Member's Library

5 Tips for Celebrity Interview Success

I’ll never forget the day I interviewed Patrick Dempsey. I’ve always been a fan of his, and seeing him soar to fandom thanks to Grey’s Anatomy was the icing on the cake. I couldn’t believe I was going to speak to him!

I knew I had to curb my inner fangirl. After all, professionalism first.

Since then, I’ve had more opportunities to interview celebs; some I’ve been huge fans of, others I didn’t know of until I received the assignment.

I’m getting better at the interview process and have learned from my experiences.

Ask ahead about what not to ask.Sometimes I am covering one aspect of the celebrity’s life, but the publication I’m writing for wants me to ask about other things. Be sure to ask the PR person if there are topics to stay away from — the PR person will likely tell you what to avoid right off the bat anyway.
It’s okay to mention you’re a fan. But you don’t have to do it directly. If you are a fan, it can be helpful to let the celebrity know you’ve followed their work on a show and it may put them at ease to reference a character. I don’t always say that I am a fan in the beginning of the interview, but I don’t think it makes a difference unless you’re on a tight timeline. Be short and sweet if you feel it necessary to bring up your devotion, but don’t overdo it. They want to know they’re talking with an objective source, not just another person hanging on their every word.
You’ll probably be on the clock, and overheard.Most celeb interviews I’ve done over the phone have at least one other press person on the line. The interviews are also extremely brief; as in, the PR person tells me I’ll only have about 10 minutes. In that case, I had to get down to the details ASAP, so I didn’t waste time buttering the person up. I think they respect us and our publications more when we’re strictly professional.
You can break the ice, but you don’t have to.Even if you don’t mention that you’re a fan, or don’t have that to use to break the ice, there are other ways. But don’t waste half your time trying to warm up to the celeb; chances are the celebrity has done dozens of interviews just like yours. They’re used to reciting the same answers (especially when talking about some sort of press campaign) so they’ll want to dive right in. On the plus side, when you do that, you may have more time to establish trust and dig deeper. Remember, you’re probably not doing anything investigative during the interview process, so you likely can’t go that deep anyway.
Write things down.In addition to recording your interview, be sure to write down your questions. Nothing sucks more than clamming up if you’re nervous in general or anxious to be in the presence of someone you admire. Your questions will remind you to stay professional and keep you on point.

Once you have done some celebrity interviews, it does get easier. I’m not at the point where I’m doing sit-down exclusives — I probably still couldn’t, especially with “McDreamy” — but I’m certainly more prepared.

Kristen Fischer is a copywriter and journalist living at the Jersey Shore. She worked as a reporter and copyeditor for Gannett before launching her full-time freelance business in 2005. Her work has been published in Parents, New Jersey Monthly, Prevention, Woman’s Day, SheKnows, and Healthline.

There Is No Correct English

Friday, July Post a comment

NAIWE’s Grammar Expert John E. McIntyre has not gone around the bend. Let me explain.

Usually someone talking about “correct” English imagines that one form of English, the dialect we identify as standard English or standard formal English, is the one, true English, all variants being inferior, wrong, and ignorant.

People who rattle on about “correct” English, often expressing a belief that the language is in decline and ignorance on the rise, want either to exert social prestige over you or to lure you into sharing their misguided sense of superiority. There will be mouthing of “dumbing down” and “the common herd.” Do not play their game.

In my own work as an editor, I have found it much more effective to talk about appropriate English. What form of English is the best match for the subject, the genre, the publication, the occasion, the writer, and the reader? (D’you remember the reader?) All the Englishes have a place at the table, and your task is to find the ones that best suit your purposes.

Standard formal English is the language of law, government, business, and academia. If you are writing in those areas, you will have to display a grasp of its conventions. Lapses in grammar and usage will undermine your credibility. (Mind you, not all the things that people think of as rules in standard English are genuine rules. For reference, my book, Bad Advice: The Most Unreliable Counsel Available on Grammar, Usage, and Writing.)

