Last week one of the readers of this blog emailed me a question and asked, “I’m wondering how you handle those weeks of silence and/or rejected pitches from editors?” It’s such a great question and one that I’ve been asked regularly since becoming a full time freelance writer (and pondered regularly too!)

I’ve been thinking lots about embarrassing moments and how many I have had in my (fairly short) writing career. I think it’s easy to see ‘successful’ writers and not see their backstory, where they have made mistakes or had challenges. Well, today I wanted to clear that up. I’ve unearthed the best (read: the worst) rejections I’ve had to pitches and stories. Because let’s face it, no one is perfect. And the truth is, it’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.

You know those images in movies where someone wins the jackpot on a poker machine and it’s spitting coins out everywhere? That’s exactly how I think of an editor’s inbox. No matter what they do, the emails keep on coming, piling up on top of each other. So how can freelance writers get noticed amongst all the digital noise, get an editor’s attention and ensure our emails get opened?

There’s no doubt that there’s an art to pitching and sending query letters to editors. During conversations with editors over the years I’ve realised freelance writers are making common pitching mistakes. In fact, the first mistake is that writers don’t differentiate the way they pitch depending on whether the publication is in print or online. It sounds simple, but if you don’t get this right when pitching online publications, your pitch isn’t likely to get commissioned or even read.