In my last post, I wrote about a writer who toils for a content mill called Demand Studios. She called it “like working at McDonald’s, but for writers.” Yet she defended the practice.

A friend of mine whom I respect, a veteran editor/writer, also writes for Demand. She confirms that it’s burger-flippingesque, and swoops in with some strong opinions, though she prefers not to be quoted by name. Doesn’t want to risk her shaky relationship with Demand. I feel for her. A lot of writers feel stuck. They go for what seems like easy dough. They find it’s not easy at all, but feel uneasy about letting go.

“Demand Studios is a sweatshop for writers, no question about it,” my friend says. “Demand demands a LOT, while giving very little to the people that are making them money. Some of its boosters claim they can make $30/hour writing articles. I have no idea how that’s possible. I may not be the fastest writer on Earth, but jumping through all their editorial hoops generally takes me a minimum of two hours, for a whopping 15 bucks. I believe that’s less than the current minimum wage. And the clips are extremely lame, as they ask you to write in these formats that sometimes bear no relationship to the topic at hand.”

That last point is a zinger. A lot of writers who sign up with content mills figure they’ll at least score some solid clips they can show to real pubs that actually pay money. But if you’re shoehorned into some goofy format, what kind of showpiece is that?

Real money-paying editors take clips from sites like Demand with a grain of salt. For one thing, what kind of credibility do content mills have as sources of information? When was the last time you went to a Demand-fed site for solid background info, or for any sort of reliable information?

Also, real editors like to know that you’ve pleased other real editors with quality writing and research.

I’ve said before, the quality of the content-mill editing generally sucks. Remember this post about the laughable editing of a couple of articles on eHow? Ironically, these were articles about writing. Bad editing hurts a good writer like my friend because she might get edited by someone with far less talent than she has. It hurts an average writer because he or she won’t get the kind of feedback from a good editor that could make a story better. Believe me, that’s a huge advantage of aiming high, of getting your foot in the door at a real publication. I learn something from my editors every time I write a story. I always get a little “try this” or “maybe you should add some info about that,” and my article always gets better.

I also hope you’ve looked at the comment my friend Carol Tice posted. Carol pointed out that Demand Studios had to release a bunch of information about their business in advance of an initial public offering they plan to file. What a world. Demand freely admits that it’s losing money—even though they pay you peanuts. Yet if their IPO succeeds, they’ll walk away with $125 million.

I don’t want to come across as a complete snob here. As I said in my last post, content mills can work for some writers, particularly those who don’t need to earn money. But as my friend who’s currently in a love-hate relationship with Demand says, “I despise companies that make money off of writers’ low self-esteem and seeming inability to demand what they’re really worth. If we all refused to work for them, they would be forced to pay a decent wage for our work.”

Amen.

“It’s like working at McDonald’s, but for writers.”

That quote comes from a recent Los Angeles Times article. The writer is talking about working for Demand Studios. She equates it with flipping burgers—but the strange thing is, she goes on to defend the practice.

Demand Studios is one of the most prominent of the so-called content farms or content mills (I like the Blakean overtones in that term) that have been attracting a lot of attention among freelance writers. In a tough market for writers, these sites are actually advertising a need for content.

Demand’s massive output feeds content-hungry sites like eHow and Livestrong. Other content mills include Examiner, Suite101, and Associated Content. Some pay by the degree of traffic your articles generate, or clicks on sponsored links that appear beside or in your articles. Others pay a (very small) flat fee per article.

In the Demand model, according to the LATimes writer (she’s a freelance contributor, not a staffer), “A mysterious digital algorithm spits out a constant flow of story ideas in a variety of categories. As a writer, I claim the ones I want, then I get to work. The pieces are short, 400 words or so.” She goes on to mention a fee of $15 and a kill fee of $3.75.

Fifteen dollars for 400 words? Come on. That’s offensive to me both as a writer and a reader.

Let’s look at it from both perspectives.

How am I as a writer supposed to make a living writing 400-word stories for $15?

A decent informative article, no matter how short, requires at least one interview and some background research unless it’s a topic to which you bring your own expertise. Even then, most writers need to investigate the latest information and cite expert opinion to bolster the article.

An earnest writer should take at least an hour researching even the simplest of topics for a 400-word story. Unless, of course, that writer simply regurgitates stuff that’s already on the Internet. Even that takes time. Then comes organizing, honing a lede, writing a draft, self-editing, revising, and then jumping through whatever editorial hoops the content mill requires. Another hour? If you’re fast.

