Letting Go of Failure

Every time I run my online planning course, I find at least some participants who get frustrated because they look at where they want their business to be financially and don't see how they can get there from the type of work they currently do. For example, a writer might calculate how many more corporate or editorial assignments they need to add a month and then go into shock over the quantity.


The problem they face is one that many writers have: They don't let go of failure. If you want to progress in anything, whether a skill, an endeavor, or even taking a hike, you have to move in one way or another from where you are to your destination. You cannot stay fast and make any progress. And yet, many of us do exactly that, whether in business, relationships, habits, or even in our aspirations and dreams.


The refrain is something of the frm, "But I can't do that because of this, that, and the other," when said this, that, and other are of your choice and control, and not externally imposed. If you want to make more money in magazine and newspaper writing and you've been writing for publications that pay 25 to 50 cents a word - or less - the answer is clear. You have to start writing for places that pay more and, as you get new clients, stop working for cheapskates.


But the moment you try doing this, you may notice thoughts like, "But I love that editor," or, "It's so easy to get assignments." Brick by brick, you're using your own thoughts and attitudes to build the wall that will encase you where you are. The only solution is to stop defending your previous decisions. You have the right to make a different choice, and you can start doing it today. It will take time to pull away from the old and become established in the new, but it can and will happen - when you stop clutching the bricks in your hands and begin walking in a new direction.

The Future of Print Is ... Video

According to DMNews (the DM stands for direct marketing), Meredith is working with Comcast to launch Parents TV late this year. They want to hit all media and find new revenue resources, and understandably. Also understandable, though perhaps less desirable from the point of writers, is that the publisher wants to make use of the material is has:

“What we’re doing is either creating content based on our [magazine] editorial or creating content relevant to editorial,” he continued. “We’re not trying to do something outside the realm of the content we create on the editorial side – we just want to bring it to life. The programming won’t be about saying ‘Family Circle’ or ‘Parents,’ but it will be integrated into the content so people know the credibility is there.”

In copyright terms, this would be derivative content, as one is based on the other. It's a right that comes as part of copyright, and one that, sadly, may writers give away. There is a problematic mindset that many writers have: "If I don't already do something with it, or if I don't know what it means, then it must be OK to let someone else have it, because I wouldn't be selling it anyway."

Pull your head out of the sand and look around. Content has value, not just in its first form, but in the way people reuse it. Why? Because it saves them time from having to do all the work you might have undertaken to write it in the first place, and you have already come up with a unique expression of the ideas in your work. That has value, because otherwise a company has to pay to get all that done again. If you're giving away the right to create derivative works, consider that you're effectively handing people checks for sums to be deducted from your potential earnings. Also, this isn't stopping with Parents TV:

The launch of Parents TV is part of a larger Meredith strategy to extend branded content into new platforms. The company launched Better.tv in March. Comcast was chosen as a distribution partner for Parents TV because, McCabe says, it is the 2-to-1 leader in Video on Demand distribution.

Parents TV has already gathered a slew of advertisers, including Discover Card and Kimberly-Clark, makers of Huggies diapers. All programming will be ad-supported.

Meredith is offering custom-created content and product integration for Parents TV advertisers. However, McCabe insists that no infomercials will be made. Only if a product can be organically integrated, he says, without a negative reaction from consumers, will content be produced around it.

In other words, start adding zeros to those checks.

The No Assholes Interview

In a private email list I'm on, someone brought up the book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace by Robert Sutton. The context was another writer discussing how unpleasant it was writing a profile about an egotistical, overbearing, famous CEO. That got me to thinking about interviews I've done in the past. There are times you'll deal with unpleasant people in an interview. They may be overt, or could hide intractabilty and disdain behind a facade of, "Oh, it's so interesting to talk to you." Here are some ideas that might help:

• You're Being Played Whether friendly or nasty, the asshole subject is playing you and trying to gain control. Don't think, "Oh, that can't happen to me." It most assuredly can, does, and will. The first step to recovering control is to remember that you do react emotionally and that it probably is happening in any interview. You can be on guard for what you see, not what you don't.


• Do Your Homework To pull control back, which you need to do your job, don't try duking it out in being either unpleasant or icy. Make sure you've prepared and keep a list of potentially tough questions at hand. When someone tries to run over you, pull out some of the harder questions to turn the person back on himself or herself. As Boy Scout reporters say: Be prepared.


• Nonconfrontationally Confront People in the grip of their inner sphincter act like truculent children. Try getting above their behavior as you would for a child. Ask if there is something wrong bringing on the way they act. It might be that they have some personal problem that is a temporary trigger and that the outburst is unusual. But when people are confronted in a calm way, it often startles them back to more human behavior.

You cannot single-handedly reduce the number of unpleasant people in the world, but you can lessen the impact they have on you and your work.

Four More Outlook Tip for Writers

Here are a few more things I forgot in my recent post on tips for using Microsoft Outlook:

• Send Email in the Future Sometimes you need to remember to send an email in the future. It might be a second or third follow-up email that you don't want to send yet, having just launched a message. Perhaps you realized today that you need to send someone a reminder a week from now. Whatever the reason, when you've written the email and before you've sent it off, click the Options button. Check off Do not deliver before and provide a date. Now the email will sit in your outbox until the day it's supposed to go. After that, the next time you send and receive, the message will be on its way.