To be more broadly successful in writing you will also need to master what linguists call code switching. You already know how it works in speech: You don’t talk to your grandmother the same way you talk to friends in a bar; you don’t talk to your supervisor quite the same way you talk to a subordinate or to your peers. You adjust vocabulary and syntax to match the occasion and the people.

Those of you who write fiction already understand this modulation as you give voice to your narrators and characters, like this one: “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.” But the guardians of “correct” English at the Concord, Massachusetts, public library expelled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at the time of its publication as “the veriest trash.”

Sufficiently adept writers discover the possibilities of code switching within a text, as you can see in a passage from H.L. Mencken’s opinion of the Warren Harding inaugural address: “He writes the worst English I have even encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean-soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abscess!) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.”

But always keep in mind what Flannery O’Connor said about what one can do and cannot do in writing: “You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.”

Let me recommend to you two books to enlarge your sense of language and its possibilities. You will profit from reading Don’t Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language by David Shariatmadari and Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch.

John Early McIntyre was a professional editor for more than 40 years, 34 of them at The Baltimore Sun, from which he recently retired. John earned an undergraduate degree in English from Michigan State University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a master’s degree in English from Syracuse University, where he was a university fellow. John taught editing at Loyola University Maryland for 25 years. A charter member of ACES: The Society for Editing, he served two terms as its president. John has presented workshops on writing and editing at conferences and publications in the United States and Canada. He is the author of two small but trenchant books, The Old Editor Says: Maxims on Writing and Editing, and Bad Advice: The Most Unreliable Counsel Available on Grammar, Usage, and Writing.

Marketing Madness

Thursday, July Post a comment

Marketing Schmarketing! It’s the portion of my writing life that I estimate will take a little bit of time, when in reality, it takes quite a bit.

When my friends were raising support, they heard an interesting illustration. “Raising support is like hunting for the 30 or so pieces of gravel that have been painted red on the backside. Your job? Start at the beginning of a gravel driveway, and start turning over rocks until you find them all.”

That feels like marketing to me. Or at least it did.

Last summer, God provided a surprising way for me to hire a marketing mentor to help me sift through my marketing efforts. It’s been enlightening. Instead of turning over thousands of rocks, he’s helping me locate the red rocks strategically, thus saving me time. And a little sanity.

Here are some things he’s helped me do:

Develop two brands: Turning Trials to Triumph, and Build the Christian Family You Never Had (ripped from the headlines of my second book). This covers fiction and nonfiction. The second one is conducive to speaking, which I am working on beefing up.
Encourage me to do a redesign on my website.
Help me develop two new products to sell on my site. One: a fifty-page tutorial on writing nonfiction book proposals, including two annotated sample proposals. Two: 150 conversation starters you can use around your table with your kids.
Help me strategize places I can send articles to for free, in order to generate buzz.
Encourage me to send out a snail mail newsletter to potential speaking venues. I’m working on my second newsletter, slated to go out to 350 people around the United States.
Inspire me to add to my email database. I added another email newsletter, Inside Renewal. This one’s about going deep with Jesus, and so far the feedback has been great.
Help me form strategic alliances with ministries who might need my books. (Missions organizations in Europe for Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture, Counseling entities for my novels, and several moms ministries for my conversation starters).

For speaking:

He’s helped me hone the way I speak, offering a painful, but helpful critique on one of my speeches. I’m a much better speaker now and hope to have a high-quality recording of my speaking soon to give to potential speaking gigs. In the meantime, I have a snippet of my Family Life interview on my site.
He’s coached me on effective radio techniques, including learning the beauty of sound bites, and tying in my topic to a giveaway on my website.
He’s reminded me to put my book cover and contact information on any free article I send out.
He’s showed me the importance of selling my books on my website. Before my new site was up, I created a Paypal page on my blog to sell Authentic Parenting while the blog tour was going on. This gave us tangible numbers on the success of the tour, whereas, if we had relied on Amazon rankings, we wouldn’t really know how many books we sold as a result of the tour.