Speaking of editorial hoops, every article for Demand is written on spec, according to the LATimes writer. “They’re returned for rewrites and rejected all the time,” she says, and all that back-and-forthing is by way of an anonymous copy editor-cum-gatekeeper.

Now, if that anonymous copy editor deems that you have made a good-faith effort to revise your story to their specifications, you MIGHT get a kill fee that amounts to a whopping 15% of the original fee. (This according to Demand’s terms of service.) That’s $2.25 for that 400-word, $15 article—and you might not get even that.

Still, the LATimes/Demand Studios writer says that “writing DS articles is weirdly addictive.”

Yeah, if you’re addicted to poverty.

Okay, I can imagine that writing for Demand could be addictive if you don’t rely at all on writing as a source of income. Then it’s probably kind of fun to troll through article ideas and grab one for yourself. No need to research and craft a story pitch. Built-in buyer for your work.

And I readily admit that sites like Demand form a market for writing that didn’t exist a few years ago. They clearly work for some writers; witness their vast amount of content. Part-time writers, stay-at-home moms, even laid-off journalists make Demand work for them to varying extents. But that raises another question:

How am I to trust the information in an article that paid its author fifteen crummy bucks?

Did this writer interview experts, conduct background research? Did an editor challenge the writer to back up assertions, provide source material and fact-checking sources? Did the editor challenge the writer to meet basic journalistic standards of clarity, engagement, and accuracy? Or were satisfying the demands of those ominous-sounding “algorithms” more the editor’s concerns?

Is a writer staking his or her reputation on the timeliness and accuracy of his or her content?

I spent a few hours scrolling through eHow and Livestrong copy and found the quality to vary widely. Some of it appears to be written by genuine experts. A lot of it cites other websites as sources, which means you as a reader are getting exactly the same stuff you could Google and find yourself. In other words, you’re reading a vast recycling bin of already published content. A lot of it is either earnest but worthless (like a featured story on how to become a better baseball player that suggests that you should practice), or so jammed with SEO-friendly keywords that the story is unreadable. Some of the stories aren’t even bylined (e.g., “By an eHow Contributor”), but they link conveniently to someone’s blog, which perhaps suggests one reason to contribute to a content mill: self-promotion.

I’ll be writing more posts about content mills, and I’m going to check in with a writer friend who’s been dipping her toes in the Demand Studios pond. For now, I’ll say that as reader or writer, it’s buyer beware.

I mean, even a writer who’s addicted to Demand says it’s like working at McDonald’s.

First in an occasional series

Your Ebook Has to Stand Out from the Noise

Notice that the title of this series is “How to Write AND Sell an Ebook.” Dig those capital letters.

For some of us, writing comes easily. For others, selling is a snap. For most mortals, both are a challenge. But you know me—I’m all about freelance writers making the money they deserve. One way is by writing ebooks. But what’s the point of writing one if you can’t sell it?

So let’s talk about writing AND selling an ebook.

The beauty of writing a downloadable ebook is the end run you get to make around the entire hard-copy publishing profession. No groveling for an agent or genuflecting before a publisher. No tiresome rewrites at the behest of some junior editor.

This baby is yours. Guerilla publishing!

But it’s precisely because you won’t have an agent, editor, or publisher that you have to approach the whole process with laser-beam focus—plus you have to commit to becoming your own marketing manager.

“Is there a market for my ebook?”

That’s the first place you point your laser ray. Because I’m assuming you don’t want to do this as a labor of love.

Start with a timely take on what people are interested in by reading this post. You can bet the subjects that Internet marketers are keying on are subjects with solid sales possibilities.

One of the current hot categories is pets, which is, of course, way too broad a topic for an ebook. But let’s say your niche is dog training, and you’re thinking about a book on how to keep your dog from biting people. (Personally I’d just call Cesar Millan.) Now trot over to Google’s External Keyword Tool. This tool lets you plug in your topic and see how many Google searches are happening for that topic.

That’s right: Hire Google, for free, to do your market research.

If you plug in “how to train a biting dog” and look under Global Monthly Search Volume, you won’t see big numbers. But you’ll see many more searches for “how to stop a puppy from biting” and “puppy training biting.” That suggests you should focus on puppies. But the numbers still aren’t huge.

If you’re a dog expert, maybe you should try a slightly different niche. Aren’t the barks of most dogs worse than their bites? So how about barking dogs? “How to stop dog barking” brings up much bigger numbers.