• Get a Receipt Another feature of the Options button is the ability to request a receipt for delivery and/or when the recipient actually reads the message. This won't always work; some people won't allow receipts to go out, but sometimes it works. I find that getting a receipt on delivery works better, because generally the receiving email server can do that without getting permission from a user (if it's set up to do so at all, which not all are).


• Set Importance Another choice on Options (and available is setting low or high importance (instead of normal). You may have seen this on receiving emails that seem to have a little red exclamation point - that's an "important" one. I think the importance button should be called the PR minion button.


• Automating Send/Receive if You want mail to go in and out on a given schedule and don't want to think further about it, go to Tools/Options. Click on the Mail Setup tab and click the Send/Receive button. Check the first Schedule an automatic send/receive every and pick the amount of time between send/receive cycles. Look a bit farther down and you'll see a second such check box. That lets you have Outlook go online to send and receive on a regular schedule even when Outlook isn't online.

Seven Microsoft Outlook Tips for Writers

Even since I did sessions on time management at a couple of ASJA conferences, other writers have often asked me about how to save time. I thought I'd put together some tips for making Microsoft Outlook work for effectively for those who use it. Unless I explicitly mention an alternative, these functions are unavailable in Outlook Express:

• Turn Emails Into Contacts Drag-and-drop is a great Outlook feature. If you get an email from someone you want to add to your contact list, position the cursor over the closed email, hold down the left mounse button, drag it over to Contacts, and drop it. A contact record with the person's name and email already in place will appear. Copy phone numbers and addresses from the body of the email (which is now in the notes field) to the appropriate places, erase the email remains if you want, and save. For Outlook Express, open the email, click on the Tools menu, and select Add to Address Book.


• Turn Emails Into Calendar Items Click and drag the email as above, but drop it on the Calendar. Choose the day and time and then save.


• Turn Emails Into Tasks Same thing here - drag and drop the email onto Tasks, fill out the due date, and save.


• Remember Tasks You can set up a task that you need to perform on a given date. but how do you remember to get it done? Check the Reminder box and pick a day and time to be reminded. You can set the reminder to occur before the due date, so you start in time, and can keep moving the reminder forward to get additional reminders. Also, you can track the progress as either 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%.


• Track Your Email Queries After you've sent an email to an editor or other client, go into the Sent folder. Open the email and click the little red flag icon. You can set a follow-up flag for a given day, and also add a reminder for a day and time of your choosing. To get an overall view of what you have out, look at your folder list. See the folder called Search Folders? Click on it and you'll see a few sub-folders, including one called For Follow Up. Click on that and you see all emails that you've flagged for follow up. You can similarly flag any email you receive, as well.


• Track Your Contacts You can also set a follow up flag on any contact. Go to the contact record and click the red flag. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to show up in the Search Folders/For Follow Up folder along with the flagged emails, and you can't set a reminder date, so it has limited value. However, you can see which contacts are flagged. Go to Contacts, and then click the View menu at the top of the window. Choose Arrange By/Current View and choose By Follow Up Flag.


• Group Contacts Go to Contacts and open any contact. Click the Categories button at the bottom. You can put a contact into any number of categories, and can create new categories as you want. Then, when in Contacts, you can choose View/Arrange By/Current View/By Category and see all the contacts under each category. That can be handy for concentrating, say, on particular groups such as editors or PR reps.


• Track Everything With Journal You can set Outlook to automatically track a number of things, including meetings, phone calles, and emails. Go to the Tools menu, choose Options, and under Preferences/Contacts click the Journal Options button. Check off your business contacts and then the times you want to track. You will get entries in the Journal, so you can trace the time line of a discussion or item. Some things the system watches for, like emails. Others, such as phone calls or letters, require you to go to the contact record directly click on the Actions menu, and choose the appropriate item.

This won't change your business overnight, but it will make it easier to keep track of what you're doing while spending less time doing so. If you've found these helpful, I have four more here.

Practicing Your Craft Though Blogging

I've mentioned before that blogging seems a good way to work on your craft. I'm more convinced than ever before. I've found that the process of forcing myself, multiple times a week, to set down something that I don't have time to edit and refine is providing much of the benefit that I've heard working for a wire service or daily newspaper can confer. Although I've been a fast writer, my grasp of structure, direction, and construction is firmer. I'm not saving the same amount of time in my assignments that I spend in blogging, but I wouldn't be surprised if I took at least an hour less time per major piece at this point.

It all comes down to practice. Say that you're writing four features a month. That would be one a week, except you're not writing all week long. Instead, on the average, you're probably spending a day on the writing, several days on the research, and time for selling, invoicing, chasing down payments, and other administrative tasks.

That means you're actually in the writing process at most 20% of your week. It's a rare musician who's any good that doesn't spend hours practicing every day, even though there may be only one or two evenings actually playing music for a living. Jazz great John Coltrane was said to practice upwards of 12 a day, and lesser names can easily put in three, four, or six hours. Painters sketch to develop the sensory connections between their hands and eyes, and do so constantly. Chefs spend years working long hours doing the basics in food preparation and cooking. Why should writers be any different?

The more you practice, the stronger you can build your craft. When the mechanics become second nature, it's easier to listen to the story and to tell it in your voice, instead of struggling with how to get to the next part of a narrative. If that's not enough, getting better and more assured means being able to improve the quality of your work - making the acquisition of additional assignments easier - and shortening your day, making everything more profitable.

