Often, time is an enemy of writers. Sales seem slow
and checks too small. How does one make the most of
their effort? Here are some tips that will multiply
your sales.
1. Companies accepting manuscripts from freelancers
offer copies of their writing guidelines and sample
copies. Assume there's a reason for them. Study them.
Study their web sites as well. What do they tell you
about the publication's readers? The Internet will
save you much postage and time from when I started.
2. Think ahead. Lead times for publication are
rarely short. Writers' guidelines often teach
Christmas is in July. Lead times can be shorter for
the Internet. Learn what they are. Submit accordingly.
3. Take advantage of your research. Write more than
one manuscript for the same effort. This adds to your
productivity. Interviewing a camp director? Write a
feature article on how to select a camp for more than
one market. Write a filler article. Write an article
on finding work at a camp.
4. Resell the same manuscript multiple times. My
record for off-line for publication with one
manuscript is seventeen reprints. It is easy to
surpass this on the web.
5. Resell to editors. Once you sell to a company,
send another query or manuscript to its editor. Some
companies may buy from you for each issue, others will
buy only once every so many months. Learn what they
want before you submit. Learn this from studying their
publication before you query. If they like what you
do, keep them happy.
6. Use query letters whenever possible. When an
editor has OK'd a query letter first you usually
succeed at selling the manuscript . This saves
valuable time! Kill fees are more often offered if
article results from a query letter as well.
7. Take a look at your sales. What has worked for
you? How can you multiply your sales?
L. C. Peterson is a freelance writer
with over 400 manuscripts published. A free email
tutorial on Freelance Writing is at Writers and the
Web at http://www.salesandtales.com.
E-mail requests to requests@lcpeterson.com.