My freelancing experience: wanting to overcome my publisher distrust
Freelance writer Adam Abbasi-Sacca has called on all media publications to play with a straight bat when it comes to editorial submissions. Here’s his experience as he sees it, and a way forward.
I did not want to be writing this. But as a freelance writer (freelancer), you rarely get to steer what work is deemed worthy of publication and what remains hidden in the vortex of a submission mailbox – never to see the light of day.
So here we are.
Disclaimer: I am not looking for sympathy from this piece. I am writing this to empower other writers in my situation to know they are not alone. To encourage them to keep writing and trusting.
Agree that a long-term approach to rebuilding trust is needed.
Adam, you would receive more feedback if you sent a proposal rather than an unsolicited manuscript. From my experience as a freelancer you are much more likely to get a response using this method. You have to put yourself in the editor’s shoes: how many 800 to 1000 word manuscripts can you read in a day and and still have time for anything else? Whereas a short punchy proposal is more likely to get attention.And there is less worry that someone else will steal your thoughts and ideas.
Does hiding writing behind a proposal address the root issue (unethical behaviour) or just work around it?
I’m not surprised the writer has a 10% response hit rate. With apparently no effort building relationships with real people – the editors making the decisions – nor writing a pitch targeted to the publication instead of filing a Hail Mary 1000 words of ‘what I did on my holiday’, 10% is probably on the high side.
Ruth; it appears you are you suggesting that the way for any freelancer to gain traction and a higher than 10% hit rate (and therefore – ultimately – to secure a pathway to not see their writing stolen from right under them), is to cuddle up to editors and create a “relationship” with said editors?
I do wonder, given your comment on this relationship-building point, how many editors would thank you or despise you for the fact that their inboxes may now be overflowing with faux sycophantic wannabes with no more or less talent for writing than the author of this piece…?
Not sure the issue being debated is the strike rate and assuming (because it is an assumption that the author does not hold or build relations with the editor) the content is not fit for purpose, why is it seemingly recycled?
No, the issue nominally being debated is not the strike rate. Frankly, I’m not completely sure which issue he’s debating. The whole piece is something of a word salad. The end appears to be an exhortation for editors he’s never bothered to personally contact (his words) to never to publish a story that looks similar to one of his missives again — after a suspected idea theft he’s not bothered to take up with the publication, and may in fact not even have happened.
Yet the middle — “But in the loudness of nil response” — appears to be a complaint about editors not emailing him back.
And the whole reads like an entitled guy who thinks his ideas deserve an audience, without putting in the work of actually talking to anyone.
Ruth – disagree re blaming the writer for doing as publications suggest (which is ultimately to write a pitch email to their mailbox and often without direct contact details for editors in the first place). Nicely summed Kelly.
So, Ruth; are you suggesting that the way for any freelancer to gain traction and higher than 10% hit rate, and therefore – ultimately – in order to not have their writing stolen from them, is to cuddle up to editors and create a “relationship” with them? I do wonder, given your comment on the relationship-building, how many editors would thank you or despise you for the fact that their inboxes may now be overflowing with faux sycophantic wannabes with no more or less talent for writing than the author of this piece…?
An experience I have faced far too often – thanks for putting it into words.
To me it sounds like someone complaining that he isn’t getting a great hit rate to do something they love – which just may not be a practical approach to work.
I am passionate about puppies and foals and I think I should be able to get paid to play with them, but it just seems like no one is willing to pay me for it.
Either write what publishers want written or lower your expectations of the demand for your work.
Ms. Puppy Player (hoping that’s how you’d like to be addressed). Really don’t think the central concern here is the strike rate for the author. Central issue being addressed is using words from a proposal in other published pieces. But hey, I love puppies too… I just wouldn’t write a comment about a puppy’s collar, when the article is about the puppy itself (ya know what I mean?)