Why You Need to Plan Your Business Today

In the middle of teaching one of my periodic online business planning classes, I've had some students saying that they're getting behind because they're too busy now. You may have said the same thing yourself - I'll start my business planning next week, or at the end of the year, and then you never get around to it. But planning isn't an affordable nicety.

I don't mean writing a formal business plan to shove into the drawer. Planning is the process of knowing where you need to go, where you are now, and how to get from point A to point B. It's a process, not a single activity, so there is no perfect answer. You might make some decisions only to find that they put you in a direction away from where you want to go. That's fine, so long as you keep looking at your client mix, the money you're making, the money you need to make, your pipeline of possibly work, level of marketing activity, cash flow, and other metrics critical to the running of any business. If you want to write for a living, then whether you like it or not, you have to treat this as a business.

Would you say you're too busy to send letters of introduction to prospects or queries to editors or proposals to corporate clients? You might, but you'd soon be in desperate financial straits, because only continued marketing keeps you solvent. Would you say you're too busy to send invoices? In that case, you could find yourself out of money, if not assignments, because you haven't kept up with what others owe you.

A process of business planning is just as important to your business as marketing and invoicing. The point isn't to come up with "the" answers. Instead, it's to start building a planning process, so you can move ahead over time. So, for example, if you can't analyze the profitability of all your clients, analyze that of the top few, to start. If you can't go through your entire old client list, at least examine a promising few.

Delaying planning to some future time offers no benefit, because you're still thinking in terms of a light switch: Today I'll plan and then everything will suddenly be OK. It won't, though. Only by continuously planning over time can you eventually make progress toward your goals. It's like hiking toward a mountain. You keep checking your progress, examining your direction, and noting the terrain and how you may have to adjust your gait to meet it. Eventually you get to the mountain, and every step brings you closer. If you wait to do the planning until you're there, you could end up tumbling down a ravine.

Using Profnet Effectively

I've seen many writers complaining about Profnet as of late. The dislike of the interface I can't do much about. But on problems with getting responses, there are a few pointers I can offer after using the service since its early days and having a fair amount of success in getting what I need from it:

• Strong Headline - I don't mean overly clever, but something that gets across the essence of what you're seeking. Be as clear and specific as you can, so when PR people glance through the headlines, they will notice your query and whether they have something applicable.


• Don't Cloak - There are times when you might absolutely have to, but in general, don't cloak your queries. This is an example of having to outguess the mental processes of the PR people. They're trying to get the most high profile press for their clients. If they know the name - and it's rare they're knowing is a significant problem - then they can either approach their clients or not without having to ask you for the name first, which they'll probably want, and reasonably so. What I do, however, is to make sure that in the recipient categories I do not check media. That keeps me from sending the query to potential competitors.


• Be Descriptive - I've found that writing an effective query has a lot in common with writing a good piece of marketing. I put in the material I'm looking for, but try to phrase it in such a way that I get someone's interest. Let them see their clients in the piece so they'll respond. Some clients will say no after hearing about it, but that's an occupational hazard and leads to the next point.


• Don't Sweat Small Stuff - There will be PR people who send you something off-target, or who talk about their clients and then say a day or two later that the client isn't interested. Just let it roll off your back. After all, you've lost, what, maybe 30 to 60 seconds of reading an email and replying? It hasn't been that big a burden. If someone is completely off base, just reply, "Thanks, but not a fit."


• Try, Try Again - This is something I've learned only recently. There was a time that you'd get a strong response any time you used Profnet. But now I've seen times when I sent a query and got nothing. But I've started trying to resend them on other days and, presto, I get some targeted sources. I don't know why everyone who catches it on a later date doesn't the first time, but it's easy enough to send a second time. Sometimes I'll even reword the head or body of the query if I think it will help improve response.


• Avoid Conflict - Here's another point where you have to put yourself in the PR person's shoes. They may not want their clients getting into a story that could prove embarrassing. So try toning down your word choices, using less inflammatory terms, and put a "happy spin" that still leaves you with the essence of what you're seeking. You can ask the tougher questions when the person is on the phone, but get them on the phone without using false pretenses. For example, I had to do a story on marketing people becoming obsolete for lack of continued training. Put that way, I got nothing. So I asked about where some extra learning or training meant the difference between success and failure, and suddenly I had some takers. No one wanted to say, "I am professionally obsolete." No wonder.


• Don't Say Pitch Thanks to a freelancer who took a full-time PR job and suggested not to say that you're working on a pitch for a publication. That's a red flag of a non-existent article that could have a source spinning wheels for no reason. If you can truthfully say so, instead say that you're preparing a proposal at an editor's request.

This won't cure all of your problems with Profnet, but it might help you get sources more frequently and with less hassle.

Contract Review: CurtCo Robb Media

An investigative negotiator - otherwise known as a reader of this blog who sent something for me to review - forwarded a copy of the CurtCo Robb Media Contributor Agreement. I'm posting a review for anyone who might find it interesting. Please remember that I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice.

We start with the first paragraph. Subsequent assignments all have to use this document for the indefinite future. If you can't get them to budge on anything - and, rumor has it, you can't - then these will be the terms, period.

Next, the "work must be acceptable in form and content as submitted or revised." That leaves them room to refuse the work on virtually any grounds and doesn't put you in a position of arguing for full pay because you've submitted a professionally written article on the subject they mentioned.

Now for a nastier part: "If the work is acceptable, and if the work is published [emphasis mine] in a CurtCo Robb Media publication or a publication prepared for a CurtCo Robb Media customer," then you get paid the fee in Schedule A - the document that says what the assignment is. You must prior approval of any expenses and document them.

