The Renegade Writer Blog

Today I was working on a skincare product article for a very high-profile health magazine. As I read the transcription of one of my interviews, I saw that the dermatologist had recommended a facial scrub with hydrofluoric acid. Hmm. Salicylic acid, I’ve heard of. Alpha-hydroxy or beta-hydroxy acid might also work. But hydrofluoric acid? Never [...]

By popular demand, I’m posting the article I wrote for Writer’s Digest in 1999 that was based on the query I posted last week. While the query was about magazine writing vs. copywriting, the editor asked me to focus on advertorials in place of copywriting.
I’m leaving in the sidebar of places that buy advertorials even [...]

Dan Baum has written for Rolling Stone, Playboy, Wired, and other big-name magazines, and is a former staff writer for The New Yorker; on his website, you can download proposals that landed assignments with these magazines. Baum is the author of Nine Lives, and runs a blog called WordWork. The account of his “short career [...]

1. You have the right to say no.
An editor asks you to write for exposure? “No.” A source asks to see your article before you turn it in? “No.” A friend keeps calling during your working hours because “you’re always free”? “No.” See how easy it is? You have the right to say no — [...]

Earlier this week I was giving advice to a freelancing friend of mine who was having a bad day, and I heard myself say, “If this assignment violates your code, then don’t do it. It’s as simple as that.”
It made me wonder how many of us have a code, personal rules or standards we won’t [...]

For the first time in my 11-year career, I almost missed a deadline this week. I somehow got two deadlines mixed up, so I turned in one article several days early and didn’t realize the mix-up until the day the second article was actually due. Thankfully I’m a fast writer and I had already done [...]

Renegade writers know that some rules are made to be broken — but not all. One page query rule: Break it. Don’t send queries written in crayon on bar napkins: Keep it.
What writing/freelancing rule have you discovered it’s better not to break? Did you try breaking a rule and it backfired on you, or was [...]

An editor of mine at a trade pub recently hired a well-credentialed writer to write an article. A week later, my editor’s boss received angry phone calls from two of the sources the editor provided to the writer. The writer, they complained, didn’t know what magazine she was writing for or what the article was [...]

Many freelance writing gurus say you’ll make more money if you specialize. But some of us have trouble sticking to one field. Are generalists doomed to be poorly-paid jacks of all trades, never staying with one field long enough to work their way up the pay ladder?
The Pros and Cons
If you specialize, you’re more likely [...]

In early November I decided to target custom publishers to let them know about the wonderfulness that is me. Of course, my first instinct was to shoot all the publishers an e-mail letting them know who I am and offering to send clips as attachments. But I was actually missing the old days, when I [...]