A Little Rant About the Secrets of Successful Freelance Writing

I just put a bunch of my best freelance-writing tips into a special report called 7 Stealth Secrets of Successful Freelance Writing. It’s free. Really. Just fill out that form over there to the right.

Now, you could argue that there’s really no such thing as a “secret” when it comes to freelance writing for money. (That may be true, but you have to admit it’s a catchy hed.)

My feeling is there shouldn’t be any secrets when it comes to getting work published and getting paid decent money for it. But what happens is this: Practices that work have gotten obscured by a lot of folklore. Books and blogs about freelance writing all seem to mimic one another and impart the same bad advice. (I’m talking about even the highest echelons here.) Too many writers are willing to follow that advice with sheeplike obedience and thereby consign themselves to the reject bin or the dark recesses of editors’ in-boxes where their queries will never see the light of day.

So my common-sense, cut-through-the-crap approaches seem like secrets. I mean, some experts will still have you sending SASEs with a hard-copy manuscript, photocopied clips, and one-page query. That may be de rigueur in the book world, but magazine editors will scratch their heads over such arcana. (If you don’t know what an SASE is, good. Don’t worry about it.)

That’s one small example of the kind idiotic advice you’ll find, not only for free online, but in expensive books as well. Another is the carefully prescribed template for writing a query letter. Trust me: No editor has ever read these prescriptions. There are many keys to delivering a strong query, but following a template is not one of them. I’ve even seen query templates for sale. Blimey. How much time do you think an intelligent magazine or Web editor will spend reading one of those?

My favorite Stealth Secret is the last one in my little 20-page report. It’s one that really seems like common sense. It includes this little nugget I dug up from the world of advertising, circa 1923: “Genius is the art of taking pains.”

Take a look at this report for some pretty darn valuable, inside-the-business lessons. Are they really secrets? Is there genius in this booklet? I’ll tell you this: I practice the art of taking pains.

Tagged as: stealth writing secrets