If the work isn't accepted for publication - which could mean they just decide not to use it - the writer gets "a 'kill fee' not to exceed 25%" of the original fee. Notice the language "not to exceed." That clause isn't even guaranteeing 25%.

Next, "However the 'kill fee' will only be paid if it is demonstrable that the Contributor exerted best efforts to produce the work. Nothing in this agreement obligates CurtCo Robb Media to use the work." How would you show "best efforts" in trying to produce an article? Log your time? provide all notes, which means you've handed over valuable material to people who don't seem inclined to pay for your full effort?

The publisher wants work made for hire, and if that doesn't apply (not all does, under the copyright statutes), then you assign copyright and all other rights and interests in the article. The company and its partners can do anything they want, and you don't get any extra money, even if they could turn the article into a movie deal.

They can use your name and biography "in connection with the use and exploitation of the work," but they don't guarantee you a byline.

Then you have the warranties, that the article "contains no defamatory, libelous or unlawful matter, and the exploitation of the work by CurtCo Robb Media or its affiliates, licensees, assignees, successors and partners shall not violate or infringe upon the copyright rights, rights of privacy and/or publicity, or any other statutory, common law or other rights of any party." From what I've heard, it sounds as though they won't let you add "knowingly," although a later clause does say that it must be construed under California law, so it's not like you're saying that you provide these warranties under all laws in the world, as many contracts effectively have you do.

The indemnification covers "CurtCo Robb Media and its affiliates, licensees, assignees, successors and partners" and is for "the breach or claimed breach of the foregoing representations and warranties." You aren't just indemnifying for an actual breach of the warranties, but for any claim that you've breached the warranties. That's so wide open that you are a duck sitting on a football field with hunters filling the stands.

"This Agreement contains the entire understanding and agreement between Contributor and CurtCo Robb Media, supersedes and replaces all prior agreements and understandings (oral and written) and cannot be modified or amended except by a written agreement signed by Contributor and CurtCo Robb Media. " If an editor tells you anything contrary to what the contract says, either before or after you sign it, those assurances mean nothing. This document is the sole set of rules.

From what I've heard, the company's rates aren't all that high on top of it, so you're having to give away a lot to get little. Better to get yourself to other clients.

Contract Review: Meredith SIPS

Meredith SIPS is the special interest arm of Meredith. I received a contract from a writer about to do something for them. It's a short document - one page - and it does require signing over copyright. (My source says that SIPS won't budge on any contract terms, but pays well and quickly, even though the contract doesn't say when you get paid - whether on acceptance or publication.)

Much of the rest of the contract is a warranty clause – you won’t do this or that – and it’s limited to things you knowingly do, which is a good addition. There is also a hold harmless clause, which, to my understanding, means that you won’t seek damages from them under a given circumstance. In this case, you are the one providing the warranty that the work won’t do any of these things that would be a problem. Under a hold harmless condition, you relieve them of liability, which is different from an indemnification, in which case you’re also agreeing to foot their bill. It might be good if possible to change the phrase “the undersigned will hold MEREDITH harmless for breach of this warranty” to “the undersigned will hold MEREDITH harmless for undersigned’s breach of this warranty” so there couldn't be confusion. But if you can live with losing copyright on the piece, I think that change would pretty much do it.

On the Radiohead and the Booker Prize

There's a bit more information now - of varying quality - on Radiohead's experiment in letting people set their own price for the group's new album. That's important for writers to follow, because many of us will have to find ways of making our own markets and success independent of publishers who keep ratcheting down payments to authors while they still try to get how to make money on the Internet.

According to a Forbes article, many people are still pirating the new Radiohead album, even though they could go to the site and get a legitimate copy for free if they wanted to:

On the first day that Radiohead's latest became available, around 240,000 users downloaded the album from copyright-infringing peer-to-peer BitTorrent sources, according to Big Champagne, a Los-Angeles-based company that tracks illegal downloading on the Internet. Over the following days, the file was downloaded about 100,000 more times each day—adding up to more than 500,000 total illegal downloads.

That's less than the 1.2 million legitimate online sales of the album reported by the British Web site Gigwise.com. But Eric Garland, Big Champagne's chief executive, says illegal file-sharing is likely to overtake legal downloads in the coming weeks, given that many of those 1.2 million legitimate sales were pre-orders taken during the 10 days between when the band announced the album and its actual release last Thursday.

Garland suggests that the real culprit is habit - they go to their favorite BitTorrent sites and download in the way they're used to doing.

However, even with lots of pirating, consider the economics. According to a London Times article (and we'll get to the main part of the article in a minute), an Internet survey of about 3,000 people who bought the Radiohead album suggested that most paid an average of £4. Although this won't be particularly accurate, it's the best numbers possible: a rough total of £4.8 million on the album, all going to the band. Given the economics of regular record deals and distribution, I think they made a whole lot more this way. The real test will be whether they do the same on their next album.

But what does this have to do with the Man Booker Prize? Because it plans to make the novels on its short list available for free online:

The downloads will not impact on sales, it is thought. If readers like a novel tasted on the Internet, they may just be inspired to buy the actual book.

Journalist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow has said for a while, now, that making his books available for free online has increase his actual sales. As I said, this is something that every writer will have to face. Will it be the necessary free part of freelance?

