A couple of things happened over the last few weeks that have me reassessing some time worn, and not so time worn practices that we regularly see in the writing industry. First up, Failure to Reply.
đ§ Failure to Reply
I know that most of you stay on top of email by virtue of thatâs how most editors, content managers and clients connect with us. If they have an assignment for you, if they need a revise, if theyâre offering you a nice fat, juicy gig, they email you.
And because youâre you and you know how our industry operates, you likely stay pretty well on top of those messages.
Smart phones, tablets and the 24/7 connected lives we lead probably help this endeavor more than in any decade before.
But guess what? Failure to Reply is still a thing. And with it comes missing out on opportunities whether last minute or not.
Point in fact, a friend I know was looking for someone to ghostwrite a book. She reached out to a few ghostwriters she knew to ask if they had the bandwidth and the interest in the subject matter.
Well, one writer had her âout of officeâ message on. Thatâs fine, we all need breaks, mental health days, time off and vacations sometimes and we shouldnât feel guilty about that.
But the thing is, it was a short notice project worth something near $60K. And that writer, true to her âout of officeâ message, never even replied.
Being âout of the officeâ cost her a possible $60K book project.
We all need to be out of the office, I get it. But when a giant ghost book offer comes along, you might want to hit reply if at all possible, even if youâre out of the office.
đŽ Because we all know that even if youâre lying blissfully on a beach somewhere in tropical paradise, you can probably take a second to scan your phone daily for anything important.
Failure of Revealing too Much?
Next up, I recently listened to a well-known podcaster who was making a case for letting clients know when youâre going to be away in the future. Like, you know you have a long weekend away at the end of the month or two weeks off in December, so he suggests cluing your clients in now.
Re: Hey Mr. Smith, just a heads up that Iâm going to be gone over the 4th weekend in a couple weeks, so if you have any pressing projects, do let me know so I can take them into account before I go.
Re: Hi Martha, Just letting you know that Iâll be away from December 15-30th this year and wanted to give you the update in case you think you might have some projects coming down the pipeline at that time. Please reach out with anything you might have in the works.
The premise behind this is that you jar loose a little early work from your client by reminding them of when youâre going to be away. Sounds sensible enough, right?
But another writer friend recently told me it backfired. When she updated her email signature that she was going to be away over a long weekend one recent month, her email went radio silent for the entire month. It was almost as if clients or potential clients read that and thought, âwhoa, I better not bother her for a monthâ simply because she mentioned being gone over one weekend. Strange, right?
But it may have to do with revealing too much. Perhaps we canât hope clients react the way we intended with our away news after all. It may just have the opposite effect. Instead of rushing in to contact you before you go since youâre front of mind, they file away a mental note that says, âdonât contact so and so, theyâre going to be away.â Ouch.
đ§đŒâđ« Freelance on the Side
Finally, the last practice is this little thing called freelance on the side. If youâve ever taken a contract gig, a book deal with a tight turnaround, or a full time job and thought, Iâll just freelance on the side, well, so have we all.
The thing is, it doesnât usually pan out well. Two other writer friends I know recently talked about this phenomenon where they thought they could actually keep up and freelance some on the side.
You know, for extra money or to please clients or because they donât want to disappoint an editor that might need them, or because they really wanted to take on a great project. But in both cases, freelancing on the side seems better in theory than it does it actuality.
đ€ In fact, life, kids, stress, more work responsibilities at the job, added revises to the work, or additions and changes to either their original load or their new project load, illness and just about everything else that can get in the way of freelancing on the side, does.
 So while it looks like it may be a thing you can do in the short term, typically in the long run it doesnât work well. Sure, you can burn all kinds of midnight candles and try to get the work done in every hour of free time you have, but will quality suffer?
And how soon until you burn out completely? How long can your kids, partner, social obligations, family, home and well-being wait while you figure out the toll itâs taking?
The thing is, our brains can craft or create only so much content for only so long and then it simply becomes a matter of not being able to keep up with the sheer volume required.
So do yourself a favor the next time you think, âI can do that, Iâll just freelance on the side,â think super carefully because in most cases it just isnât all that practical.
Who/What/Where to Watch?
Looking for a virtual book club? May as well, everything else is virtual these day. Leave it to Oprah.
Remember the Menâs Health mantra a decade back, eat this, not that? Well, this is âif you canât watch this, read that.â If your favorite show is taking a while to come back from hiatus due to COVID (This is Us or Stranger Things, anyone?) These are the correlating books to get you through.
Sorry but yes, we still love paper. Notebooks, pads, sticky notes, oh my!
Speaking of magazines. Mr. Magazine takes a nostalgic look at womenâs mags circa 1953. And part two. Sniff.
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Stay healthy and safe!
See you next week,
Jennifer