Gather Ye Building Blocks

Today, people put a lot of stock into experience. You can get college credit for it when pursuing a degree. You can get a better job because of it. And as a freelance writer, experience can help you climb to the next market level.

Job applications and HR (Human Resource people—although at times they may seem more resource and less human) lead people to think that only the experiences they’ve had in a particular area related to the job are important. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. And in freelance writing, all types of experience count—not just writing experiences but life experiences as well.

Perhaps you began your career as a worker delivering prescriptions for a mom-and-pop pharmacy. Think of all the people you came in contact with. Then think of all the situations you needed to grapple with while doing your job—grumpy people, old, sickly people, angry people, strange people, and those that were just plain nuts. Think of the weather conditions you had to endure to get those prescriptions out to them. How you coped with them and the situations is your experience.

You say, “What does that have to do with freelance writing?” Believe it or not, a lot.

Every job you’ve had, every life experience leads to another. All the information gets stored in your brain for future use. Your mind uses all your experiences as resources to help cope with future ones. So the experience you gained dealing with all those people should eventually help you in dealing with editors—grumpy editors, old editors, angry editors, strange editors, and those that are just plain nuts.

Let’s look at the flow of experiences for a particular writer. Let’s call him Joe. Joe started his writing career working on the staff of his high school yearbook. When he went to college, he joined the staff of his college paper. While working on the college paper, Joe started writing reviews of movies, a favorite interest of his. An editor at the local town newspaper saw Joe’s reviews and asked him if he’d do some for her. While the pay wasn’t that great, it was a start.

Joe’s interest in movies led to a broader interest in media. After college, he wrote reviews of not only films, but of other forms of media. All the while, Joe continued to improve his writing. He eventually got a job on the staff of a small pop culture magazine. But the pay wasn’t enough to live on, so Joe pursued his studied area of expertise, business management, and eventually became the manager of a large regional office for a big corporation.

And while he enjoyed his daily work, his heart longed for the time when he could spend hours sitting at his home computer writing.

The trick to making your experiences work for you is to first identify them. Most people never really look at all the experiences they’ve had up to the present time in their lives. You’ve got to network those experiences and make them work for you.

While writing media reviews, Joe became friends with a movie producer. A few years later, the producer introduced Joe to some public relations people who promoted movies and videos. It was then that Joe learned about the movie business in depth. This led to a short gig as a movie columnist for a regional magazine.

Once he had his foot in the door, the rest, as they say, is history. Joe began to get assignments from editors of a variety of magazines. They were looking for someone who knew what went on in the movie biz. Then Joe hit the big time with an article in the Chicago Tribune. That led to more assignments.

So whether your experience is in writing, itself, or in the subject areas you write about, you need to always seek better assignments. You need to climb the ladder to freelance writing success one experience at a time.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

There's money to be made from freelance writing—lots of it. For a few writers, this means big bucks. But for most writers, freelancing provides a modest income.

Today, the markets have changed drastically. While there may be fewer magazines and book publishers out there, other opportunities have opened up. We live and work in the digital age, a time when anything is possible. As they say, think outside the box. In fact, throw the box away.

There’s a vast expanse where whatever you write can find a home. The diversity of the marketplace is such that there are more ways for you to strike pay dirt than even some longtime professionals realize.

The flip side of the coin is the horde of writers and would-be writers after the bounty. There’s some 70,000 people in the United States alone that call themselves writers and have clippings to prove it. That’s a lot of competition.

Some major New York book publishers receive over 10,000 unsolicited manuscripts a year, out of which they may publish one or two. Today, it’s the sales department that decides what’s going to be published. It has less to do with the writing and more to do with the profit potential if a book gets published or not.

The average high-circulation magazine receives approximately 200 manuscripts a month. Some contend that the odds of selling to those outlets are overwhelmingly difficult. That's not necessarily so. If you’re a mediocre writer, then yes, you don’t have a chance in hell. But if you’re a more than competent writer, the chances of you selling are far greater. Perhaps only 20 of those 200 manuscripts will be good enough for an editor to take the time to read them.

Bear in mind that the flood of material that washes over editors' desks in publishing houses and magazine offices, in newspaper and syndicate offices, in television and movie producers' studios, consists mostly of badly written material. Well-conceived, well-written, and well-targeted material is scarce. Currently marketable material is even less available. The trend-setting story or article series is an absolute rarity.

Keep the following thought uppermost in your mind as you approach each new and potentially successful day: The many benefits of the freelance life and riches from your writing efforts, like the gold that lies under the mountains, come to those with the knowledge and ability to dig in the right places, the proper tools, and the overriding ambition to find it despite the often back-breaking work that's required. If you’re one of those 70,000 freelance writers, then you’ve made it.

Do You Need an Agent?

It’s true, a writer gains a certain amount of prestige by having an agent. But before you go there, you need to pay your dues. And an agent can’t help you with that. It’s all up to you.

An agent is for a writer who is too busy to sell his or her work. And even if you have time to market your writing, an agent can seek out better paying markets for you. But having an agent doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get more money or that you’ll even get published. So if you’re a beginning writer, forget about getting an agent and get to work.

If you’ve been writing and publishing for a while, this may be the time for you to seek out the services of an agent. But do you really know what an agent can do for you?

A good agent knows which publishing houses are in the market for what sort of book or writing project. They know which publisher will pay which advance and whether, when the time comes, which will release which rights. Often an agent will know just who to send a proposal to and which ones are likely to go forward with it.

A good agent also is in constant touch with those who buy ideas, books, movie treatments, scripts for TV shows, and subsidiary rights. To many writers, an agent is also their best friend and professional confidant—part father, part salesman, part lawyer, and part literary critic. But most of all, an agent can lend a sympathetic ear. He or she understands how a writer feels.

Agents save editors time and money. They save them the hassle of going through piles of terrible manuscripts by directing them to the good ones. In essence, an agent acts as the first reader—as a person who has the experience to tell the great from the terrible. And then, of course, there’s the growing tendency for publishers to refuse to read anything that comes in unsolicited. They often give preference to material coming from an agent to manuscripts that come in cold.

Generally, while agents negotiate book contracts and subsidiary rights, they also negotiate lots of other deals for busy writers—deals that the writer may never have thought of. Depending on the arrangement you make, your agent may handle all of your work, only your books, or only certain kinds of writing. Some agents will tell you up front what they will and won’t deal with.

Agents usually don’t handle short pieces of writing like articles and short stories. They’re in it for the big bucks. Let’s face it, after you’d pay an agent his or her 10-15 percent commission, you’d be left with much less than if you sold your shorter pieces yourself.

Your agent can also act to resolve conflicts between you and your publisher. They push for timely advances—they don’t get paid until you do. And, more importantly, they’ll help you sort out hard-to-read book contracts which if not understood properly can cost you dearly.

So do you need an agent? Yes and no. Writers sell nearly a third of all literary works by themselves, without the help of an agent. By negotiating your own contract, you may just walk away with more money and more perks. But that’s only after you’ve been in the business awhile and understand the nuances of contractual agreements. An agent can help you wade through the contractual mindfield. They know what to look for and you don’t.