I’ve taken the advice of my former freelancing teacher and started an Excel spreadsheet to log the pitches I send to editors. The spreadsheet has columns for
- Article title
- Publication
- Sent Date
- Follow-up Date
- Response Date
- Commission Date
- Publication Date
- Paid Date
- Comments
This will help me remember who I’ve sent pitches to, and thus avoid the embarrassment of sending the same pitch to the same editor more than once. This will also help me keep track of who I need to follow-up with, when I’ve been commissioned, and [the marvellously blissful days] when I get paid.
Looking at the spreadsheet, I see why Andrew Crofts of The Freelance Writer’s Handbook warns that it takes years to set yourself up with a real income: the lag time between pitching and publication is daunting (as if getting a response from an editor wasn’t hard enough). I suppose this is all the more reason to keep sending ideas, every day, to as many publications as possible. But it’s also a good reason to keep writing. Like Andrew suggests, treat this getting-started period as an “apprenticeship”: pursue leads, interview sources, and build some credibility to put in those pitches. That’s how I got the runner’s high article published. So why not do it again?
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