writer John Borchardt, author of Career Management for Scientists and Engineers
Custom publishers, because of their low profile, receive relatively few queries or [Letters of Introduction] from freelancers. Thus they can be good targets for your LOIs. Pay rates vary from modest, perhaps $0.50 per word, to more than $1.00 per word. Most include titles of some of their publications on their websites.
Instead of pitching my own ideas to these guy, I’m going to start by sending them a “Letter of Introduction” along with my CV and a few samples. I’ve heard good things about “LOIs”, and it seems to be a good enough strategy that a few writers have written articles about it (judge not their skills in web design):
- Letters of Introduction - A Profitable Alternatives to Queries By John K. Borchardt
- The Letter of Introduction: An Alternative to the Query by by Shelley Divnich Haggert
- Sample letter by Pat McPartland
How to find these publishers? The Association of Publishing Agencies has a directory of consumer publishers in the UK. Here are but a few:
My strategy is to target 5-10 of these sorts of companies and tailor my LOI for each. Now, time to stop writing about it and to start actually doing it. Fingers crossed.
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