Prospect Resuscitation

You send a query or a letter of introduction to a prospect. You researched the market, tailored your approach and bio, and made sure you were sending it to the right person. Hitting the send button, you wait. And wait. And wait. Nothing happens for days, and then weeks, and then a few months.

You could write it off, but you don't have to. Don't assume that the potential client looked at what you send and thought, "Oh, give me a break! Who would ever want to hire that person?" It's far more likely that an email went into spam, that you got lost in a flood of other entries, or that the recipient took note and then forgot.

What you should do is dig out some of these old letters and queries as an experiment. Instead of writing again, telephone. Say that you had sent something and realized that you had never followed up, so you're getting in touch. At worst, the person ends up saying, "Send something again," without remembering you. At best, the contact may be far more satisfying.

I did this yesterday with an introductory email I had sent in either June or July. The editor remembered my name (maybe he was getting me confused with someone else, but that was fine because I was top of mind) and explained what they were doing. He requested me to resend the info, and I used what I learned in the conversation to further tailor it. He also explained that they give new writers a test assignment that should be easy to do - and I showed my understanding of the market by noting that it would probably be something easy for them to recover from should the writer mess up. He agreed - and I branded myself at least partly as a professional who understands the custom publishing (in this case) business.

I choose appropriate content - both multiple assignments from one custom publisher and an example from another that correctly suggested that I had done ongoing work, all of which will make me more palatable. At the end I said I'd be interested in a test assignment, because I had enough information to know this was the next step, and so I wanted a targeted call to action.

I'll be doing this with other leads that have fallen to the wayside. In fact, I emailed another editor who said that he still doesn't have budget to hire, but to check with him near the end of the year. Not all of this work will turn into assignments, but some portion will, and that's what counts.

Managing Assignment Risk

Whether you work in editorial, corporate, non-profit, or even fiction, you still have to run a business. One of the big areas that established businesses consider is risk. The idea is actually simple, and you do it every day in your life. When crossing a street, for example, you look both ways. What you're doing in that moment is assessing risk by determining if there is any oncoming traffic. Obviously if there's a car right a few yards away, you stay on the curb. Similarly, if there isn't a vehicle in sight, you can cross at your leisure.

But what if there is traffic coming from one or both directions at varying distances? You may have enough time to safely cross or not, and you make that judgment based on your past experience. What you're doing subconsciously is identifying a potential source of danger and calculating how likely it is to cause a problem.

Think about it and you'll see how amazing this is: you estimate speed and position, take into account direction and your own pace, mentally calculate whether you and the car will intersect at any point, adjust your own speed as a consequence, consider how urgently you need to get across the street, and then make a decision as to whether it is "safe" for you to cross at that time.

You can do the same thing, often with as little effort, in your writing business. All it requires is for you to put at bay your eagerness at getting work. Instead, you take a few minutes when hearing of an assignment and consider the following points, at least:

• Pay - Well, of course you consider that. Or do you? If you find yourself making excuses for why a low pay assignment is acceptable to take, then you're not bringing a critical view that you need.


• Timing - Is the schedule one you can live with? You have to consider when it must start, when the work is due, how much time it would take, and how fully you are booked.


• Profitability
- Take the pay and divide it by the time you estimate that the assignment will take. You now have a dollar per hour figure that should be at least above your minimum. (See my article on business planning to the left under Writer Resources.) This is another point where you should be brutally honest. If you aren't going to make enough for the time you invest, think carefully whether you want to get involved, as it could be a huge mistake.

• Getting Paid - You want to be sure that you get the money you're earning. Check out the current reputation of the client. If you hear of others getting stiffed, or even greatly delayed, pass on the assignment. If you're working with someone unknown to you, limit your exposure. Take only one assignment at the start and see how it goes. If it's a large assignment, break the tasks and deliverables into multiple parts, billing (and, hopefully, collecting) for each before continuing to something else. Too many writers have found themselves waiting for thousands of dollars because they didn't use this approach.


• Business Fit - Generally not as major a consideration, it should still be one. Will you see any disadvantage from the association with the client? If so, can you remove it by working under a pseudonym?


• Client Satisfaction - Taking business that only has the opportunity for single assignments is largely a waste, because you can't leverage the marketing you just did and the time it takes to set up a client and have it set you up as a vendor on its accounting system. If there is the chance for continuing assignments, be sure you can deliver on what the client needs and wants. If not - if you don't have particular skills or expertise the client needs - then determine whether getting up to speed is possible. If not, then refer the client to someone who can do that particular job. You avoid wasting everyone's time and actually build relations with the client.

This doesn't have to be an onerous process. Just consider the signs you can see, what your experience and that of others tells you, and make an informed decision. You won't be right all the time, but you're unlikely to get as seriously run over as you might otherwise.

Using Sweepstakes in Your Marketing

I've worked on just enough sweepstakes promotions in the past to know they're a pain in the rear. But recently a colleague, Rachel Weingarten, had posted something on a writers' board about having run a contest to promote her own book. Rachel, a marketing and PR pro, got a lot of inquiries from writers who wanted to do the same. She realized that many probably didn't appreciate the legal requirements. Here's a blog post she put together at my request about some of these considerations.

College Students Organize to Oppose Copyright Restrictions

It's always a good idea to see potential business issues before they really hit. Here's one to monitor from a New York Times article called File-Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints. It seems that there's a national organization spouting up on campuses devoted to letting people freely share copyrighted material: music, software, research, books, and art:

Established at Swarthmore College in 2004, the group has chapters at more than 35 universities across the country. "We will listen to free music, look at free art, watch free film and read free books," reads its manifesto, posted on its Web site, freeculture.org. "We refuse to accept a future of digital feudalism."

