Quote:
Amy said in post #1 :
Those of you who are successful freelancers, how did you break in to the field?
Amy |
Sheer luck, mostly. I knew the right person.
That's how I got my "break." Most people get their break by being very persistent and never giving up.
It's more than that, though. I know that I continued getting contracts for some very specific reasons. I found that my reputation was kind of viral--every time I started to have more free time, some new line developer would contact me and ask me to work for them. Even after I stopped freelancing and people
knew that I'd stopped freelancing, I'd still have people asking me to come back and do "just this one contract."
I'd like to say that it's just that I'm that brilliant a writer, of course.
But honestly, that isn't it. There are certainly better writers than me in the field I'm in. So, my secret? Several things:
I'm very reliable. When I say I'll do something, I do it. The only exception to that happened when I developed some serious tendonitis problems, and it only happened once, and I did everything I could to help the developers hand things off to other authors as quickly as possible.
I do what I'm told. There are so many writers who read an outline and think, "but I'm more inspired to do it this way," and go do that. They don't bother asking their editor first, and usually this means that the whole thing needs to be completely re-written, or, if there isn't time for that, the editor is simply very unhappy with the result.
I turn things in on time. I only missed a deadline once, and that was by one week. I warned the developer about a month in advance (when I realized it was going to happen), didn't offer him any bogus excuses, and took care to tell him it wasn't my co-author's fault--just mine.
I handle things professionally. I sit down and do my word-count whether I feel "inspired" or not. I follow my outlines. I do my best to work with my co-author, even when he's a total pain. I do the research I need to do. I don't take on more work than I can handle. I ask questions when I need to. I don't badmouth my employer. I read my contracts before signing and abide by them.
I handle re-writes well. When I get my manuscript back covered with red ink, I follow the editor's suggestions. I don't refuse to face the idea that my writing--heaven forfend!--is less than perfect. I don't insist that I'm right and the editor is wrong (even if I think I am--after all, I'm not the one paying for the work, and it isn't my decision how the final copy comes out).
Because of this, I particularly tended to get called in on the "emergency work." Things where a writer had bailed or failed to turn anything in, and the editor needed someone he
knew would turn in the needed work on time. I got asked to apply for a line developer's position once, even. (We mutually decided it was a bad idea because I didn't want to relocate to their state, and didn't want to work the kind of hours they needed.) A couple of times developers snagged me for their regular "stable" of authors because they were just so happy to find someone who can reliably turn in good work on time.
Mind you, certain writing industries have more flakes than others. So being this reliable will get you farther in some industries than others.
But it's still a great way to make yourself indispensable.
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