Now plug that term directly into Google’s search engine—i.e., Google it. It brings up hundreds of thousands of results—and a lot of free information. Don’t sweat the competition, though. It means people are interested in your topic.

But what it also suggests is that you need a spin, a twist—dare I say gimmick?—to stand out from the rest of the barking-dog-stoppers.

So what’s your spin? What differentiates you from the rest of us who just yell “Shut up!”?

Bob’s Cheap List of ‘Shut Up Your Mutt’ Titles

• Overnight Relief from Your Barking Dog
• The Gentle Way to Stop Your Barking Dog
• Instant Relief from Dog Barking
• The Untold Secret to Stopping a Barking Dog
• Get Inside Your Dog’s Head to Stop Him from Barking
• Want to Stop Your Barking Dog? Call Cesar Millan, Fercryingoutloud!

See where I’m going? BEFORE you write a single word of the ebook you’re contemplating, make sure there’s a market for it, and make sure you’re giving that market something valuable and exceptional. Don’t worry about joining a crowded market. Just find a way to stand out from the crowd.

I’d also suggest that you write some dog-training articles for pet magazines and top pet-care blogs to help establish your credibility. Then you’re Joe Hushpuppy, as seen in Dog Fancy magazine or dogchannel.com.

So that’s a good start. Don’t waste your time writing anything people don’t want to read. Not if you’re in it for the money.

Woof!

If you’re keen to learn more about ebooks and ebook marketing, check out my site EbookSecretsRated.com, where I review the best books on the market about writing and selling ebooks.

Not a book about dreaming.

I wrote an ebook called Write Where the Money Is. If you haven’t purchased it yet, you really should.

But I’ll give its plot away right now: The money is in nonfiction writing.

I’m saying this as a guy who loves poetry, fiction, drama, and film.

If you have fire in your belly for writing in any of those genres, more power to you. Keep the flame alive. I hope you have a patron or a working spouse. But if you’re a freelance writer interested in making money, raising your prestige in your profession, or enjoying a great part-time or full-time living, look to nonfiction.

The freelance writing opportunities are overwhelmingly greater.

Here’s a sobering assessment from a literary agent discussing the number of fiction-writing hopefuls she hears from every year. It’s from the Writer’s Digest website:

“Out of those 3,000 pleas, nearly 75 percent are about novels. And out of those, at least 90 percent are about first novels. That brings the number of queries about first novels to about 2,000 every year. And in a recent year, I accepted as a client one new novelist out of those 2,000. That’s not 2 percent, or 1 percent, or even one-half of a percent. That’s one-tenth of one-half of a percent.”

Remember, that’s an agent speaking. Not a publisher. Getting an agent is just one hurdle in the fiction-publishing rat race.

Or this from a Los Angeles Times essay by Dani Shapiro, a writer who has published six novels and a memoir. Guess what? She still teaches and writes for magazines and newspapers to earn a living:

“I have taught in MFA programs for many years now, and I begin my first class of each semester by looking around the workshop table at my students’ eager faces and then telling them they are pursuing a degree that will entitle them to nothing. I don’t do this to be sadistic or because I want to be an unpopular professor; I tell them this because it’s the truth. They are embarking on a life in which apprenticeship doesn’t mean a cushy summer internship in an air-conditioned office but rather a solitary, poverty-inducing, soul-scorching voyage whose destination is unknown and unknowable.”

Now…aren’t you glad I wrote Write Where the Money Is?

The odds are almost infinitely more favorable writing nonfiction. My book tells you how to do it. I’ve done it. So can you.

The authentic globe.

I watched some of the Golden Globes the other night. Good thing the honorees weren’t trying to get writing assignments.

Have you ever seen so many displays of BS? Such unbridled pretentiousness?

I admire actors. When they’re acting. When they’re acting well. What they do is amazing. But when they can’t stop acting, when they ooze and emote and dramatize without any trace of authenticity, it’s embarrassing and off-putting.

Which brings me to a crucial point for freelance writers writing query letters:

Be authentic.

Don’t go all writerly on the poor editor. That’s what often happens when writers take their cue from the godawful books and blogs out there brimming with advice about how to write a query letter. Writers then think they’re supposed to adopt some sort of magical writerly tone, and follow a scripted writerly template for their pitch.

