The Hunting Editor

"Freelance Writing" sounds romantic and adventure riddled. An Engineer for example evokes pictures of dirty hands and a sweat covered brow, a dentist of a man grimacing as the patient opens their mouth and an insurance salesman as boring. A freelance writer though enjoys the image of residing in a country setting, sitting at a table in the garden with a glass of wine and a typewriter sitting idly to hand. Or of a wanderer, a heavy booted, lost to this world walker who every so often jots down notes in a well-thumbed notebook.

Reality though states otherwise. The Engineer is a highly skilled expert who may spend most of his time in an office; the dentist is well paid and most likely takes pride and enjoyment in his work; the Insurance Salesman is erm, well, an Insurance Salesman.

Writing articles without a steady wage is an extremely hard if not impossible way to earn money. Often the ability to obtain a decent return is not through the skill or level of writing produced but through contacts or good will. Today, were thousands of excellent writers who work for newspapers and magazines earning suitable wages, there are hundreds of thousands more who struggle onwards, faithful in their ability and ever hopeful of becoming noticed.

To be under-the-eye of the powers above is harder than the actual writing process itself. An article can be written, edited and presented within a morning of frenzy and brain emptying activity. From waking up and scrubbing the teeth to opening the empty fridge in the search for lunch a 5000 word essay or article can be produced - as suitable for immediate printing in some magazine or newspaper.

The next step though, is were the weak-hearted writers give up and become engineers or insurance 'salespeople', all thoughts of ever getting noticed wiped away with the total lack of interest received and the constant discouragement from editors! The semi-strong of hearts take a job and try to write freelance in their spare time, some win through but most of them eventually end up alongside the light-hearted, selling insurance or sweating life out with a spanner in their hands. Finally the strong-willed! They just keep on going, living on baked beans and water and doing nothing in-life except write and submit, write and submit! The strong-of-heart just keep on attempting to market the article that only took a morning to write, it may be months if not years before it gets to publication, but they keep on going! A few win through but most don't!

And then along came The Internet .............

Traditional methods of submitting works are still common and preferred by some of the larger and paying print media. These outlets though are extremely hard to get into and even harder to establish a relationship with. They may accept the one article and pay accordingly but for the desperate and financially stricken freelance writer this is not enough.

The Internet is progressing and changing rapidly and eventually the traditional outlets will turn to the Web for the means to receive all submissions. This leaves the budding freelance writer with only one option for submissions, that of the Internet. The World Wide Web will become the only place to look, to market, to search, to submit and to place ones hope's on. Whether articles accepted will be paid for or published in the print media will remain a massive task to accomplish and one that is still not for the light-hearted.

The Internet has been pushed in recent years as a means of allowing unknown writers to have their works published. And yes, the Internet is now filled with gazillions of articles, essays and stories written by as yet unknown persons and previously unpublished authors and anybody can read them if they know where to look. The Internet has given to the freelance writer an opportunity to see his/her work published albeit only on a one-horse outfit Blog whose site may shut down within a week from lack of interest. There are so many 'writers' on the web that to get noticed by anybody except immediate family members is worse than in the days of submitting articles on paper!

Website owners and webmasters love to have articles displayed on their pages that are relative to the goods that they offer. These websites can have as many articles as they want, the web is full of writers wanting to give away their works for free, just for a little bit of publicity. And should an article be submitted by some desperate and searching writer they will typically respond with, "thanks, we would love to publish your article but as we are a non-profit site we cannot afford to pay you for it".

After a mornings high activity of writing and editing an article, days and weeks if not months will be spent on marketing it - trying to find a paying outlet. Thousands of budding and potential authors are following this path eagerly and with desperation and most will fall along the way.

The Writers Solution ...........

One method that is gaining ground is for authors to have and to set up their own websites or Blogs. In this way all material is presented on their own site and in whatever manner they see fit. The setting up of these sites is not difficult and is getting easier with time. The end principle here is that any writer can write a piece, upload it to their own site thus making it readily available for anybody to read. Should a piece be accepted by a publisher it can easily be removed from the site, should this be required for copyright reasons

One of many stumbling blocks that exist with this mode of presentation is the fact that editors and publishers do not like it. They most certainly do not want to trawl and search the Internet through hundreds of sites to find articles - they want the articles to come to them. They want to sit in their offices and have submissions sent directly to their doorstep (personal computer) from whence they can pick and choose, they want to be the hunted not the hunters.

Face it though, to perform to the whims of editors, to write and submit to their demands usually ends up in rejection after rejection, snotty reply to "you're not good enough"! Ninety-nine percent of struggling authors will never have anything they write published in print, so why bother trying?

It is easy to set-up a website or blog, it is easy to publish articles on them! To have a website though does not automatically mean that potential visitors will be pouring in. The site needs to be marketed and to be listed in the search engines and directories; not an easy task but one that is not insurmountable! The need to market has overtaken the need to submit print copies to editors. The best way to market a website is to submit the website address to the large search engines like Google or Yahoo. The idea though is not to confuse the path ahead with marketing and to forget all about writing as many people do! Remember, the Internet is a large Juggernaut that takes time to get where it wants to go, so leave the website to gain ground, it may take a year, it may take longer but simply sit back and write some quality works in the meantime!

An excellent marketing ploy to gain ground is for four or five similarly-minded authors to get together, either through one website or by linking their sites in a ring. In this way a 'library' is formed with each website helping to market the other! The websites should come without adverts, newsletters and promotional features: without gimmicks, annoyances, guest books and counters and without lengthy links to endless sites that only serve to confuse. Sites that simply portray the authors work in basic style, that are easy to read, will go further than those filled with cheap gimmicks!

With a little bit of ground work, a little bit of artistic flair, some quality written articles and with fingers crossed it is possible to have an outlet! Maybe only grandmother will visit, possibly a Prussian coal-miner might happen to pass through and not understand a word but the important fact is that editors are no longer sitting comfortably with piles of articles to choose from. No longer do they sit back in their comfy chairs listening to struggling authors pleading on their knees! If every hopeful writer had a website, if every budding author concentrated on marketing their personal website instead of concentrating on submissions then editors would have to get off their behinds and go looking for the articles that they want.

Most writers will still turn to selling insurance or to wielding a spanner to put the bread on the table despite having their own website! At least something has changed though!

"Editors it is time for the writers to be the hunted".

"You come and get us, we will no longer go looking for you!"