Probably the most important thing he did was help me come up with value statements; in other words, what kind of value do I bring to my listeners and readers. Here are a few to help you wrap your mind around what I mean. (And, hey, this took me a month to get my mind around it. Not easy at all.) I help people so fully heal from tragedy that others would never know the trauma had occurred. I help parents create a haven in their home so their kids are wildly enthusiastic about coming home every day. I help people approach God in such a way that they know His reality and His direct dealings every single day.

So I’m more strategic about my gravel turning these days. All this stuff has taken me months to accomplish, and I still feel like a neophyte. Two cool things happened in the midst of all this:

As I discovered what God had made me to do, and the life message He had given me, revival blew through my heart. I never thought I’d find more of Jesus in the midst of marketing. Wow.
Even though I’m working hard at finding those red rocks, I see God’s sovereign hand often in the way He finds rocks for me. I may be strategic now, but He is the Great Helper when it comes to marketing. Speaking gigs only He could orchestrate have fallen into my lap. Writing opportunities, too. I have found that trying to market myself on my own would be a futile, silly endeavor. Oh how I need Jesus! And even in all of my strategies and His sovereignty, I rest in the fact that He holds my career and ministry in His hands.

This is a long post, I know. But my prayer is that something inside it will be a help to you as you market yourself or your books and articles.

Mary E. DeMuth helps people to turn their trials into triumphs. She mentors new authors through the publishing process and has written two tutorials on book proposals (one for fiction and another for nonfiction). An expert in Pioneer Parenting, Mary enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families were not good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, including Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). A pioneer parent herself, Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, where they planted a church.

Giving Away Free Copies, Tribes, and Sovereignty

Thursday, July Post a comment

On Sunday, I listened to some amazing podcasts about the music industry and how it had to morph and change in light of Napster and the digital sharing age.

I tend to gravitate toward the idea of tribes, of creating a unique community. That takes time, but what happens is that you gain fans gathered around a cause, folks who are zealous to promote your books for you. To me, it typifies this verse: “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips” (Proverbs 27:2).

Giving things away free, in light of creating a tribe, then, makes sense. You are offering a bit of yourself, your heart, for a potential tribe member.

Another strategy to consider is this: the kingdom of God. I love what Randy Alcorn says. He gives away his books as God leads. He keeps several with him when he travels, giving books away to clerks, hotel employees, cab drivers, and housekeepers. He sees it as his way of expanding God’s message to a hurting world.

Being mindful of all that, I’ve navigated “free” by praying, asking God to situationally guide me as I give away books. Sometimes He says not to do it. Sometimes He prompts me to give sacrificially. I am learning to let the pieces rest in His sovereign hands.

Aside: My novel Daisy Chain was offered free on the Kindle store last month. The result is hard to measure, though I have seen a spike in actual book sales. The negative is that folks who get the book for free aren’t thinking as they read it that it will have a Christian worldview, so I got some pretty awful and mean-spirited reviews out of the deal. But on the whole, I think the experiment did give me exposure to a wider audience as I’ve had correspondence with new fans.

In this marketing world, I tend to think in terms of one little decision at a time, and that those little decisions, though they take forever, add up to something bigger over time. The key is to continue to be faithful in little things, not to get discouraged, hold everything loosely, and rest in God’s sovereignty.

How Do You Know If You’re Ready for an Agent?

Thursday, July Post a comment

Recently I received an email from a long-lost acquaintance who decided it was time to write a book. He asked me if I could give him contacts in the publishing industry, including my agent. In his letter, he proved he didn’t know anything about this crazy publishing industry, so I sent him my standard “Dear New Writer” letter and haven’t heard back.

The truth is, this writing gig is not easy. It’s not as simple as asking a friend in the industry to put in a good word for you. It’s tedious and time consuming.