Those often manifest as gagworthy blunders like opening your query with your story’s lede. If you called the editor on the phone to pitch (a no-no, of course), you wouldn’t launch into reading your article without first saying hello, would you? Say hello. Be conversational. Say:

Dear Joe,

I’d like to pitch you a story about an emerging craze: penguin tourism. I call it “Waddling to Antarctica.”

See? Friendly but catchy. Authentic. Then spell out the gist of the story, refer the editor to some clips, and get outta there. If it’s a complex pitch, don’t worry about length. Spell out the gist and then set up the extra information with a subhed like “A Bit of Background.” But don’t make a simple pitch complex.

Even worse is when writers drop all sorts of clues that they’ve read the publication’s or the website’s writers’ guidelines in Writer’s Market. Like, “I understand you’re looking for exciting first-person accounts of challenge in trying situations.”

No editor is impressed one doodly bit by the fact that you read their (undoubtedly out-of-date) blurb in Writer’s Market. They’re more likely unimpressed to the point of hitting “delete” immediately. Editors are impressed by the fact that you’ve bothered to read their publication. (Drop hints!) And that you’re pitching the kind of story they actually need and want.

One other thing the get-published books and blogs have spawned: Blind adherence to every gospel word of a publication’s writers’ guidelines. If they say their response time is eight weeks, that’s just code for “We’re swamped. We may not get back to you for ages. If ever.”

Don’t be a chump. Follow up. Two weeks is fine.

Oh yeah: While we’re talking authenticity, don’t be so frigging important that you make a responding editor jump through antispam hoops to reach you. Duh.

I go into a lot of detail about other query do’s and query don’ts in Write Where the Money Is. But after seeing the Golden Globes, I had to get this off my chest.

Be authentic. Or an authentic person on the other end will simply change the channel.

Dave Navarro, aka The Launch Coach, spells it all out.

I’ve just created a new website that I think you’ll be interested in. It’s called EBook Secrets Rated: www.ebooksecretsrated.com. In it I’ve reviewed what I think are the three best books on the market about writing and marketing an ebook.

If you haven’t considered writing an ebook, you should. Ebooks can be hugely profitable for writers. As you know from reading Write Where the Money Is, I’m not a big fan of traditional book publishing, at least not for information products. I like the lean, mean, online approach. No hunt for an agent, no genuflecting to publishers. You’re your own agent, editor, and publisher.

But a word of warning: You’re also your own marketing department. And that’s where most ebook writers go awry. You have to learn how to properly launch and market your book.

The three books on my site tell you just how to do that. They are:

How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook

Ebook Secrets Exposed

How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook in as Little as 7 Days

Have a look at Ebook Secrets Rated and let me know what you think.

Meet fellow writer, blogger, and blogger about writing, Carol Tice. Carol irrepressibly contends, as do I, that freelance writers can and should make very good money doing what we do. Thinking small gets us nowhere. Here she not only addresses the dicey subject of freelance rates, she trots out a figure of $100 an hour—not as a fantasy, but a real number. Attainable. Viable. Reasonable. Many of us work at a per-word, not a per-hour rate, but we need to think in terms of how each assignment plays out in hourly compensation. And shooting for a hundred bucks is a great way to think! I’ll let Carol take over now:

“I’d like to discuss freelance writing rates. Several writers have commented to me in the course of the year that they make $30–$40 an hour writing four articles an hour for content mills, and that they consider that great pay.

“But is it? What is a good rate to shoot for in freelance writing?

“My answer, in case you couldn’t tell from the title of this blog, is $100 an hour. That should be your goal.

“Let’s do the math to learn why it’s important that your hourly rate be so high.

“If you work 35 hours a week, $30 an hour means you’d make $52,500 a year allowing for 2 weeks’ vacation. Sounds good on the face of it, right?

“But at $100 an hour, you make $175,000 a year. Wow! Big difference, huh?

“I sense that you’re freaking out. Think it’s impossible? Yesterday’s pay rate? Hardly. That’s my own rate goal for my business.

“If you’re saying, ‘I don’t need to make $175,000 a year, so $30 an hour will be OK,’ I’d like you to consider these three things:

“Your expenses. Costs include paying your own health insurance, which is more costly every year. Paying state, local and federal taxes, and self-employment tax. Paying for equipment, marketing, Web-site development, advertising, heat, light, paper and other supplies. Making $40 an hour at a full-time job where they pay the benefits might pencil out – but the equation changes when you’re on your own. After expenses, that really doesn’t leave much net profit.

