How to get writing gigs during a recession

Getting writing jobs are difficult enough under normal circumstances, but getting published during a recession requires a fresh yet well planned approach.

Take a multi-tiered approach:

Because the internet is part of our professional, social and personal lives, we can use it in a number of different facets. And when looking for a writing job, it’s typically one of the firsts places (if not the only place) we look. But during an economic downturn, the internet is simply not going to be enough.

You’ll have to go the passé route of combing through the newspaper (not just the want ads as there are often local news pieces that provide information about a community business expanding or being opened, et cetera).

Likewise, in an age of digital communication, phone and face-to-face communications are seen as not only professional but portray those who are willing to actually take the time to take the time to get noticed.

This doesn’t mean that email and internet aren’t necessary, they are necessary for information but they won’t help a jobseeker nearly as much as personal communication.

Network:

As during normal economic circumstances, you’ll want to use your social circles and previous coworkers to network. Also, you can network among your alumni groups, at your church, your children's school, your fellow hobbyists. I continually network for my business, Retail Consulting Solutions in these circles. (But you must do so in a polite and respectful manner, you don’t have to stress how much you need a job when unemployment is nearly 10%.)

Don’t forget to keep notes on who’ve you spoke to and about what. You can use those notes to schedule a time for following up. Not only that, but it will help you to focus your job seeking efforts instead of chasing your tail.

Present yourself professionally:

Make your resume, query letter and thank you notes professional. Don’t just dig out your old publication lists and add the latest in your last gig. While previous publication show you are marketable and responsible and just listing publications don’t show enthusiasm. Where you’ve wowed the publisher or gotten great reader feedback are entries any publication is looking for, particularly during challenging economic times.

No matter how good your resume, you can blow it by not living up to it. You don’t want to go beyond what you’ve said in writing you can or have been. In order to be convincing (and appear professional) everything should “line-up”. That is, your resume and query letter, your thank you note and interview – consistency is key.

Be prepared:

Your communication skills will have to be a cut-above as so many applicants are seeking the same position. It won’t be enough to be dressed professionally and speak well; you’ll have to sell yourself.

Treat “no” as one step closer to finding the next gig:

It may be counterintuitive, but getting a “no” or “we’ve found someone who’s a better fit” can be a positive thing. Take it as a chance you had to sharpen your interview skills. And remember, it isn’t impolite to inquire as to why you didn’t get the job.

How to Protect What You Write, Understanding Publication Rights...a quick guide to publication rights and what they mean

“Rights” simply mean how a publisher is allowed to use your work. And rights aren’t the same thing as compensation or purchase. Furthermore, rights are not regarding copyright…the copyright to your copy (writing) are permanently yours.

First Rights

First Rights are used once your writing has been publish in any medium (whether it been print or electronic: a magazine, blog, newspaper, journal); so first rights are just that, the very first time your piece is published.

First rights are causing some perplexity among publishers and writers alike because of the Internet. Because the traditional relationship between publisher/writer has been altered as more writers self-publish on their own blog or website, first rights are more difficult to determine as to whether blogging qualifies as the first publication. In other words, if a writer posts an original piece on their blog, technically, it has been published for the first time – making that particular piece unacceptable to publishers. Evidence of this can be found on a number of user-contributed websites such as eHow, Helium, HubPages, and Associated Content.

Another thing you should know about first rights is that whether or not you’re paid for your work, first rights have been given once a publisher runs a piece. Thereafter, your work is no longer original (or exclusive) and both writers and publishers value first rights highly.

Exclusive Rights

Exclusive rights have practically the same meaning as journalists use regarding interviews (a Eye Witness News Exclusive) means they are the only organization with the story or interview, the only media outlet where you’ll find said story or interview. When you sell your piece under exclusive rights, you are excluding any other publisher and yourself from publishing that particular work.

Some publishers will try to buy an author’s work under exclusive rights and claim it is the same publishing rights as first-time rights. First rights are sold just one time and are literally the first time a piece is published, whereas exclusive rights are sold over and over (by the publisher, and after their exclusivity expires, by you).