My friend’s words got me thinking. How would someone know if they were ready for the bigtime? Is there a magical way of discovering when one is ready to find an agent? Curious?

Here’s a checklist for those of you who are wondering if you’re ready for an agent:

I have attended a conference (local is fine) and received feedback from someone in the industry. (And if that feedback is negative, I’ve learned to thicken my skin and change what needs to be changed.)
I have found a critique group (online or in my city). I’ve submitted several things to be critiqued and have learned to take criticism in a constructive and productive way.
I have learned (trained myself) to make deadlines. (If you haven’t done this, give yourself a deadline today. Say, “I will write three query letters” or something like that “by January 25th.” Then meet that deadline. Make another. Meet it.)
I have mastered the art of query letter writing.
I have published several magazine articles on the local level, and perhaps a few on the national level.
If I write fiction, I will have completely finished my novel and had it critiqued (or even paid for a critique).
If I write nonfiction, I will have finished my proposal and three chapters until they shine like a new copper penny.
I have learned the industry well. I am well-versed in Sally Stuart’s Market Guide.
I have a body of work that’s been recognized (either by being published or garnering awards).
If I write nonfiction, I have a good, solid platform. (If you don’t know what this means, you’re not ready for an agent.)
I’ve established a readership online through a blog or website. I have a significant online presence.
I have read over five books on the craft of writing.
I am not naïve about the fiscal workings of the business. (I have a cursory understanding about advances, royalties, rights, copyrights, and how authors get paid.)
I am not delusional, thinking my first book will hit it big and land me on Oprah.
I am teachable.
I am not a one-book wonder. I have a good listing of book ideas.
I understand the concept of branding.
I have started to develop friendships within the writing community.
Someone in the industry has said that my writing is ready for publication (and he’s/she’s not related to me).
I write every day.
I have not despised writing in obscurity.
I value BOC time (bottom on chair).
I set word count or page goals and meet them.
I sense God pushing me in this direction.
I have integrity.
I am low maintenance.
I value professionalism. I am willing to make strategic investments in my career (professional photo and business card, website that doesn’t look slapped together, etc.).

If you can say yes to most of the things on this list, chances are you’re ready to start thinking about an agent. The best way to meet an agent is in person at a conference. But if that won’t work, do your research and start submitting. A word of caution: DO NOT SUBMIT unless you are completely sure what you’ve written is fresh, stellar, and breathtaking. Study the market to make sure your idea is different. Agents are longing for excellent writers who have surprising, world-altering ideas. Work, work, work until your book is that.

Can You Realistically Make a Living as a Writer?

Sunday, July Post a comment

At the recent Christian Book Expo, I spent a good deal of time talking with a friend of mine who’s in an ancillary business for Christian writers. He said in this economy he’s diversifying his business, stressing it’s the only way to stay solvent and successful. That got me thinking about my last year of writing and how I’ve tried to beef up my monthly income.

First thing I did was revamp my website and create a store. Selling books from my site hasn’t generated bucket loads of moolah, but it’s always fun to make a few bucks here and there. I use Click and Ship at USPS.com with the post office’s free flat rate envelopes to ship. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be.

I also created products on my site: 150 downloadable conversation starters to use around the dinner table and a nonfiction proposal tutorial. Both took up-front time, but since they’re e-products, they’re essentially free income to me. Author Randy Ingermanson calls this passive income — you can make money as you sleep. Plus, both products are beneficial to families and writers. I’m currently working on another major product with some writing friends.

In addition, I spent time learning how to become a better speaker. I’m thankful for the mentoring I received at Wildfire Marketing. (They also helped me with branding, my website, the products, and so much more.) Because of their feedback, I was able to greatly improve my ability to communicate, streamline my speaking process (in terms of getting gigs), and charge higher fees.

In the spirit of diversification, I also write articles. This month, I have an article in Focus on the Family magazine entitled “Under Ghana’s Sky” about my now-13-year-old son’s quest to provide water for a village in Ghana. I’ve finally broken into Writer’s Digest and The Writer, which took several years. My next goal is to write for one of the biggies like Family Circle or O. (One can dream!)

