Amen!

Oh gawd, Sharon. You’ve hit on all the worst offenses! I’m getting these link “offers” (they frame it as that so I don’t think they’re requesting perhaps?) for this blog. This week, three of them. One a few weeks ago actually did read the site enough to know I had the resources list. She suggested I add her company to it. Funny — she didn’t read the blog page that said “No companies” in the guidelines….

I’m with you — remove them altogether. It’s so frequent, there’s just no way to respond to them all without wasting time. Maybe we should craft a stock response? LOL

Oh Paula, I don’t blame you. A writer friend I’ve known for two decades just asked for an editorial introduction. That is perfectly okay with me because I know and trust his professionalism.

That courtesy does not extend to people I don’t know or haven’t known for very long. I worked hard to get that contact, to build and nurture that relationship. I’m not about to risk it all on a new contact. I’d even hesitate if it were someone I knew but didn’t have the experience working with. Years ago, that one time I did and was burned, was enough for me.

Good for that editor. He knew enough to just ask about the working conditions. I remember an email from an editor I’d worked with years prior. She wanted me to review something she’d edited and “maybe put an Amazon review up” for it. I couldn’t finish the intro — it was so poorly edited, it was almost unreadable. Made me rethink my relationship with her, for sure.

Um, no. I had to work to land my contacts there, and I just started with the name of one editor. I snail mailed him some clips, he called, assigned me something on the spot and then he passed my info on to some of his fellow editors, and I’ve worked my tail off for each an every one of them. (Which is probably why one of them sent me two new assignments last night.)

Instead of offering this guy my contact—and risk him annoying my editor, who might in turn get annoyed with me for giving away his info—I told him to look at the website, check the bylines for people who are listed as editors in areas he might be interested in writing about, then sending his clips.

Contrast that with one of the editors from that particular publication emailing be to ask if another place he’d seen my byline in was a good place to write for. He didn’t ask for contact info, he just wanted to know if I liked writing for them. I said it was a great place to write, and his byline started showing up a few months later. Because he did his own leg work.

Oh, that one I don’t like either, Cathy! I get the requests to funnel my “overflow work” quite a lot. If I know you and that mythical overflow work ever existed, sure. I did refer a writer friend to a favorite editor recently, but he’s someone I’d happily help. He’s communicated with me for over 10 years, and he’s never asked a favor before. And I trust his writing and work ethic.

That has to enter into it or it’s a no-go. One other time I referred someone to a client, she nearly killed it for me, too.