Exclusive rights is giving a publisher the right to publish your work exclusively for a set period of time; during that period, you cannot sell that particular writing to anyone else, nor can you self-publish it on your own website or blog. Once the time period has expired you are free to resell that work to someone else. In regard to the same time period, it is critical that you cross-reference the submission guidelines against the publication rights as they should be uniform. Remember, when a publisher has exclusive rights they may sell that work over and over while the author has given that right away temporarily – so the more money it will earn the publisher, the more money they ought to be offering you for those exclusive rights.

As an examples, for my company, Retail Consulting Solutions, I write all of the press releases and contributing articles to the practices website, therefore I maintain all the rights. For my textbook, Cyclopedia Music Theory, I self-publish and print-on-demand – basically, I maintain exclusive rights on both because those works are not published by any other party.

Non-Exclusive Rights

These rights are, as you probably can guess, are the opposite of exclusive rights; if a publisher agrees to non-exclusive rights, the author is free to sell that piece elsewhere and there are no time limits.

One-Time Rights and Perpetual Rights

One time rights are the right to publish your work once and only once (these rights are usually found in journals, magazines and newspapers); whereas perpetual rights are the right to publish your work over and over, for an indefinite period.

Here again, as with first time rights, the Internet posses a conundrum as many websites offer one-time rights, yet websites are not print, they are electronic and have as much space to “print” as their server will allow. Magazines and other print mediums have a finite amount of space, meaning two things: they can only print so much each issue and two, there is no where to catalogue/archive past publications in future publications. Yet another way to put it is a website has no bottom, a webpage can run on-and-on-and-on.

Basically, this translates into a question of one-time versus perpetual rights. If a website publishes a piece based on one-time rights, they must then remove it from the site (including their archives) otherwise, they are using perpetual rights. This means that if you sell your work to a website with one-time rights, make sure it includes a time limit before your piece(s) is removed – a week, fortnight, or month at most.

One-time rights can be sold by the author repeatedly, and simultaneously, consequently, these are the rights syndicated columnists use so they may sell a single piece to different publishers at the same time. Perpetual rights (as their name implies) last indefinitely, so work you’ve sold under perpetual rights effectively becomes the legal property of the publisher.

Electronic and Print Rights

Electronic rights are a publisher’s right to place your work in any electronic format, while print rights are a publisher’s right to place your work in ink. The great thing about these rights in the current publishing climate – nearly every print publication has an online publication. This means publishers with both ink and web publications that buy your work must purchase both electronic and print rights from the author.

First and Second Serial Rights

First serial rights are rights sold a periodical (a newspaper or magazine), to publish your work one time, a with first-time rights you are affirming that the work has never been published before. Second serial rights refer to a reprint of your writing after someone else has already published it.

A writer should carefully review first serial contracts to make certain there is not a provision/clause that also grants second serial rights – second serial rights are those rights bought by a publisher to print your work after initial publication and like one-time rights, second serial rights may be sold over and over again and concurrently.

Subsidiary RightsSubsidiary rights apply to anything other than book publication, this is where people like Steven King live. If you were to write a novel like The Hunt for Red October, and wanted to pitch it as a theatrical movie, then you would be selling subsidiary rights to the production company.

Any form of electronic audio or visual media is based on subsidiary rights. Because of their complexity, you would definitely need an agent to negotiate the terms so not to burn yourself. Moreover, they will get a far better return on your work

How to be successful once your writing has been published

If you’ve been successful at getting published, here’s where the real work begins...

Stay a step ahead:

In my professional life as a business consultant, I write business plans and coach professionals. Through my practice at Retail Consulting Solutions, I have found the clients who stay a step ahead are far more successful then those who scatter-shoot from day-to-day.

You can apply this to writing by staying a step-ahead of deadlines (whether for your own blog or for another publication) by writing your piece(s) a day or two before being submitted or published to your blog. Moreover, you’ll have more time to do research and be able to proofread your work before sending it on its way.

Look for trends that fit your writing style and subject matter:

Google Trends and Yahoo Buzz are a great place to find what people are searching for, but they, along with headlines found on news sites can also identify trends that fit your writing style and subject matter. If you’re writing about spousal relationships, the economy certainly plays a role in that area. Your writing ought to reflect current events and help readers to find information.

It will also keep you relevant, even though you’re writing about the same material. Publishers like to see such consistency with an up-to-date edge.