I write books, and those advances help the bottom line. But my goal is to out earn those advances, so I’m working on new marketing ideas and experimenting with social networking. I have seen great response so far with Twitter and Facebook, though it’s hard to measure actual sales. That’s the kind of work that you can’t quantify, and it’s frustrating not to be paid for doing it, but that’s the nature of the beast, I suppose.

And last, I mentor writers at The Writing Spa. This has been a great avenue of steadier income, plus I have the privilege of teaching others. I’m toying around with doing seminars/workshops where I live, where four or five writers come for a weekend intensive, but haven’t fleshed that out yet.

So there you have my own experiment at diversification. I’m getting closer at making a living, but not quite there yet. It’s taken me a good eight years to get to this place. How about you?

What are you doing to create income as you write?

What has helped?

What has bombed?

Do you feel it’s possible to make a living wage as a writer?

Is there anything I’ve missed? (I know writing for corporations is a viable, lucrative option, for instance.)

A Surefire Way to Improve Your Writing Today: Read Your Work Aloud

Saturday, July Post a comment

This past weekend I went to Nashville to record the Thin Places’ audio book. This is my first time reading for a book recording, and the whole process proved to be enlightening. Afterward, I realized that if every author read their work aloud, their work would improve dramatically.

Reading the book aloud, I found three errors. Remember that a traditionally published book goes through several phases of editing. The substantive edit is the biggie where the editor tells you your macro problems (leaps of logic, if a novel: story issues, lack of clarity, poor research, etc.). Then the book goes through a line edit where grammar issues are corrected. After that, you read through it again, then you receive the galleys to also proofread. So you’re typically looking at the manuscript at a minimum of four times, not to mention all the editorial eyes on the piece. Thin Places had been through all four of these stages, and yet as I read it aloud, I caught what I considered blaring errors, which I’ve emailed to the publisher. Thankfully, the book is not yet in print, so it’s easily fixable.

You find your pet words. Who knew I used the word penchant way too much? Or mess? Editors do catch these things, but sometimes they don’t. At this point in the game, I can’t replace my extra words, but I do wish I’d have read it out loud before it was submitted to the publisher.
You catch awkward sentence structure. Nothing is better than articulating your sentences out loud to catch clunky wording. I stumbled a few times, having to re-read the sentence or paragraph to make it work. Had I read the entire manuscript out loud, I’d have caught these.
You catch repetitive themes. I realized how much I wrote about how hard it is for me to justify my existence on this earth, how very broken and needy I was/am. How my insecurity bleeds into my life. (Of course, this is dependent on the type of book you’ve written. Since mine is a memoir, these are the kinds of things I found.)

If you truly want to grow, change, and become an excellent writer, I highly recommend reading your work out loud. Sure, you risk your family thinking you’re bonkers, but at least you’ll be a better writer (crazy, yes, but better!)

25 Ways to Promote and Stay Sane

Saturday, July Post a comment

Traveling, promotion, and marketing always take far more time than you think it will. When I had three books released in one year (which made for a hectic prior year in terms of writing), I got very, very tired doing all that promotion (and I did it from France for the most part). But in some ways it was beneficial to be in another country because when I did travel, I got a lot done at one time.

My family is a priority for me, so I try to stagger my time away from them.

But the best thing you can do now is strategize. Believe me, the marketing/publicity machine will take you by surprise. Having a plan in place beforehand will greatly benefit you.

