Week 5: The Rejection Letter Olympics
December 19, 2008 by Jenny Cromie
Filed under Jobs
Good afternoon Rejection Letter Olympians!
Can you believe we’re already in the last week of this challenge? I sure can’t—it seems like we just started!
So this means that you have until Friday, Dec. 27, to rack up all the points you can for the remainder of the challenge. If you’re just joining up this week or need a refresher on the rules, please be sure to read Week 1: The Rejection Letter Olympics.
How did all of you do this past week? Did you get any rejections or assignments landing in your inbox this week? How did you do with the Follow-up Frenzy theme? Did any of your follow-ups net any assignments?
Follow-ups and persistence can really pay off in a big way. I met with a new client this week, and it looks like it’s going to be the start of a nice, long-term working relationship. Nothing is finalized yet, but my contact with this client was the direct result of an LOI and several follow-ups—a process that started two years ago.
Since we’ve talked this week about LOIs and how to write ones that editors can’t refuse, I thought it would be a good idea to make LOIs the theme for this final week of the challenge.
So this week’s theme is:
LOI Blitz
The object is to develop a basic LOI template that works for you and then to send as many out as you can by Dec. 27. Remember to tailor each LOI to the specific client or publication that you’re writing to by doing some research beforehand.
You’ll also want to remember to:
- Highlight the parts of your work experience that will be most useful and interesting to the client or publication.
- Write tight and bright.
- Keep the LOI to 5 or 6 paragraphs.
- Include links to your Web page, online profile, and work samples.
And as an added tip (and maybe even as a New Year’s resolution), make it a goal to do a little bit of marketing each day. I always aim to send out at least two LOIs a day.
If you participated in last week’s challenge, please be sure to let me know how you did in the comments section below so that I can tally your points at the end of the challenge next week. I will announce the top three winners in January. Remember to give yourself 3 points for assignments and 2 for rejections.
Good luck this week!
-Jenny
Photo credit: kevindooley (Flickr)
Count me in for 2 rejections this week — both as a result of follow-ups. I also have, oh, about 7 more follow-ups still hanging out there, so if those people ever get back to me, I’ll be racking in the points!
I got a kind-of assignment as well. I pitched a short to a mag, the editor liked it, but her editor thinks it would be a better feature — to run in ‘10, since they already have that month filled for ‘09. So somehow I don’t think I can count that assignment just yet! ;)
Jenny
Hi Jennifer,
Sounds like you had a really productive week!
Once you get the green light to move ahead on that assignment, you can absolutely count it—even if it is slated to run in 2010!
-Jenny
The more I think about it, the more I think an LOI template may be counterproductive. You end up customizing so much of it that it makes more sense to dash off a new one from scratch.
I did just that tonight and got a response that said I was ‘memorable’ – I certainly don’t think using a regular LOI would’ve been… :)
The stuff that makes sense for a template is your URLs, contact information, and the like. Maybe we should spend the extra 10-20 minutes per letter and give our prospects the benefit of crisp, custom copy.