Week 3: The Rejection Letter Olympics
December 5, 2008 by Jenny Cromie
Filed under Jobs
Good Friday afternoon Rejection Letter Olympians!
So did you get any rejection letters or assignments landing in your inbox this week? Be sure to award yourself points for both (2 points for a rejection, 3 points for an assignment) and log your results in the comments section below. Remember—every “no” means you’re getting closer to a “yes!”
As for me, I heard back from a couple of editors this week—both want me to pitch stories after the new year when they have the budgets to hire freelancers again.
I also heard back from a company that will be launching a new e-publication after the first of the year. The editor contacted me to make sure I was still interested in working for them when they get things off the ground. The position I’m aiming for is managing editor, meaning I’d be hiring freelancers, developing content, editing stories, and writing lots of headlines.
So while I didn’t rack up any points, this past week was still a success in my book.
I also spoke to a couple freelancers this week about how discouraging it can be to slave away on a query, hit the send button, and then agonize while you wait for a response. Sometimes it just seems like you’re sending queries into the black hole of cyberspace, never to be heard from again.
I know it’s a tough climate out there. Many magazines and newspapers are laying off full-time employees, some are taking work back in-house instead of jobbing it out, and other publications are slashing freelance budgets and waiting until after the first of the year before assigning any more stories.
Even so, I know for a fact that there is still work out there for persistent, tough-minded, entrepreneurial freelancers!
So if you’re getting a lot of rejection letters or responses from editors talking about budget woes, start sending your queries and LOIs to other markets. If you traditionally have earned your income by writing for newspapers and consumer magazines, I’d bet money on the fact that you’re probably having a tougher time finding work and hearing back from editors right now.
My advice? Start shifting your focus elsewhere, get outside your comfort zone, and send LOIs to other potential clients who have more positive balance sheets. Think about industries that continue to do well despite economic conditions (e.g. health care) and target companies and publications in those sectors.
I know it’s tough to shift your thinking and approach. Believe me, I really do know. But I’ll tell you what a good friend of mine told me one time: “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve already got.”
Bottom line: If you don’t like the results you’re getting, do something different! Take daily baby steps if you have to, but start inching away from cash-poor publications and industries. Do some research and find the companies, organizations, publications, and industries that have positive cash flows, and start pursuing assignments and gigs that are the most stable of the bunch.
So are you ready for round 3 of The Rejection Letter Olympics?
Here’s this week’s theme:
Breaking Out of the Box
Along the lines of what I mentioned above, think about how you have *always* earned your money as a freelancer. Have you always written for consumer magazines or newspapers? Are you continuing to write for a low-paying client because it’s “safe” income? What box are you sitting in?
This week, your challenge is to send out queries and/or LOIs to an entirely different sector or market. If you’ve always written for consumer magazines, target some trades. If you’ve always written for newspapers, target some of your favorite companies and go after some corporate work. Contact the PR and marketing departments at your local hospitals, chambers of commerce, and other organizations. Sometimes all these places need is an introduction to you and your work, and you’re in the money!
So drop me a line in the comments field below and let me know how you did this past week. And if you’d like to join up for the challenge this time around, please be sure to introduce yourself below!
Ready, set, QUERY!
-Jenny
Photo credit: TheAlieness Gisela Giardino (Flickr)
3 pts. for me — a 150-word assignment from a new-to-me mag.
Jenny
2 for me, I was rejected but resubmitted elsewhere right away.
Congrats Jennifer and Heather!
Heather, good for you for not losing the momentum and resubmitting right away. That’s the way to do it.
Jennifer, great news on the assignment! What’s the topic?
Hi Jenny!
Well–I’m taking on your challenge. Yesterday, I sent out LOIs to three local universities, one to my alma mater (hey, can’t hurt, right!?), and another to my local chamber of commerce. The day before that, I sent out four or five LOIs to area businesses.
I’m not expecting much of a response from any of them–but, at least I’m trying! And, at the VERY least, I’m getting my name out there.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for everyone working on the challenge!
Hi Rachel! Good to see you here. :-)
It sounds like you’re doing great with those LOIs. Sometimes you may not hear anything right away, but it really pays to follow up. All of my regular longstanding gigs (read: most of my income) came about because of LOIs and follow ups.
In fact, the publication I’m editing this afternoon is the direct result of an LOI I sent at the beginning of this year. The editor and I maintained contact, and then she finally contacted me about two months ago to see if I was interested in this editing position.
So don’t get discouraged if you don’t hear right away. And be sure to follow up—the key thing is to establish a dialogue (without being pesky of course).
Hi Jenny,
It was a stellar week.
There is a freelance writing site that is within the top ten (I think it was a WD ranking) that I discovered early on when I first set up my site a few months ago. I visited regularly and asked to do a guest post which was great for me. it was my first guest post and I got a huge traffic jump.
The site was out of commission for about 6 weeks or so and I still kept in touch with the owner, checking in to make sure everything was ok.
To make a long story short, the site came back up a few weeks ago and I’ve been visiting and commenting with each post. This week the owner wrote a post where she said she would be accepting applications to help since her client roster had grown so large. I responded immediately, submitted the sample article as requested and by the end of the day the job was mine!
This will set me up with enough work for the foreseeable future that I won’t have to degrade myself through bidding sites and I can focus on producing quality work for her and grow my business at the same time.
I am very excited about it!
It has been a stellar week!
George
Congratulations George! That’s awesome! Sounds like a great opportunity!
George, you’ll have to supply us with the link here so we can follow your posts!
I just found your article tonight, so I’m not an official Olympian yet. But I decided to comment because I FINALLY found the courage to send out an essay that had been rejected by NYT Modern Love. It got rejected within two days of submission, which has to be some sort of world record. Worse, it happened during an emotionally dark period. So even tho the NYT rejection email is among the nicest I’ve ever gotten, I just saw the words, “You suck. You suck. You suck” over and over.
So the essay just sat around for like two months. I just didn’t have the courage to see rejection again. Well, mostly because I was procrastinating working on something else, I actually opened the file yesterday, did some editing, and sent it off to More. Damn editor is on vacation (got an out of office), so it’s gonna be buried in her inbox. Sigh. At least I got past the fear.
For some reason, I have a much harder time with essay rejection than I do with query rejection. I think it’s why I started blogging, because I could just post whatever and no one could tell me, “You suck.” Not that they say exactly that, but whenever I see, “This isn’t right for our readers,” I think, “you so unbelievably suck.”
Is that the longest comment you’ve ever gotten or what?
Hi Alisa! Glad to see you here!
Congrats on dusting off that essay and sending it out! I know you will find a home for it because you are a great writer.
And for other readers who aren’t familiar with Alisa’s fab writing talents, you simply must check out her very humorous post, “I’m famous by association, and you can be too”: http://tinyurl.com/6s2bmz
I enjoy blogging for many of the same reasons. And I know what you mean about essays too. For some reason, rejection seems a little more difficult to stomach when it comes to something you’ve written from the heart as opposed to getting a no-go from an editor about a run-of-the-mill story pitch.
What’s an LOI?
Hi Dan!
Sorry—I sometimes incorrectly assume that everyone understands what I’m talking about. :-)
An LOI is short for letter of introduction. In other words, it’s usually an e-mail that you send to a prospective client or editor about yourself, your qualifications, and what kind of services you’re able to provide them. If you’re familiar with sales, it’s basically the equivalent of a cold call.
-Jenny
Ah! Of course. I knew that. In fact, I’ve snail-mailed five or six resume kits (with cover letter, clips, etc.) just this week. So, the more time-consuming and involved LOI, you might say. This is a trick that’s worked wonders for me in the past, btw.