IN THIS ISSUE
- From the Editor’s Desk: Focus on clients, not assignments
- On The Wordling: What are character archetypes?
- News & Views: How newsletters can increase your book sales
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
Happy Thursday, writer friends.
I’m going to give you some freelancing advice.
You will most likely agree with this advice, even see the value of it, but when it comes to implementation, many of you will—intentionally or unintentionally—ignore it and go on your merry way, doing what you’ve always been taught by writing instructors to do.
If you take this advice to heart, you will escalate your career pretty damn quickly, with the money to boot.
Here’s my advice:
Focus on getting clients, not assignments.
Even when you’re pitching a newspaper, especially when you’re working with agencies, and no matter how small your story or piece might be, taking the focus away from “getting the assignment” and placing it on “landing the client” will change your business.
Why?
Because an assignment is a one-time event. You might get another one from this editor again some day.
A client, on the other hand, is someone who gives you work regularly, week after week and month after month.
Plus, many of the assignments you’ll receive from your clients over the years will be handed to you, with no extra effort, no additional marketing, and no heavy amounts of idea generation, purely on the basis of trust and loyalty.
And it’s by far the easiest way to guarantee a regular and recurring income in your freelance business.
The editor who gives you an assignment is buying your idea.
The client who works with you regularly is buying you.
It’s how you build a consistently profitable freelance career. (And this works for journalism just as easily as it does for content marketing.)
Writers who focus on clients instead of assignments make more working fewer hours. And when the economy tanks, they’re able to weather the storms more easily because they have editors who continue to give them work instead of having to hustle for every next dollar.
Want to learn more about how to transition from landing assignments to signing clients? I teach it here.
Enjoy the issue!
Natasha Khullar Relph
Editor, The Wordling
NEW ON THE WORDLING
Character Archetypes: 12 That Will Strengthen Your Storytelling
Uncover the power of classic character archetypes to craft characters that linger in your readers’ minds long after they’ve put the book down.
UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS
WRITE MORE IN 2024 with Natasha Khullar Relph
If you want to make money as an author, you have to write more books. One book a year (or fewer!) does not a publishing career make. You need to write more faster. I can help.
In this live 1-hour masterclass, I’ll spend 20 minutes walking you through how to write fast effortlessly. And then, in the remaining 40, I’ll actually help you put it in action right there on the call!
APRIL GROUP COACHING with Natasha Khullar Relph
Our monthly group coaching call! Sessions typically run 60-90 minutes and in these live calls, we’ll help you work through mindset challenges, brainstorm story ideas, come up with ideas for publications to pitch, critique your work, and give personal guidance on the next steps in your career.
NEWS & VIEWS:
Increase your book sales with newsletters
I’m traveling this week, so here’s an evergreen piece from last year on how newsletters lead to book sales:
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You know when you keep going on and on (and on) about a subject and you think, okay, everyone’s heard it enough times and I don’t need to say it again?
And then someone else goes and says it again and everyone, including your own readers, acts all surprised like it’s a new thing?
That’s me with newsletters and book sales.
I’ve been saying for years (decades?) that before they spend a single minute on social media, authors should invest time and attention in building their email lists. Where to even start with the benefits?
- You own the audience. Even if a billionaire bought your email provider and burned it to the ground, you could still export the email addresses and start somewhere else with the exact same audience. Not the case with social media.
- Readers are divided on social media channel preferences, but everyone checks their email. (Maybe not the under-18 set. Give them time.)
- Email marketing outperforms social media. The average click-through rate for email is 3.57% compared to 0.07% for Facebook and 0.03% on Twitter. (Promoting books on Instagram and seeing no sales? This is why.)
- Agents and publishers are more impressed by large email lists than social media platforms. (It’s about time.)
- People who love books are readers and are, therefore, incredibly engaged newsletter subscribers.
I’ve changed my name, lost access to my Twitter account, changed the structure of my business repeatedly, and gone off social media entirely for years. And yet my audience continues to find me and stay connected to me. Why?
Yep, I have an email list.
Anyway, so Substack featured authors who talk about how Substack’s helping them sell books. And Simon Owens discusses in further detail the increasing importance of newsletters for selling books.
Take heed—your future self will thank you.
ALSO SEE
Turns out, if you want to work at the New York Times, it’s (really, really) helpful if you’ve gone to an Ivy League university.
Five of the 45 finalists in this year’s Pulitzer Prize for journalism disclosed using AI in the process of researching, reporting, or telling their submissions.
And a novel by deceased author Gabriel García Márquez is out—published against the author’s wishes by his sons.
GLOBAL REPORT
NIGERIA: “WFM 91.7 founded the Women Radio Centre in 2022 with funding and support from ActionAid Nigeria, U.N. Women, the Nigerian Women Trust Fund, and the MacArthur Foundation. The initiative trains female investigative reporters in newsrooms across Nigeria to produce stories that investigate issues of public interest. “The goal is [to be] able to train female journalists who work for different newsrooms [so that] they have the skillset to be able to produce investigative and incisive reports,” said Alaribe.”
MEXICO: “AMEXI will operate as a worker cooperative and will highlight labor issues in Mexico, alongside coverage of national and international news, business, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle and culture. At launch, it has 50 workers and editorial partnerships with entertainment publication Notistarz, photojournalism collective FotorreporterosMX, and the Mexican Information Agency (AIMX).”
INDIA: “Mainstream Indian media has come under scrutiny for biased reporting and incomplete coverage of major events. What tends to be delivered to news consumers is opinion-led journalism featuring overstimulated news screens and loud anchors…. In this environment, a platform that simply gets the facts right is immensely valuable. To meet this demand, in 2019 Bhonsle launched her own digital news platform, Newsworthy, on Instagram. The platform seeks to provide its audience ‘something that is of value to them, is in the public interest, and just doesn’t leave them with a feeling of anxiety.’”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer.”
– Ray Bradbury
HOORAY! YOU MADE IT TO THE END!
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