Here are 25 tips:

Decide how many out-of-state visits you’ll do in a year, then stick to it.
Winnow out non-paying jobs (speaking-wise) to maximize time.
Try to cluster your speaking events.
If you’re going somewhere anyway, query local churches, radio stations, and bookstores to book several venues.
Consider using part of your advance to hire a publicity person. A good publicist is worth his/her weight in gold (or these days, gas!). They do all the hard work for you — finding media outlets, scheduling appearances and interviews, and garnering reviews and articles. Although I know I COULD do these things, I simply don’t have the time to do them. I do have time for interviews of course, but all the behind-the-scenes stuff overwhelms me.
Consider hiring a personal assistant part time (5–10 hours a week) to help you with marketing and publicity.
Have an accountability prayer team who keeps you honest about the time you’re spending away from your family.
Each publicity/media opportunity that comes your way, pray that the Lord would use your words to touch many. Don’t think of it as a time to perform or do shameless promotion of your book, but as a chance to further the Kingdom of God.
Enlist the help of your spouse and kids to do promotion (sending out books, database entry, etc.) so they feel ownership in what you do.
Ask your family for permission if you take a far-away opportunity to speak.
In the initial stages of your speaking career (if you have one), you’ll usually say yes a lot to low-paying, far-away venues. But as you improve and charge higher fees, really consider the cost–benefit analysis of your time. I can write a sellable article or two in the time it would take me to speak. So I’m more careful of my time, and speak less (more strategically).
Consider paying for a housecleaner (same rationale as above . . . I can write enough to pay a housekeeper several times over in the time it would take to clean my house). This frees me up to do more writing or promotion.
When your book releases, try to create a window of time where you can solely concentrate on its promotion. It’s hard to do but will be rewarding. That one-month launch window closes quickly.
Organize your calendar well. Be sure you place family obligations, bills to pay, medical appointments, EVERYTHING, on one master calendar. Otherwise, you may book yourself on a day your child is in a school play.
Ask the Lord to give order to your days.
Observe the Sabbath. If you go-go-go, you’ll quickly burn out. Take a day out of the week to rejuvenate.
Remember the tyranny of the urgent. Instead, create goals for your career, including marketing and publicity, and stick to those when the urgent things come up.
And yet, be interruptible.
Consider giving some of your time away as a sacrifice. I write and speak for free on occasion, when I sense the Lord leading me to do so.
Keep a marketing idea file on your desktop. When you find a great idea, copy and paste it there. When your next book comes out, you’ll have a whole arsenal of ideas to promote it.
Remember the power of the web. Right now is the best time if you don’t have a book out to concentrate on creating a strong web presence. Write a monthly newsletter and begin to amass subscribers. Create a blog that gets read.
Keep a list of all your media contacts in a database. When a book comes out, you can send an e-blast to those entities, letting them know you’ve got a new title out.
Network now. Make friends with media professionals, publishers, and people in the industry.
Consider introducing yourself whenever you’re in a bookstore as an author or potential author.
If you are building a speaking career, let your circle of friends and family know. Sometimes the coolest speaking opportunities come through relational connections like this. Your network can also help you connect with pertinent media and marketing people.

Converting a New Client to a Long-Term Client

Friday, July Post a comment

One of the easiest ways to get additional assignments is to work often for your favorite clients.

Three important strategies for getting existing clients to hand you new assignments are

always having a next project to offer existing clients
asking your best clients for more work, again and again
adding new skills and abilities so you can pitch to existing clients additional types of assignments.

These are all good ways to extend the time frame in which you’re doing work for particular clients — in effect converting new and presumably short-term clients to long-term clients.

Other specific techniques you can use to encourage new clients to steadily offer you additional, sometimes even on-going or regularly-repeating, assignments are

offer to update or expand on previous work
investigate client activities to find additional areas in which you can contribute
develop key relationships so you become the go-to professional
bring new ideas and information, some with an eye on generating assignments for yourself, some just to prove yourself valuable to the client.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

Offer to Update or Expand on Previous Work

It’s quite common for professional writers to be given assignments that are more important and more long-term than a simple one-off piece of work.

For example, if you’re asked to write the president’s statement in a company’s annual report, chances are the company is going to need another one written next year. Or if you write an article for an insurance company on ways to avoid winter weather damage, chances are the company will want a similar article written when next winter rolls around. And you’ve already got the experience and contacts to do these assignments effectively.