Continue to network and promote yourself:

Take a look around next time your in the checkout line at the grocery store. Magazines galore encircle the line: fashion, gossip, health, entertainment, and news and politics – they all have a website and they all need content!

Once you’ve been published by an established, heavily trafficked website or widely circulated magazine, use your credentials to land the next publishing. Don’t be afraid to use each outlet at your disposal to promote yourself and your writing.

Determine your writing’s marketability and expand your audience:

Though I had been published prior, while writing Cyclopedia Music Theory, I networked not only among my music peers but lay people as well – how better else to determine the book’s marketability? If a lay person can read and understand it, then it would be far more attractive to a publisher.

What’s more, it showed me that lay people who were turned off by the complexity of music theory would be willing to take the plunge if they were given an alternative explanation. For this reason, I wrote-in the musicology of five contemporary genres to attract even more readers.

Use past writings for future publication:

Depending on the rights you gave for your first publication, you can use past writings to sell to future potential publishers if you’re willing to update the piece and give a bit of a makeover. While you don’t want to change the overall meaning, you want the piece to appear fresh and relevant to the audience.

Writing for money, what to do and what not to do

All writers have to start somewhere, and where you start isn’t necessarily where you’ll stay. But all new writers should know and follow the basics. Avoiding mistakes already made by others will only behoove you, while observing the fundamentals will help you to establish yourself.

Write what you know and stay there:

Professionally I am a business consultant, personally I am husband and father, and my hobby is playing and teaching music. I have also done informal work strategy writing for a locally based consultancy group and I am political analyst/columnist for three different bi-monthly publications.

What this means is I have the credibility to write over related subjects: the first lends me the credibility to write about business, employee/employer relationships and roles, the economy. The second gives me the credibility to write about husband and dad issues. The third is a bit different than the average bear because I wrote a textbook, Cyclopedia Music Theory. Lastly, my unofficial work in politics lends me the credibility to write political and economic analysis.

I write over these subjects because they are not only what I know, but know well and have experience in. I won’t win a Nobel Prize for science like Messrs. Elinor Ostrom or Oliver E. Williamson, but they’re not likely to write a music theory book like I did either.

Find your niche, cultivate your own style and develop continuity:

Opinions are like bad jokes, everyone has one to tell, but no one really wants to hear them. As in the above examples, look to your professional and personal life experiences and write on those subjects. You’ll find you’ll have more passion and fluidity then trying to break into the hot topic of the day or latest trend.

Diversify but be consistent:

Publish your own pieces on your own blogs. If you’re an investment adviser, write about that and have a blog title that encapsulates your professional life.

I subscribe to a particular writer’s posts on one of the sites for which I regularly publish. This author will publish a piece about relationship commitments, SEO writing and national economic policy all in the same day on the same website. While this author may have some credentials to write about these subjects, they are missing the diversity of cross publication.

Take your subject matter and divide them among the websites and/or publications for which you write. Your personal blog should focus on your personal life. Writing for a site like eHow or HubPages should be reserved for “how-to” articles, which lend themselves more to professional and hobby readership.

You’ll also have to be consistent in your writing, not letting weeks or months pass by without publishing on your blog or user-based website. The minimum should be two or three articles a week, spread over the same amount of publications.

Promote yourself:

Even if you’re a part-timer, you’ll have to be consistent, with approximately 231.5 million as of April 2009, you’ll have to stand out – somehow – and here’s a couple of ways how…

Keep up with the trends and hot search terms in your writings by using Google Trends or Yahoo Buzz. Work some of the day’s biggest searches into your pieces without hammering a square peg into a round hole.

Network with other writers and websites/publications looking for content are both a good source not only of potential readership but editorial advice.

Don’t write a piece just to get paid:

If you find it tempting, resist. This is a mistake that may well catch-up with you in the future. Writing pieces only for money that you truly have no or little interest in will show through the published piece. It will also spread you a bit more thin in trying to be authentic and trying to complete more suitable tasks at-hand.

Don’t forget the basics:

Be sure to include who, what, when, where, why

Support your writing with facts, statistics, polling, hard numbers; anyone can spout their opinion, make yours count

Make sure to proofread and spell check

-- Owen E. Richason IV