I Don’t Only Submit to Paying Markets, But I Keep in Mind the Writers Who Do

 

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Before the month of August came around, I decided to take a break from not only my monthly newsletter, The SPARREW Newsletter, but also from my weekly Substack posts. My brother passed away close to the end of July and I needed time to focus on my grief. Plus, I had eye surgery coming up (or so I THOUGHT I did; it’s being rescheduled again! This time, possibly in September), so I did not want to stress over gathering material for my newsletter while recovering from eye surgery. (But rest assured, subscribers, that even with my eye surgery being in September, the September issue will STILL go out! I have a cut-off date of the 20 for every month on curating material for the newsletter, and the eye surgery will likely be AFTER the 20 and then that issue will go out on the 30 of September, which gives me a few days to focus on recovering from surgery!)

 

However, because there is a submission deadline coming up for one of the anthologies mentioned in previous issues of the Substack, I decided to take a break from my break to send out an “upcoming submission deadlines” issue tomorrow, August 18, to remind everyone about it. And because I recently gained 100 subscribers to my Substack (thank you, readers!), I am celebrating by throwing in other submission calls that also have forthcoming deadlines.

 

So, as I was gathering that material over the past couple of days, there is one call for submissions that made me pause.

 

This particular call for submissions did not pay writers. However, it was also hosting a contest, and only one lucky winner would receive $100.

 

That still counted as a paying opportunity for writers, right? Not in my book. Why? Because the odds of winning that contest and getting the $100 was seriously stacked up against anyone entering it, because they probably would receive a ton of submissions for it, making the competition fierce.

 

Even so, while I submit to both paying AND nonpaying markets, I understand that there are writers out there who ONLY submit to paying markets. I respect these writers, especially since I tried doing that once myself and I know how hard it can be to get an acceptance! I also keep these writers in mind when I am writing articles containing paying markets.

 

These writers would not be interested in the nonpaying markets! 

 

So in order to keep my own list of pending deadlines something that subscribers would want to know more about, I should only list the markets with forthcoming deadlines that pay writers.

 

This does not mean I frown upon the nonpaying markets. Heck, I used to be a nonpaying editor too! I have no ill will towards the nonpaying markets. They can go about doing their thing!

 

Also, the WOT anthologies which Twisted Dreams Press is still accepting submissions for only pays with a print copy of the anthology and not with money. With 70 writers in all 7 books, paying each writer with money would create bankruptcy! (Everything is out of pocket for us.) So until one of us gets an angel investor or someone makes a generous donation to the press or one of us wins the lottery, we can only pay our anthology writers with a print copy of the book.

 

But when I am the author of an article sharing about OTHER submission calls for writers, then I will list the paying opportunities. This will also apply to other submission calls I list in my Substack posts. I think that sharing only the paying opportunities for writers is my best bet, and what a majority of writers would be most interested in.

Never Rely on One Source of Income as a Freelance Writer

Here is a personal rule of mine that I had to learn the hard way:

If you are a freelance writer, don’t ever rely on one source of income.

 

That is a mistake I realized I was making after I got back into freelance writing. Of course, that one sources of income ended, and it taught me the importance of having multiple sources of income. Thankfully, it wasn’t too late for me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and find other ways of earning that income as a freelance writer, but it is definitely one lesson I will never forget.

 

If you are a freelance writer, this can be an easy thing to avoid. Unless you are working with a client who demands exclusivity or first review of all of your work (which is another bad idea!), then you have the option of pitching multiple clients for work – magazines, E-zines and websites.

 

I was reminded of this rule recently, when my original source of freelance writing income experienced problems with its website.

 

When I made the decision to go back to working as a freelance writer, I had one problem: I couldn’t remember how to write a query letter! I read several resources about how to write a query letter, but none of them helped jog my memory.

 

Thankfully, a friend of mine was working for a content creation platform, and suggested I join. I applied and was accepted. In that position, I had to write pitches for articles. A tutorial was provided and I followed it to the letter.

 

After a while of writing those pitches, I finally remembered how to write query letters again. Yay! It was I the task of writing those pitches that helped it all come back to me.

 

And while I had a lot of work going on there, I knew it would not last forever. (It didn’t.) So, I got busy doing regular freelance writing again – that is, querying markets and pitching ideas for articles. It helped that I signed up with a newsletter that listed markets looking for writers, as well as checking for calls for pitches on Twitter.

 

And here I am, many months later, still going at it. Even after the work at the content marketing platform dried out, I wasn’t worried, because I had multiple markets to pitch to as well as a small pool of clients to run ideas by.

 

That site I got started at recently experienced a crash, with members unable to log in. I felt bad for all the writers who were a part of that site currently working on projects for their clients, and only hoped that at least they had other sources of income so they can get their bills paid.

 

But that debacle reminded me of me, when I was first starting out there. That was my one and only source of income as a writer. I’m so glad I reminded myself of the importance of having other sources of income before the work ran out, and this site outage only goes to show just how important it is to avoid relying on just that one source.

 

When you are a freelance writer relying on your income to help you buy food, medication, pay bills, etc., then you really can’t have just one client or one source of income. Part of freelancing is the “free” part: You are free to work with other clients and pitch work to other markets. As you should do. If you rely on only one client or one market for your income, and especially with how iffy technology can be, then you are only setting yourself up for trouble if that client or market is unreachable or the website crashes for days. It’s just bad form, so try to have as many clients and different venues of income at the ready as possible. Have telephone numbers and email addresses handy in case you can’t reach clients through a website.

 

Technology is great and all, and there are many websites out there which can help writers to earn a decent monthly income. Just make sure you have a backup plan for keeping that income coming in if that technology isn’t working correctly or websites are down.