“Unbillable hours. Then there’s the downtime. You wait for interview calls to start, bill accounts, market the business, tally up your monthly accounts, have a slow week where you aren’t fully booked, and on and on. Not every hour is a billable hour. Track your time for a month to get a sense of how many real, billable hours you’ve got – it’ll probably be eye-opening.

“Work/life balance. Didn’t you start freelancing so you could spend more time with family? Many freelancers get into it for the “freedom,” but end up working 12-hour days to keep it going…not that freeing in my view. A lot of us with children find we’ve got only 30-32 real, available work hours in the week unless we want to stick our kids in many hours of child care.

“Put these three factors together and you’ll quickly see why your average hourly rate needs to be high in order for you to earn a decent living.

“Don’t know what your average hourly rate is now? Track your billable hours for a month to get a sense of your current rate. Then, set a goal of improving your hourly rate in 2010. You won’t bill $100 an hour overnight if you’re at $20 an hour now. It’ll take time to gradually replace lower-paying accounts with higher ones – but it’ll be worth the effort.

“There’s one final reason to aim high, for $100 an hour. We often don’t achieve our goals in life. Maybe one client’s at $100 an hour, but you have another situation where it works out to less, but there’s still a good reason to do the gig — a great editor connection you want to keep, for instance, or great exposure that helps your marketing. So when we shoot for $100, we may end up with $75 overall and still do quite well. Shoot for $30 and you may end up with not enough to buy groceries.

“Whatever your rate now, make a plan to increase your hourly rate in the coming year – because better-paying gigs are what truly put the “free” in freelance.”

Even if you don’t write for a living as Carol and I do, honor yourself as a writer. You deserve at least $100 an hour.

Another doom-and-gloom piece on the supposedly appalling state of freelance writing. This one’s by James Rainey, media columnist for the Los Angeles Times, who wrote “Freelance Writing’s Unfortunate New Model” for the January 6, 2010 edition.

Rainey’s a fine writer and makes some great points in the article.But Rainey is also a well-compensated staff writer staring out into the abyss of freelancing. With layoffs all around him, and rumors of “crumbling pay scales” crossing his desk, it’s natural for him to view the world of freelancing through a pessimistic prism.

Here’s how I responded:

“Freelance writing has always been a tough business, but hustle and ability have always paid off. That will continue to be the case. No serious writer trolls Craigslist for assignments, or types articles for content mills. I regard the current landscape as akin to a tough assignment on a tight deadline. It calls for the very skills I’ve been applying for nearly 30 years: research, creativity, and writing ability. Now I’m applying those skills to the task of carving new niches. I have no time to lament the dramatic shifts in media. I’m riding the shifts, making them work for me. I’m finding and creating more opportunities than ever. It’s an exciting time to be a freelancer. Quality writing will always find good outlets. And will always attract decent compensation.”

My friend Doug Schnitzspahn (www.dougschnitzspahn.com) weighed in on Rainey’s piece in a Facebook discussion among writers:

“Well, I had my best year ever as a freelancer last year. I think it’s a matter of scale. Livestrong may pay garbage but Livestrong and outlets like it didn’t exist 20 years ago. There’s actually more opportunity out there for freelance writers (especially those at the bottom) right now. You can still get paid top dollar and you can also rack up a lot of low word-rate pieces. Twenty years ago you were beholden to big pubs who only hired the people in their networks.”

Hear what Doug is saying? More opportunity.

Rainey makes great points about story assignments getting shorter and reporting thinner. And rightfully suggests that writing is a true profession that merits receiving a living wage. But to bolster that point, he dwells on markets that pay pathetically and assumes that their proliferation connotes a disaster for writers.

I’m here to tell you the money is out there. It takes creativity and effort and skill to rope it in, but it’s there for the roping. Don’t prostitute yourself for pennies a word. Go for good work. (Dare I say it? Write Where the Money Is.) Spread yourself around. It’s not business as usual out there. But there’s business to be had. For sure. I’ll say it again: It’s an exciting time to be a freelancer.

My best editorial client, National Geographic Adventure magazine, folded last month. I was the editor at large and a regular contributor.

When I got the news, I spent time commiserating with the staff. It was a great magazine, loved by 625,000 readers. Beautifully produced. Super high quality editorial. I was proud to be a part of it for its entire 10-year lifespan. Proud to be friends with the very smart people who edited and designed it.

