What I Learned About Freelancing as an Editor-in-Chief

I became a magazine editor for the first time at the age of 27, overseeing a publication called Coast, a small-circulation, off-the-wall, Beverly Hills-based arts and culture monthly that had evolved out of an FM radio guide. I quit after three years to go back to freelancing, but returned as an associate editor at New West. Since that time, I've moved between freelancing and staff editorial roles a number of times.

I love the independence of freelancing, the varied pace and subject matter -- and the fact that I can do part of the job sitting at home in my underwear with a cup of decent coffee close at hand. On the other hand, I like making other people tackle the hard work (i.e., the researching and writing), then fixing it for them because they haven't done it quite right. I also happen to believe that the two most beautiful words in the English language are not (as Henry James once proposed) "summer afternoon," but "direct deposit" -- a luxury that until recently was restricted to salaried employees, and is still rare for contract workers.

Since I can't quite figure out how to have it both ways, I do the next best thing and periodically switch sides. One thing that dawned on me long ago in my two-sided career was that every time I worked as an editor, I learned a little more about how to be a successful freelancer. Here are seven things I've learned. If you think that all or most of these suggestions are obvious -- things that working writers already know -- I can tell you that, from the editor's side of the desk, they sure don't seem to be.

2. Lose the clever stationery
This is probably terribly unfair, but I just never quite trusted a writer whose letterhead described him or her as a "wordsmith," a "scrivener," "écrivain" (with or without the diacritical), or an "ink-stained wretch." Nor was I favorably impressed by printed citations of honors received ("James Beard Award-Winner Biff Bartleby, Scrivener"). And kids, please, no personal logos: Above all, avoid cute drawings of kitty cats at laptops, or manly fists grasping ostrich-plume pens.

3. Know your market
Saveur's tagline was "Savor a World of Authentic Cuisine," and we were known for articles that reflected, as accurately as possible, traditional cooking in its cultural context -- including all the fat and salt and time-consuming preparation implied. Why, then, did we get all those queries offering us pieces on quick-and-easy, low-fat fusion food, or vegan diet gurus, or hot, young, 22-year-old chefs, serving Tuscan tapas with a Hawaiian twist? (Slightly less annoying, but still off-putting, were the queries proposing major stories on subjects we'd published major stories about two issues earlier. If you really want to write for a magazine, show it the respect of reading -- or at least scanning -- a year or so's worth of issues before sending of your query.)

4. Sell yourself as well as the story
We didn't have official writers' guidelines at Saveur, but the one piece of advice I'd always give freelancers who wanted to pitch us a story was: Don't just tell us why this piece is right for Saveur; tell us why you're right for the piece. What do you bring to the subject matter: personal experience, cultural identification, simple passion? I'd be much more likely to give an assignment about Peruvian cuisine to a writer who'd spent a study-abroad semester in Lima and fallen in love with the local cooking, or even to a writer who'd never been to Peru, but had always been fascinated by the country and its traditions, than I would to some practiced journalist who was going there for the first time, and had heard that there might be some interesting cooking going on (unless, of course that practiced journalist was, say, John McPhee, who can write great stories about rocks).

5. Don't talk money until you've gotten the assignment
I've never believed in paying by the word, partly because I like to have the flexibility to reward particularly good writers (and, by extension, penalize those who simply meet the contract, if that). More importantly that's because -- as anyone who's done this for a while realizes -- it's almost always easier to write 2,000 words about a subject than it is to write 1,000. I've never believed in quoting prices before I know whether or not the writer has anything I want to buy. My standard answer to a premature "What do you pay?" was always "We don't pay anything until we hire you and you do the job."

6. Respect word counts
Speaking of it being easier to write 2,000 words than 1,000: If you turn in 20 pages when you should have turned in 10 you haven't met the terms of the assignment. Sure, it's the job of editors to edit, but it isn't the job of editors to find the nice tight little story you were supposed to fashion in the midst of the encyclopedia you produced. I had no hard and fast rule on this -- it depended on the story and the writer, and on the flexibility of space we had in a given issue of the magazine -- but in general if a feature story came in more than three or four pages too long, I'd kick it back to the writer for cutting without even reading it. (On the other hand, don't sweat the small stuff. A few paragraphs over? No problem. That just gives the editor something to cut, which always makes editors happy. Of course they always cut the wrong things, but that's another story.)

7. Be patient
"I was just calling to see if you received..." Well, if you got the address right, and put enough postage on the envelope, then yes, I probably did. And maybe one day I'll read it. And make a decision. And get back to you. Maybe. One day. If I were still an editor, I'd proclaim on behalf of all of us "LEAVE US ALONE!" Editors may give the impression of being organized and efficient and -- you know -- in charge, and occasionally they are. But, most of them are overwhelmed, at least some of the time, usually with things that are nowhere near as much fun as telling people why that diet guru piece just won't fly. Editors go to meetings, juggle events, deal with publishers and marketing departments, mollify publicists, adjudicate disputes, and move commas around. The typical editor's desk (or inbox, email or otherwise) is perpetually overflowing. The typical editor gets behind, forgets stuff, and loses stuff. I often found myself replying to queries five or six months after they'd come in. Once, I followed up on a pitch that was nearly two years old -- and ended up buying the story. (The writer became one of our best regular contributors.) I'm not saying this is right or fair, or even very professional. It's just the way it is. Editors do the best they can.

Colman Andrews was the co-founder of Saveur and its editor-in-chief from 2002 through 2006. He has written thousands of articles, reviews, and miscellaneous items for magazines and newspapers in the course of his 40-plus-year career.