Similarly, if you’re asked to write up a client’s capabilities and current contract for a website or a marketing brochure, it’s fair to assume that sometime down the road the client will have expanded capabilities and new contracts. Who better than you to do this new write-up, particularly since you are already up to speed?

In addition, more sophisticated professional writers, and their clients that either are or can be educated to appreciate more sophisticated work, recognize that many writing projects — blogs, content marketing efforts, strategic branding programs, newsletters, seasonal information efforts, insider reports, and so forth — are natural candidates for ongoing updates and continuations.

To help keep more of your clients on your active roster, get in the habit of thinking about each assignment you accept as not only the specific work the assignment involves today, but also as whatever additional work the assignment can reasonably lead to in the future.

Investigate Client Activities to Find Areas in Which You Can Contribute

Whenever you’re working for a client, you’re in a great position to find out more about what the client is doing now, as well as what the client hopes to be doing in the future. Be curious about all this. Look for clues. Sniff out this kind of information. As you find out more, think about possible ways you can add your skill set, experience, creativity, and know-how to the client’s current, definitely upcoming, and hoped-for activities.

For example, when I was writing professional education audio programs for a major association, it came to my attention that key marketing people had the idea to expand into producing films, as well. Guess who got the contract to write and produce the first one?

Develop Key Relationships So You Become the Go-To Professional

Many professionals obtain a great deal of their work through the people who know them and think highly of their work. This provides an excellent avenue to convert new clients to long-term ones.

The strategy here is not only to deliver good work to the client, but to cultivate honest, close relationships with key decision-makers. I’m not advocating that you suck up to jerks or endure insults from abusive people who happen to wield power. I’m simply saying that a savvy professional should be open to finding friends among his or her clients and allowing these friendships to endure even when the client relationship itself appears to be tailing off.

You’ll find that when you have friends who like you and appreciate your professional abilities, they will enjoy offering you additional assignments that cross their desks, perhaps over a period of many years.

Bring New Ideas and Information

One of the reasons large organizations often have both in-house departments and outside consultants working on the same problems and opportunities is that no one has a monopoly on good ideas or information. In fact, the supply of good ideas and information is often quite limited.

That’s why you can help convert new clients to long-term clients if you not only deliver your high-quality work on time, but you also serve as an outside consultant who brings your client useful ideas and information.

Becoming a source of useful ideas and information for your client will help to keep you top of mind. It will also help strengthen your client’s perception of you as a knowledgeable professional who can help with a wide range of valuable tasks.

Obviously, you’ll want to call your client’s attention to an idea or a piece of information that can lead directly to a new assignment for you. But it’s almost — some would say equally — important that you also provide your client useful ideas and information that may not immediately tie in with your capabilities. The more valuable you can be to your clients, in any and every way, the more likely they will keep you busy with assignments over the long-term.

Over the years, I’ve worked with lots of different clients — some one-offs, some over the long-term. Although I can’t claim a 100% success rate in converting new and short-term clients to long-term sources of work, I’ve had a lot of success in my efforts to do this, and in helping other professionals do the same. I’ve found that success in prompting these kinds of client conversions is often a matter of knowing and using the right strategies, coupled with maintaining the right mindset.

Robert Moskowitz is an award-winning independent professional writer who has written and sold millions of words in just about every format over five decades. He instinctively sees the big pictures, breaks each one down into coherent slices, meaningfully prioritizes and sequences those slices, and then executes the tasks inherent in each slice in very productive ways. Put more simply, Robert knows how to succeed as an independent writer, covering all the bases from soliciting assignments to delivering polished work, from pricing jobs to budgeting and managing personal finances, from organizing a conducive office environment to establishing and following sensible guidelines regarding life, work, and productivity. Having done all this, and having paid attention to how he did it, Robert is now in a position to pass along what he knows to others.