The end is so much rhetoric, but it's a growing attitude that there shouldn't be restrictions, with its assumption that people would continue to create material for others to use. Sure, some would - and many would go off to do something else. However, it also suggests that there might be people people who would deliberately push to use things for free to prove a point.

Listen to the Music

The music business seems a far call from writing, but it actually isn't. And that's why you should pay attention to some developments in that industry. After ten years, London group Radiohead walked away from a normal label release of its latest album and sold it over the Internet only for whatever price people wanted to pay. According to the BBC:

BBC Radio 1's head of music, George Ergatoudis, says there is "real pressure" on record labels to keep up with the changing times.

"They need to change how they run their business. The future is definitely more competitive than it has ever been," he says.

The band is currently refusing to say how many orders it has received or how much people are paying, according to Gigwise.com. But the action alone has been enough to start major interest among some musicians in dropping major labels. Nine Inch Nails just dumped its label, according to the London Telegraph, and Madonna - never known for being a business dope - just dumped Warner Music Group to sign a ten-year, $120 million deal with concert promotion company Live Nation.

The Wall Street Journal points out that the deal may be financial stupdity on the part of Live Nation, but forget even that for a moment. The lesson is that no industry is so entrenched that writers, musicians, photographers, and artists are forced into indentured servitude. A way out may be risky, but so is staying in place. Now is the time to experiment - perhaps on the side to start - and see what new business models might be possible, if you want to remain in business in the future.

Peter Jacobi Tips on Writing Well

Samir Husni's Mr. Magazine blog has a list of six points on writing well for magazines as suggested by Peter Jacobi, professor emeritus at The University of Indiana. I thought they were interesting, and valuable. Yet, as they say in mathematical circles, they are necessary but not sufficient for good writing. So I thought I'd look at each one:

1. The invitation: the lead or the initial tease; it should even hook the reluctant reader.


2. The thesis: telling the reader what the article is all about, sort of an early summary. Perhaps a response to the readers expectations. - This is the first sales stage of an article. Thought you "don't do" marketing? Oh, yes you do, every single time you write something. There are other pieces in the magazine, other magazines, television, bills, work, family, a book, music - millions of things that can potentially distract the reader. To get people to read your writing, you must interest them. Dont' turn this into a dry formula, where you always use an anecdotal lede or a quote or a question or something clever. This is the highest type of selling you can do, to so thoroughly understand the need of the customer as to present something in a way that compels attention and summons forth interest. Formulas get dull. Putting that need first makes you think, be inventive, and look for the approach that will best work at the intersection of topic, audience, and your own craft.


3. Purpose: the why it is for me “piece of writing.” It is an extended explanation of the purpose of the piece. The purpose must be made evident (another sales pitch). - Yes, a second sales pitch. But this phrasing can be misleading. You can tell someone from here to a week from Wednesday why you do something, but it doesn't matter unless you can show that purpose. You have to make something evident; that is, you must uncover it so that the audience can perceive it. That's different from giving someone a lecture.


4. Direction: you must have a sense of clear direction. Every point along the “verbal highway” must set the course… a crystal clear viewable course…you must write with a compass. - Absolutely fundamental. I find this is often the most time consuming and difficult part of the craft. You can't be concerned only with making a given set of points or observations, or touching on the basic elements of a narrative. How you arrange them will determine where you end up. Writing is like having a series of pipes that run either vertically or horizontally. Send someone up one pipe, over another, and down a third, and it might be as though you had just directed the person directly to the side. Go up one, over, and then up another, and the person is in a completely different place. ask yourself, what do I want to emphasize as the center of the story? What relationships do I wish to show among the story elements? And how do I set direction in a way that brings the audience along without leaving a sense of intellectual lurching or foundering?


5. Propulsion: a sense of motion, going forward. Your writing must have actual movement with pulse and progress. - Stories with no movement are dead. This is like the stereotypical modern short story in which nothing really happens and there is only a tiny denouement, not a satisfying flash of comprehension or insight. Pay as much attention to the rhythm of the words and sentences as to the imagery. Transitions will make or break the attempt to move forward, acting either as conveyor belts or brick walls.


6. Memory: pleasure of reading should be followed by a sense of recalling. Good writing should give me “something to remember.” - This is only possible if there's a strong reason to tell the story in the first place. You have to show that reason throughout the piece if it is to stay with anyone, or all you can achieve is a bit of verbal candy.

Big Copyright Holder Win using DMCA

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle-based photographer Lloyd Shugart won a $1.32 million judgment against shoe manufacturer Propét USA. According to the story, this appears to be the first time that someone has won such a ruling under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, generally used by copyright holders to force web sites to remove content posted without their consent.

Australia Becomes Viable Market

A little over a month ago I mentioned that some foreign markets were becoming interesting business prospects for writers because of the fall of the dollar. Since then, the Canadian dollar has reached complete parity with currency here, which means that a magazine in Canada that pays $1 a word Canadian has just become a market that pays $1 a word American.

Now add another market - Australia. A few years ago, the Australian dollar was running at about 50 cents American. Yesterday, it hit a 23-year high - just over 90 cents - according to the Wall Street Journal. The trick here, as with Canada, is to find a publisher paying a reasonable amount in native currency. That means you'll bee seeing the same here, so long as you don't get quoted a lesser rate in dollars.

