A typical magazine assignment goes something like this:

1. You send a query letter proposing an article you’d like to write for a publication.
2. The publication accepts your proposal and gives you a contract for the assignment.
3. You do the research, write the article and submit it.
4. The publication pays you.
5. You send another query letter to a different publication proposing a new article…

…and the cycle of “query-acceptance-research-write-get paid” starts all over again. You can double, triple or quadruple your profits with half the effort by doing this one thing: Read the rest of this entry

I recently had a great “mail day.” I received a signed contract (and upfront deposit) to start a book ghostwriting project, a royalty check for quarterly sales of a book I authored in 2007 and payment for a short quiz recently published as a sidebar in a national publication. So which one of these brought in the most money for the time invested? Read the rest of this entry

This blog is focused on making money from your writing. But if you’re first starting out, a recurring roadblock to profiting from writing that many of us encounter is when you’re asked to provide samples of your writing, preferably published clips.

A good place to get nearly-instant published clips is through Read the rest of this entry

You can study back issues of magazines and trade journals (like all good freelance writers are told to) but that exercise doesn’t help you craft a query letter to attract an editor’s attention for a future issue of the publication. So how do you figure out what they want? Here’s a quick and easy way to see into the future: Read the rest of this entry