|
Last time in our ongoing serial, Gina quit a steady paycheck to face the
uncertain opportunities of freelancing. She nailed down temp work to supplement her income, ruthlessly trimmed her
living expenses and used NWU networking opportunities to tap into some connections. Now she's poised to start
implementing her strategy for freelance success.
The Leap
Part 3: The Times
Writing for a newspaper was a great jumpstart to my new career, but freelancing was challenging for
me. It was difficult to keep my chin up at times, difficult to balance creator and businesswoman. Besides, my goal had
always been to become a book author. Rather than earn my money one four-week check at a time, I would employ a strategy
to ferry my first book to the marketplace sooner rather than later.
What's the quickest way to get an agent's attention? Publish in the big guns. So, I targeted The New
York Times. My idea - Place that clip on top of my book proposal to the agents I had targeted in the NWU agent database
and watch my book proposal rise like cream to the top of the pile. I knew that such a clip was no guarantee of
anything, but it might snag a 60-second read.
I'd take it.
I mailed queries to three sections of The Times that I believed to be a good match for my style and
preferred subjects: Travel and the Connecticut Sections and the Lives page in the magazine.
One of my mentors advised following up with phone calls if I hadn't heard anything within six weeks. I
didn't. And so with dread, I made the calls.
No success with Travel or the Connecticut sections - an unpleasant conversation and black hole
voicemail, respectively. But the Lives page editor picked up on the first ring.
"Uh, oh, hi, I'm Gina Greenlee, and I'm following up on a query I sent you for the Lives page."
"What?"
Breathe. Breathe.
"I'm a Connecticut freelancer, and I sent you a query about six weeks ago, for an essay for the Lives
page."
"Oh. The best way to send me queries is by email."
Good to know. "What was it about?"
In that moment I knew I had about a 10-second window to make my pitch, something I had not been
prepared to do with a live human being.
"As I said, I'm a Connecticut writer but I grew up in Manhattan on the Lower East Side. From age eight
to 10 a gang of boys repeatedly sexually assaulted me in my elementary school. The ringleader died when I was in the
fifth grade. I attended his funeral along with my class, and I didn't shed a tear."
"Oh. Here's my email. Send it to me."
I emailed my essay on a Thursday. When Monday rolled around and I had not heard anything, I was in
tears. I had already suffered through a week of rejections and to get so close to my Times clip and yet still be so
far, was more than I could stand.
Settling at my computer on Tuesday afternoon, I casually perused my e-mail inbox expecting to see the
usual - NWU Book Division listserve, push email from "The Washington Post" and The New York Times. But nestled in the
morass of mail was an address that ended in "nytimes." The subject line: "Let's talk."
I began screaming. I just sat and stared at the email and screamed. Once composed, I carefully opened
the mail and printed it out straight away.
"This is quite good," it read. "My top editor really liked it. It just needs some fleshing out here
and there. Call me today or tomorrow to discuss."
I screamed some more.
My essay, "No Tears for Frankie," ran on the last page of the
New York Times Magazine on June 10, 2001.
Five days after the essay ran, the Lives page editor forwarded me an e-mail from a Doubleday editor
who had read my essay, thought there was much more to the story and wondered, "Have you ever considered writing a
book?"
My strategy had worked better than I could have imagined. I didn't even have to send the clip. The New
York publishing world had come to me.
In the next installment, Gina gets an agent!
|