Another consideration is any country on the euro. At about US$1.40, you could get a premium. Something interesting is that a strong job report did nothing to boost US currency. This could mean that the dollar will continue to drop, making foreign markets even more attractive. Ironically, you'll be using the same business strategy as major investors: find where the return on the money (or time, research, and writing) you've invested is more, and take your profits from there.

Before using such a strategy, though, check with your bank. You want to be sure that wire fees and possible charges for converting currency to the US dollar doesn't put a crimp in the deal.

Writing and Real Passion

I've heard many writers claim a passion for their work, but in the common use of the word as a heightened emotional state full of excitement. And then they face periods when things are difficult, the assignments come up short, and they go into a funk. I think it's because real passion is something else.

Strong emotion comes and goes in life - often within a matter of minutes, or even seconds. Have you ever found yourself swinging from "love" to "hate" when someone you care about does something you think is mistreatment? Only to feel remorse and self-pity when you decide that you over reacted? Or you're high, sailing on the wind of an assignment, and then falling when you run into difficulties? Now what once was inspirational and energizing is a painful struggle. You wonder if you're really suited to a writing life and figure that if it were that important, you'd feel strongly about it all the time.

But that isn't the case. In fact, the opposite is true. When you have passion for something, you continue pursuing despite emotional roller coasters, not because of them. When your outlook is wonderful, you keep your eye on what you're doing to make sure you don't get sloppy. When things seem bad, you soldier away, knowing that one step still needs to go in front of the other. The ordinary swing of emotions is what keeps you staggering one way and then the next.

Real passion requires a more constant state of commitment and resolve. It's what gets an explorer to the top of a mountain or someone like Michelangelo lying on his back for three years as he painted the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel. Passion has you in your chair day after day, making calls, finding homes for your work, struggling to improve your craft each time you sit down. The image may not be so romantic or enthralling, but the results of regular and constant efforts are far more satisfying.

Technique: Eleven Types of Endings for Non-Fiction Articles

I know many writers, including myself, who spend conspicuous time working on the opening for a given piece of writing. But almost as important, if not as obvious, is the ending. For the readers who make it through the piece, the ending ties things up, helps create a sense of having read something substantial, and helps satisfy the need to hear the entire story. They are also as difficult, if not more so, to write well than ledes. Here are 11 types types - along with some strengths and weaknesses - to inspire some experimentation:

• Kicker - An ironic transition out of the last point or two in the piece. Can be humorous and even make an interesting point, but is more clever than profound.


• Summation - Provide a summary of the article's main point. This offers reinforcement of the most important thing you're trying to convey, but it can seem repetitive and pedantic.


• Take-away - One last point (not the main one) that you want the reader should consider. It provides additional emphasis, but only for those who read to the end. If the point is that important, make it earlier in the piece.


• Circular - You return to the theme of the opening for a sense of thematic closure. It ties things up nicely and delivers a solid feeling of completion, and yet if used badly can leave the reader feeling that nothing has changed.


• Quotation - Uses a quote from an interviewee as a final commentary. Generally carries an emotional weight of a problem that is ongoing. It's a sneaky way of doing a "time will tell" ending without saying that time will tell. Unfortunately, it's over used and may (but not always) leave an editor feeling that you've indulged in cliche.


• Inconclusive - Although popular in modern fiction, this approach leaves things hanging and you guessing as to what happens next. It's similar to the quotation in that it can create the feeling of a situation that is ongoing, with resolution in the distance at best.


• Surprise - More a fictional tool, you might still be able to use it in non-fiction. At the end, something completely unexpected happens. But this is a tough balancing act, because it has to be logical and conclusive at the same time.


• Chronological - If you're writing narrative, you can have the end of the article be the chronological finish of the event or subject. Be aware that you can choose slightly different ending points to create different emotional responses in the reader: irony, disappointment, elation, satisfaction, and so on.


• Abrupt - You would use this in a newspaper, not a magazine, and generally it would be in an inverted pyramid structure, where you make points from opening to closing in their order of perceived importance to the reader. This is fine for the recitation of facts that a hard news article can be, but is not a good fit for anything even slightly more literary.


• Poetic - If you've used rich imagery and a literary tone, you can sometimes go out on an image that becomes a metaphor or visual association you leave with the reader. It's easy to become the "artiste" and call too much attention to your writing style with this one.


• Tagline - Just like it sounds, the tagline is a fixed phrase that you always use. Although it has worked well for some in audio (like Paul Harvey's "Good ... day!"), it has no place in the average article and would often seem strange even in a column.

The Evil Editor and Other Useful Web Sites

I happened upon one web site useful to writers the other day, which made me think about putting together a list of some that can offer helpful tips and backstage glimpses that can help you better understand publishing and how to navigate the business:

• Evil Editor: Why you don't get published is a hoot. Yes, you can laugh at unfortunates, if you are so inclined, but this is also a useful site. Aside from the mocking for amusement, the owners claims to be a publishing industry pro, and the reactions are telling, offering good clues on what not to write in a query. The brave can also submit their own queries and book openings for critique.


• Pub Rants is less snarky (a position that Miss Snark took with her when she stopped new blog entries) and is by a literary agent in Denver. She still rants - politely - and in some of her material there is useful information, such as this entry about mentioning a book by an agent's client in your query letter.


• Lyons Literary has a blog explaining terms, some book publishing contract basics, and some of the dos and don'ts that make agents either more or less disposed to considering you and your work.