10 Things I Learned When I was a Newly Published Author

Thursday, July Post a comment

I’m off to the Colorado Christian Writers Conference, so time is a bit crazy for me. I found this article I wrote two years ago and thought it would be fun to share with you. I learned a lot as a newly published author, and many of those lessons are still valuable today. What about you? Can you think of ten things (or four or seven) that you’ve learned since you became a published author?

I’ve learned a lot of surprising things as I’ve realized the dream of being a published author. For those of you in the midst of the pursuit, I offer a few snippets of advice that may help you along the journey.

Make friends. When you go to a writers’ conference, be more consumed with making relationships with other writers who are in your stage of publication. These dear folks will become some of your closest friends. As your manuscripts get published, you’ll be able to seek advice, ask for prayer, and request endorsements.
Get used to rejection. It happens on every level of the publishing process. You’ll be rejected by publishing houses, agents, magazine editors, and people who DON’T want you to speak. And as you get published, there’s more rejection heaped on. Now that I’m a “midlist” author, I experience yet another level of rejection, getting messages like, “Well, we’ll talk to you in a few months, when we see whether your numbers are up.” Ouch. Repeat to yourself: rejection is normal; rejection is normal; rejection is normal. Rejection is the air you breathe in this crazy business.
Realize that publishing is a BUSINESS. Though you may view your writing primarily as a ministry, the folks paying you advances see it in bottom-line terms. Be prepared to be a part of that. Realize that a lot of the onus for marketing will rest on your shoulders.
Kindness will preserve you. Don’t burn bridges. Don’t be petty. Shun gossip. Yep, this is a weird business populated by all sorts of people. Realize it’s a small community and word gets out.
Do your best NOT to be difficult. Meet deadlines. Answer emails promptly. Listen, really listen, to your editor. Unless it’s deeply important to you, acquiesce to their changes. That will allow you to go to bat for the things you think really shouldn’t be changed. But always, always communicate with kindness and respect.
Make friends with folks in the industry whether they help your career or not. I’ve made some lovely, lovely friends who I will probably never work with. The fun thing, though, is that this is a fickle industry. Editors and agents and publishers move hither and yon all the time. Connect with all sorts of folks, not for the sake of your gain, but because Jesus is fascinated by people and you should be too. Pay attention to the people God puts in your life. Perhaps that editor will become a lifelong friend.
Don’t become so hootie-tootie for your own britches that you are beyond editing. Make it a goal to write a better book (or article or column) each time. Be teachable. Become a lifelong learner of the craft. Go to conferences.
Give back whenever you can. Teaching enables you to learn more. Consider that helping other people become better writers is a gift you give to the future. You never know the impact Jesus will make through another writer.
Get rid of jealousy. Life’s way too short to brood on someone else’s talent or success. Rejoice with those who succeed. No sticking pins (or pens) into the hands or brains of successful writer voodoo dolls. (Say THAT 10 times fast!)
Continue to read widely. Read different genres, classics, poetry, pithy articles, writing books, comics, and, of course, Watching the Tree Limbs. (Sorry, I’m simply obeying number 3 . . . yeah, baby, the marketing onus is on my shoulders!)

5 Tips for Celebrity Interview Success

There Is No Correct English

Marketing Madness

Giving Away Free Copies, Tribes, and Sovereignty

How Do You Know If You’re Ready for an Agent?

Can You Realistically Make a Living as a Writer?

A Surefire Way to Improve Your Writing Today: Read Your Work Aloud

25 Ways to Promote and Stay Sane

Converting a New Client to a Long-Term Client

10 Things I Learned When I was a Newly Published Author

Latest Posts

Beyond Writing: How Expanding Your Services Can Strengthen Your Freelance Business

Am I a Writer or Not?

Be Prepared for That Crisis Moment When You Need Business Backup

Stick with Your System

In a Pricing Rut? Try These 3 Strategies

Improving Your Vision

Contact Us