But I couldn’t spend much time wringing my hands or theirs, or even contemplating what it meant for the future of print journalism. Maybe later. It was time to move on. I had work to do. I thought I’d share some of the steps I’ve taken since NGA folded. This will always happen to us as freelance writers. Clients will go away. Magazines will fold, businesses will go belly-up, or staff turnover will bring change of direction. Clients might stop using us, or use us less. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

1. I reminded myself that this is normal. And good, really. When everything remains the same, we can get stagnant, complacent. It’s good to hustle. And to remember that there are lots of markets, millions of opportunities out there. It’s exciting to be reminded of that.

2. I got my homepage, my platform, in order: bobhowells.com. I want editors and ad clients to have easy access to snippets of my portfolio. I’d gotten lazy about this. I had a steady gig. I didn’t have to sell myself much.

I did the site on my own. It cost nothing other than domain registration and hosting. If you don’t have clips available online—a résumé of some sort, do it. It will pay off. You don’t have to be a tech wizard. I’m certainly not. But I’m a journalist whose business it is to dive in and understand stuff. I applied my instincts to this process. You can too. Or just hire some help.

3. I contacted clients I’d worked for in the past. You know, just checking in. And by the way, I have this cool idea…. My electrician did the same the other day, and I gave him a job right off. I got a great print assignment almost right away, and put down the groundwork for more.

4. I checked in with other writers and bloggers. The grapevine is buzzing. It always pays off to find out what others are up to. As always, I’m touched by the generosity of my fellow freelancers.

Interestingly, I hear far fewer sour attitudes than in tough times past. We all recognize that the landscape is changing. Change can be painful, but the great thing is, media is becoming so dispersed that we’re more than ever the masters of our own fates.

5. I stepped up activity on Facebook and Twitter. Not to waste time, but to raise my presence and to network.

6. I kept up with my posts here, and jotted down many, many ideas for future posts.

7. I followed my own advice in this post.  Especially the part about focus. In just two highly focused hours, I wrote something I’m extremely proud of.

8. I continued my education in Internet marketing. I will be sharing much more about this in the future. We as writers are in a strong position to succeed in Internet marketing, to parlay our skills as communicators into great success online. I pay keen attention to two mentors in particular, Chris Farrell and James Schramko. (Those are my affiliate links to their sites.) I urge anyone looking for a fresh outlet to try either or both of these guys, at least for a trial period.

9. I read or thumbed through books on entrepreneurism and wealth building. I thought Gary Vaynerchuk’s short Crush It! was superb for its specifics and practicality. (Grammar Ranter wishes he could have edited it, though.) Christopher Howard’s Instant Wealth—Wake Up Rich was more “ya gotta believe,” but full of inspiration—his and that of some of the world’s most successful people. (Yep, those are my Amazon links.)

10. I meditated.

In my recent post about writing packages, I mentioned some that I was proud of—and a couple of others that were, well, just gigs.

When fanny packs and sport sandals first came out about 15 years ago, I managed to become the world’s leading authority on both, at least among journalists. (Lots of people who actually made the bags or the sandals knew a lot more than I did, but they didn’t write for Outside magazine.)

I was the fanny-pack king. Anyone who wanted a story on fanny packs came to me. I kept chuckling as I analyzed their materials, stays, zippers, and load-control features—all the way to the bank.

I was Mr. Sport Sandal. I illuminated nuances of tread and cushioning materials, strap systems, and the proper pronunciation of “Teva.” (Not TEE-va!)

Too proud to write about fanny packs, or footwear for river rats? I bet I made 10 grand on fanny packs and Tevas over the course of a few years.

If you’re too proud to write about something prosaic that you happen know quite a bit about, get over yourself. If you want to make it as a freelance writer, or make a few bucks as a freelance writer, you might need to swallow some high-falutin’ pride and just write the damn thing.

Obviously that doesn’t include violating your moral and ethical scruples. Otherwise, if you think the check will clear, write the story.

And don’t just be open to oddball ideas. Seek them out. Create them. The silly ones just might stick out from the eyeball-glazing blather that editors sort through every day. 15 Root Beers that Changed the World. The Untold Story Behind Jujubes. How Llamas Will Cure the Recession. The World’s Best Unsurfable Beaches.

Just making these up, folks. But that reminds me: Chapter 2 of my book, Write Where the Money Is, is titled How to Become an Idea-Generating Machine. Check it out. Become one.

Parting shot—remember the eternal musicians’ credo: A gig’s a gig.