What is typical for the cold-querying freelancer? I'm not sure yet, but I can share my first long-term shopping-an-article story. A few of my experiences are shorter, better. Most are still in progress, and I don't know yet if they will succeed or fail. But all I'm learning is teaching me being a freelance writer is akin to being a marathon runner.
May 10, 2010, I sent out a story about toddler tantrums entitled "Changing my heart to change my son's angry outbursts." I sent this article, part how-to, part personal experience, to a Christian publication targeted to families. I received a response the very same day! The editor was very interested, but said it'd be a few weeks to see if they could fit it into a magazine issue soon or if they would want to use it online, perhaps on their facebook page. I followed up months later, to inquire of the status, and was told they hadn't found a place for it, would like to hold it for a year to see if they could find a use for it, and added that I was within my rights to shop it elsewhere in the meantime. So I did.
When you're starting freelance writing, you hear often about resending--if one place says no, you just resend it--keep the articles in circulation! However, as I learned, it's not that simple. I had a 1200+ word article that may or may not be printed in a year; I decided I should try other publications, but those with the same audience wanted articles no longer than 600 words.
"Just re-sending it" was not "just so simple." I put hours into splitting that article into two different articles--one's a third-person sort of how-to article on dealing with preschool temper tantrums, and the other a first-person experience story of what I tried with my child. In July I sent one to the premier Christian magazine for moms of preschoolers, and the other one I sent to an online family magazine available by subscription only.
In September, I received a favorably reply from the preschooler-centered magazine, but I heard a similar disclaimer--they weren't sure when they could use it as their themes didn't quite fit it, but they'd like to hold it for a year, and I had rights to shop it around in the meantime.
By December, having heard nothing more from any version of the article I'd sent out, I tried my 4th market. This time it was a secular parenting magazine, though a smaller national one, and one where the editor had written me back about every query I'd ever sent her--she was very atypical. I decided to send the query letter first, not the article, because I'd have to rewrite it significantly, taking out the Bible verses and such that were a core part of my articles at that point. I figured it was better to know if the editor was even interested in the topic before putting any more work into this project unnecessarily.
To my surprise, the editor of that magazine, for the first time, never responded. Then, juggling and writing twenty-some other articles, I forgot about this one for a while. But I never did hear anything from two magazines who said they wanted to buy it, but were waiting for the right timing.
So April or May 2011, a year after my first send-out, I wrote a query letter on the idea to the editor of a parenting magazine in England which had published an article of mine last winter. I thought the topic might appeal to that editor, because one small piece of my story was in using breathing techniques to calm my son down, and in a recent issue of the magazine, had seen those very techniques mentioned, but as new ideas, yet undescribed. I figured, if the editor were interest, I could rewrite the article to put more emphasis on that.
Within days, maybe even the same day, the editor said she was indeed interested in seeing the article. I sent it to her, with more time put in to rewrite it, and within a few weeks, she wrote back that she was seriously considering it for the August issue, and was taking it to the meeting for the final decision. A few weeks after that, she wrote to say she wanted to buy it for that issue, officially.
But I still wasn't done with the work. I put in perhaps an hour more on it, making side bars, as I had suggested I could, to better give instructions on the breathing exercises I mentioned.
All said, I finally sold that piece--one of my best, in my estimation. I received the printed magazine in the mail the other day. But I've lost track of the hours I put into it, through the multiple rewrites, not to mention the marketing side of it. I made a little over $200 for it. I wasn't likely to make much more than that for any magazine I'd sent it to, but the amount of time and work it took me to get it there--well, I might be scared if I found out how much I really made on that one, per hour.
This certainly is a business you do only if you really love the writing.
Samples of my work online:
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Protect Against Obesity?
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
Fire Retardants Found in Babies' Umbilical Cord Blood Associated with Developmental Delays
Whole Wheat Bread with Honey or Molasses, for a Bread Machine
Lyme Disease and Autism Patients Prescribed Diets Free of Genetically Modified Foods
