The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Freelancers

by Eli Kooris

There are a number of things you need to be successful as a freelancer — and by successful I mean regularly published, not able to make a living by ONLY freelance writing. There are very few freelance writers I know who can do that unless they have a couple novels under their belt, an MFA in something that allows them to write a non-fiction book, or just happen to be as well-connected as Dominick Dunne. These hooked up people can bounce from publication to publication with ease, writing a mortgage-covering article a week. Maybe this comes with experience and more time in the industry. I’m reasonably young for the business (at twenty-five) and have been freelancing part-time for the last ten years. Let me tell you: it’s still tricky and unpredictable.

There are five major things you need to make it as a freelancer. I’m going to give them to you quick, dirty, and most importantly, truthfully.

1. A Good Job

To be a successful freelancer, the first thing you need is a day job that allows you to write. It’s hard to find a gig that doesn’t sap all your energy. What works best for me is something in the creative field, such as the entertainment industry. Employment in that field allows me to work on my own writing in my head while doing something else creative. Working at a magazine, for example, is a great gig if you can get it. Other writers might prefer something mind-numbing (data entry, anyone?) so all their creative energy can spill forth when they finally find the time to write. To each their own, but personally, I couldn’t do something that exhausts me mentally or physically because it would hurt my creativity.

2. A Good Query

Next is the ability to write a good query letter, something that can grab an editor’s attention amidst the hundreds if not thousands of emails/letters/crap they read every day. You have to sell yourself and your pitch in the first line or two. Also, use your past experience to help sell yourself. If you’re writing a query to VANITY FAIR, it’s probably going to be a tough sell if you’ve only written for your neighborhood news rag or for a small magazine nobody has ever heard of. So don’t waste your time querying behemoths like VANITY FAIR unless you’ve found Princess Diana alive and well and you have an exclusive. It’s also okay to query these big places if you know someone inside in the editorial department. But don’t be afraid to start small. Get published somewhere, get a track record going and build it. Writing is a life pursuit. If you want to get rich quick, start selling real estate (though that might not apply these days) or go to Wall Street. Enjoy having money and not making a mark.

3. Good Connections

This is the most annoying but necessary part of the ‘business’ side of writing. Stay in touch with everyone you meet who loves your work or expresses interest in it. Check in with them and let them know what you’re doing. Don’t annoy them, but let them know. This is a fine line and most people suck at it, but it’s very important. I can’t tell you how many gigs I’ve gotten just by getting back in touch with a contact I dropped a line to out of the blue. It’s best to do this when you have some material to show or some interesting, career-advancing news to share. Otherwise it’s obvious you’re only looking for a handout, just like everyone else.

4. Good Luck

Sometimes you stumble upon a fantastic story or the world’s collective consciousness aligns with one of your pieces, making it the perfect material for ‘that moment.’ Sometimes an entertainment company, publishing company or magazine decides they desperately want content about, say, the colonization of Mars and what do you know, you’ve got a screenplay, a novel and a couple short stories about just that (this was during your brief Bradbury phase one fall, when you were also only drinking Sidecars at every bar you went to). You need this luck and it really does happen, but you have to watch for it and be sure to act on it. Pay attention to the world and the business, as I’m sure you already do if you’re a serious writer.

5. Good, Hard Work

This next part is going to sound like a really lame pitch for WordHustler but it’s not. It’s an honest explanation as to why this website is such a brilliant idea. As recently as six months ago, I would go down to the bookstore, grab a stack of magazines I wanted to be published in and write down the editor’s contact info from the mastheads (if they were listed) or just a general phone number. If all I had was a phone number, I would call and talk my way into getting the email addresses of the Editorial Department. Call a few times and make sure you get the same answers since receptionists often love to screw with unsolicited writers. Then I would send out individual query letters to each of the editors. I’d do the same thing with the Jeff Herman book of market listings when I wasn’t using it to lift and tighten my pecs. Most editors wouldn’t even respond, but a few would and one or two or them would actually buy an article or hire me to freelance for them. One or two out of twenty is actually pretty good.

I’ve now had a good number of articles and a handful of short stories published, plus landed an agent at one of the best literary agencies in the world by doing all of that. It was a lot of hard work, but I’m glad I did it because it really showed me how much I love writing.

But how much more writing could I have done if WordHustler had existed back then? And how many more people could I have reached?

Eli Kooris is a writer and producer living and working in Los Angeles. He regularly writes journalism for publications like 944, Venice, Z!NK, The Austin Chronicle and Los Angeles Magazine. He recently started his own production company, Sweater Pants Productions (http://www.sweaterpants.com).