Notes from a Hired Pen: Yes, you can market right now

Readers!

I know I’ve written about the importance of constant marketing before — a thing I don’t always succeed at doing. I had my highest income month of my career in June (!!!) and after filing away the last story, I sat back and thought “what next?”

If I were a perfect freelancer, I would have been sending marketing inquires while I was writing full steam ahead. But I’m not perfect, which is fine — I made up for it. Last week I sent 12 emails to 12 clients I have worked with in the past. They were very simple: “Hi [EDITOR]! Hope you’re doing well. Just wanted to check in to see if you had anything you needed to assign out – I’m taking my vacation in late September, so I’ll be around!”

The result? Two immediate, high paying assignments. One of those responses: “Thanks so much for reaching out. I was just thinking about shuffling a complex story over to a capable freelance writer and you’d be ideal for it.”

Huzzah! It’s a quick turn around piece too, which I am filing this week.

Writing those 12 emails took me maybe five minutes. If you have five minutes to spare this week, you may want to give it a go too. You might get some out of office messages, but I bet some of your editors are not on vacation right now (and the others will see your notes when they get back).

Recent Bylines

“What does your CEO need to know about cybersecurity?” for Cybersecurity Dive

“Struggling with doing physical therapy exercises at home? Here’s how to stay on track” for Tufts Now

“Widespread adoption still elusive for generative AI tools in ERP” for CIO Dive

“ADLM convenes first data science summit” for Clinical Laboratory News

“Ensuring quality for emerging and traditional biomarkers of cardiovascular disease” for Clinical Laboratory News

What I’m Reading

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson. A pleasant meander through the English seaside after World War I. Well, maybe pleasant isn’t the right word since the characters deal with both the fallout of the war and the 1918 flu pandemic (and yes this is a new book and I saw the parallels to COVID, which is still flying around, please be careful!) But the book is like a warm hug. I appreciated it.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I read this book before, probably in graduate school? I’m glad I read it again, for two reasons. First, I’ve read some of Ishiguro’s recent works, and couldn’t remember how a book about a British butler in the 1930s-1950s fit into his dystopian works. The through line is that you don’t quite know what’s going on at the start, and the ugly story unfolds over time. And second, I know a lot more about this time in British history now, so that when I see names like Lord Halifax and Oswald Mosley, red flags start flying. I could say I should be ashamed that I didn’t learn all that in school, but I’m more proud of myself for reading about it to learn myself. Anyway, great read.
Holes by Louis Sachar. Another kids book I missed when I was an actual youth (though I was 18 when it was published). I listened to the audiobook from the library — recommended! And another reminder that kids want to read about hard stuff.

What I’m Watching

Hit Man. This was fine — entertaining to watch while I made corn stock, but not god’s gift to cinema. It also made me want to watch The Fall Guy again.
The Beekeeper. Is this movie silly? A bit. Do I hope they make 17 more of them? Absolutely. By the way, if you haven’t signed up for my pal Brian Grubb’s newsletter, please do! He agrees with me on all Beekeeper matters (and his writing is genuinely delightful).
Godzilla Minus One. Excuse my language, but this moving f*cking slaps!!!!!!! I wish I had seen it in a theater, but I saved it for the treadmill, and it got me to go run on that thing twice because I wanted to see what happened. Highly recommend it.
The Remains of the Day. Right after finishing the novel, I watched the movie version. It sticks pretty closely to the book, though appeasement and “NAZIS!” are more clearly pointed out, which makes sense for a movie. Baby Hugh Grant is excellent in a small but powerful role. And not that this is ground breaking news, but Christopher Reeve was an absoulte smoke show. My goodness.
Baseball. You may be going “huh?” but yes baseball. My other pal Linda Holmes wrote why, especially right now.

Nail Polish of the Week

Coastal Sand-tuary by OPI. One of my top five polishes of all time. I often wear it on my toes, but it’s fingers AND toes right now since I’m working from the shore house for the second half of July (yes I KNOW) and take breaks by going to the beach. Its works really well with a tan. Bonnie, per usual, remains unimpressed.