• If you are concerned about possible scams - a reasonable attitude for writers - you might check Writer Beware Blogs! by A.C. Crispin and Victoria Strauss, who hunt down scams and their perpetrators.


• If you like to hear the story behind books, Backstory has them. By e-publishing pioneer M.J. Rose and Jessica Keener, fiction editor at Agni Magazine, it seems like light lifting - authors send in the back stories to their books. But who cares? It's an interesting concept.


• Shrinking Violet Promotions is worth a stop just because the name is so apt for the concept. However, if you consider yourself an introvert (or not), you might find some useful information about promotion here.

Brave Bloggers in Burma

Whether you call it Burma or Myanmar, the stories coming out of that region have been compelling. Many of them were only possible because of bloggers - "amateur" writers and reporters who have literally put their lives on the line to get information to the rest of the world:

The bloggers held out as long as they could, and if there is ever a monument to the heroes of the Saffron Revolution it should certainly feature a statue of a skinny boy in a T-shirt and thick glasses hunched over a computer and a digital camera.

Now they're fearful, hunted. These young people who have remained in the country have gone underground and are sleeping in a different place every night. They're finding it harder to communicate, as the military regime has turned off the Internet. The London Times has an article worth reading to remember what the stakes can be in this line of work.

Watch Your Words in Pitches

With email, it's easy to quickly assemble a query or letter of introduction and send it to a prospect or client. Unfortunately, it's too easy to get sloppy, even when you swear up one side of the street and down the other that you'd never be guilty of the offense. The strongest piece of marketing you have is whatever you've written that is sitting in front of someone. If it is unclear in structure, the buyer will think that all of your writing is. Someone isn't going to ignore the email, because they'll assume that to be a clearer indication of your work habits.

Also be aware of reader sensitivities. As an example, the phrase "very unique" is unlikely to bring in additional assignments, but for people who count the phrase as silly (there are no degrees of uniqueness), it could be the kiss of death. When the phone doesn't ring, you'll know it's them. No mafia don will ever pay such heed to omerta, the code of silence.

Take a moment before you hit send, run spell check, and then read over the message yourself. Maybe you think you've never had a problem, but you'll never know who was unimpressed and decided to pass.

When Writing Marketing, Organize by Emotions

Many writers have difficulties in writing effective marketing, whether for themselves or for others. They start using predictable glib phrases that they've seen in ads and collateral, or else they aren't sure what to say. "Should I tell they why I'm good? Do I end by saying, 'I hope you'll call?'"

The problem is that non-fiction writers are either too accustomed to trying to dazzle someone with wordplay or have become overly accustomed to arranging facts. Although good marketing is based on solid information, it is really an issue of emotion. People generally make purchase decisions based on their feelings, not on an intellectual analysis (and when it seems that they're thinking it through, it's usually to congratulate themselves on how practical and in control they are - which is nothing more than emotional gratification).

In marketing, you are actually trying to convey a number of emotional impressions and unconscious psychological messages. It can be dangerous because if used wrong it turns into blatant manipulation. However, when done right, you're telling someone something the person needs to hear that is emotional, not rational, in nature. You are telling a story in which the primary aim is to convey a set of emotions in a particular order.

In writing a fact-based story, you would determine what structure the story demands and then convey the information. When you are writing marketing, you arrange the necessary emotions in the proper order and let that order set the structure. Then you get out of the way, except to the degree that your quirky ways of putting things can help deliver the message.

Here's an example I offered to a writer who was wrestling with a query. The setting is that the letter is intended to an organization doing ecological work. I've made some assumptions and used some data that the writer had brought up, but the main thing I did was to uncover the emotional story and then to tell it:

I've been following the work your organization has been doing - the snake habitat program, the headwaters water quality program - and wanted to congratulate you for your active and effective stance on important issues.

But although local media have been running environmental stories, I've noticed that your projects receive relatively little press. It may be that your communications strategy is unintentionally faltering in ways that could be costing you public and legislative good will and even money.

In my field - strategic business communications - research suggests that weaknesses in communication strategies and skills can actually cost businesses, governments, and non-profits up to 30% of their annual operating budgets. That's a serious amount of bottom-line shortfall.

I'd like to schedule a conversation with you - absolutely no obligation on your part, but I think I can offer some suggestions that could help improve awareness and support of your activities and, as a side benefit, improve morale within the group, which would increase staff efficiency and effectiveness. I'll phone you later this week to see if we can set up an appointment.

Notice what I've done. At the opening, I say something that will get the person's attention (in this case a bit of sincere flattery) while, in the process, demonstrating my knowledge of their activities, which means I've been paying attention to them. Virtually everyone likes attention, so the emotion is ego gratification and generally good feelings.

I then bring up a problem they face but that they may not realize. Through that, I've introduced a note of fear for the organization's ultimate mission and, indirectly (and subtly) for the job security of the recipient.

Next, I offer something of significant value - essentially an opening consulting session - indicating the benefits. This speaks to the fear, offering a way out, and also to greed, because there's the chance of getting something for nothing. Also, there's the tone of helping the organization's goals, which will also be of interest to the recipient. I stress that there's no obligation, which means I'm basically showing that they can't lose.

The whole intent of the letter is to convey one set of emotions after another, and then to offer a way or resolving the conflict in feelings so that the final emotion is pleasant. Think of it as an emotional outline, and then using available information and appropriate word choices as building blocks to create the story.