MEMBERS RE-CAP 2006 CONFERENCE

Freelancing Successfully

By Mary Rupert

Treat freelancing as a business, freelance author Andrea Warren told those attending the AWC conference session, "How to Be a Successful Freelancer."

Warren has written 10 books, including five for young readers. Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story is among her works. She also is a frequent contributor to major consumer magazines.

As business people, freelancers should keep good business records, make budgets and business plans, make sure their office has good lighting and a good chair, get a good business card and brochure, and have a good Web site featuring their work.

Among other words of wisdom from Warren:

  • Diversify, so you have protection.
  • Charge what you're worth.
  • Learn to sell yourself, and use clarity and brevity in contacting publications.
  • Respect deadlines. If they cannot be renegotiated, you have to meet them.
  • Don't overwork. You'll burn out. So build in breaks and vacations in your schedule.
  • Network. Join professional groups and meet with other writers.
  • Educate yourself. Go to the library, research your area of interest and the publication you submit your work to before you submit an idea to an editor. Use Writer's Market and study the latest masthead of the publication. Go to workshops and organizational meetings to learn.
  • Let one kind of work support another. If you want to write poetry, and it doesn't pay well, then find omething else that will pay the bills and let you write. Do what works for you, not others.
  • Study magazines to learn if they use freelancers, and what their target audience is. Sometimes the same idea can be modified for other magazines, and adapted to their audience.

Warren answered questions about how she started in freelancing (Answer: cold calls). If you want to freelance and don't have clips yet, she recommended starting to write for a community newsletter or church newsletter, and use those clips to show editors that you can write.

Once established, if a freelancer is asked to work for free, she recommended getting it off business time. For example, ask someone to call back after 5 p.m. to discuss something that is volunteer work or unpaid advice.

She also had a bit of advice about money. Don't discuss money before you're offered a contract. After you're offered a contract with a fee, the negotiating can start, according to Warren. The first offer from a publisher usually is the lowest figure they will offer you, she said.

And Warren also said: Rules are made to be broken. What works for one person may be exactly wrong for the next.

‘Let Your Life Speak'

By Mary Rupert

"Listen to your inner voice," Professor Barbara Korner told women attending the AWC Conference Friday, Sept. 15. Korner spoke to attendees at the opening session of the 2006 conference in Kansas City.

Korner, associate dean at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Florida, noted it was important for people to make time for self-reflection.

She said that by expending an effort to clear a path toward what they want to do, and listening to their inner voice, people would avoid taking just any new path through the brambles.

In a series of dramatic readings, Korner gave voice to little-known diaries and journals of African-American women of the past, many from Missouri. Korner is the author of Responding to the Call: African-American Women Preachers and co-editor of Hardship and Hope: Missouri Women Writing About Their Lives.

She encouraged those attending the conference to continue finding their inner voice by writing in journals, and to let their lives speak.

Posted 9/28/06