The Golden Pencil: The Freelance Writer’s Resource

Beware Of Promises… a guest post

by Anne Wayman on May 4th, 2008

John Clausen who owns the helpful site for freelance writers called Writing for Money, put this in a comment… but I think it’s well worth it’s very own post and a bit of time on my front page. So here it is:

My advice for new writers is to beware of “articles” that claim to have the secret to making buckets of money online and turn out to be nothing but “landing pages” full of teasers and links that offer to let you into the “bonanza” for $49.

Instead of wasting time and money on questionable advice sold to you by online “experts,” use that time to hone your writing skills and study the market. If you’d like to write for magazines, for instance, get back issues of the ones for which you’d like to write. Put together a lot of query letters (I always say to strive for 100 query letters, but I’ve never had anyone who didn’t get significant work long before getting to the 100 mark.). Get a copy of Strunk and White (The Elements of Style) and the Associated Press Stylebook. Study grammar and diction. If you’re interested in commercial writing (and you should be if you wish to make a living at this), get a copy of Peter Bowerman’s The Well-Fed Writer. It’s a lot less expensive than $47 and Mr. Bowerman knows whereof he speaks.

A website is a fine thing to have, but don’t rely on it to sell your writing for you. I’ve heard from several editors who absolutely do not want to cruise your website looking at your samples. Sure, some will, but the best thing to do is get a publication’s published writer’s guidelines and follow them to the letter. Then you’ll know exactly how to approach the buyer.

Writing for the web seems like a no-brainer; just look at the volume of stuff published via the Internet. However, if you are to be successful at that kind of writing - or any other - you’ll have to have the necessary writing skills. There’s no $47 shortcut to that…you’ll have to practice and pay attention to what’s happening in any field of writing. “You gotta know the territory,” is more than a line from The Music Man; it’s essential advice for beginning writers in any genre.

Thanks John!

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