In the pre-internet days, the most popular assignment for
\nfreelance writers was doing magazine articles.<\/p>\n
The way it works: You sent a “query letter” outlining the article
\nyou propose to write.<\/p>\n
Based on the strength of your query letter, the editor said yay
\nor nay.<\/p>\n
Freelance writers typically got the name and address of the right
\neditor from a reference volume called Writer’s Market, which is
\nstill published today.<\/p>\n
And so many writers made a terrible mistake that got them
\nrejection after rejection on their queries.<\/p>\n
Namely, they never actually looked at or read the magazine they
\nwere pitching.<\/p>\n
As a result:<\/p>\n
>> They did not know whether the magazine was entirely staff
\nwritten or also used freelancers.<\/p>\n
>> They did not know what stories the magazine had run recently
\nand so often pitched something the editor had just published —
\nwhich meant the magazine was unlikely to buy another article on the
\nsame topic.<\/p>\n
>> They did not understand the audience for the magazine — who
\nthey were, what interested them, and what they wanted to know.<\/p>\n
>> They did not know the departments and columns that were most
\nopen to freelance contributions.<\/p>\n
So most of their queries were off the mark and fell on deaf ears.<\/p>\n
If you want to freelance for a magazine, get and read a number of
\nissues to get a feel for the points above.<\/p>\n
Likewise, if you are a copywriter, and you get an inquiry, spend
\na few minutes reviewing the company’s website before you call
\nthem.<\/p>\n
Today, the thing seems to be writers (and marketers) asking if
\nthey can write a guest post for someone else’s blog. I get
\nseveral such requests a month.<\/p>\n
And they are making the same stupid mistake magazine writers made
\nin the old day: not reading the blog they want to post to!<\/p>\n
For instance, my blog is about writing, marketing, and business
\nsuccess.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, I got an email from HB who was looking to write
\nguest posts for me.<\/p>\n
The guest posts he offered were all about cryptocurrencies; e.g.,
\nBitcoin.<\/p>\n
Anyone even glancing at my blog would instantly know this is not
\na good fit for me, as I do not write about investing.<\/p>\n
So HB’s post would be completely irrelevant to my readers. And I
\npolitely turned down HB’s offer.<\/p>\n
Frankly — not that he would care if he knew, which he doesn’t —
\nmy opinion of him as a marketer is, based on this one contact
\nwith him, pretty low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the pre-internet days, the most popular assignment for freelance writers was doing magazine articles. The way it works: You sent a “query letter” outlining the article you propose to write. Based on the strength of your query letter, the editor said yay or nay. Freelance writers typically got the name and address of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1655,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions\/1655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}