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Topic: Why are people so scared of the phoning?
| Author | Message |
| mimi77 | Posted – 3/24/2008 11:47:43 PM | show profile i hate calls i am an editor and i hate cold calls. i am super busy at work and i simply don't have time to take all of the calls of aspiring freelancers. i don't mean to sound rude, but if someone calls and emails consistently and requests meeting me, i am really turned off. instead i suggest that aspiring writers, photographers, stylists, etc all send materials through the mail. i receive tons of emails and mail as well as calls and the mail is what i actually look at. in order to get a call back your materials will speak for themselves- you don't have to. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 3/25/2008 3:53:45 AM | show profile "I still think it's a bit rude to call an editor you don't already have relationship with. .... So I wouldn't call an editor about a pitch she hadn't bothered to respond to" I don't see any of this in terms of politeness/rudeness. To me, the only question is what marketing strategy will be most effective to help me achieve my goals. If you tell me that you think calling an editor isn't the most effective strategy, I can understand that. But I can't imagine why anyone would think it was rude to followup by phone on a business proposal you have sent. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 3/25/2008 3:58:05 AM | show profile On the other hand, I have received work that I wouldn't have received by following up and making cold calls. No one likes cold calls, but sometimes they do work, while emails and mailed material simply get ignored. I know there are editors who initially hated to get my cold calls -- and thought them a huge bothered -- but who later gave me work because of them. --i hate calls i am an editor and i hate cold calls. i am super busy at work and i simply don't have time to take all of the calls of aspiring freelancers. i don't mean to sound rude, but if someone calls and emails consistently and requests meeting me, i am really turned off. instead i suggest that aspiring writers, photographers, stylists, etc all send materials through the mail. i receive tons of emails and mail as well as calls and the mail is what i actually look at. in order to get a call back your materials will speak for themselves- you don't have to.-- |
| chucho | Posted – 3/25/2008 9:33:44 AM | show profile Call. Any editor who get annoyed simply because you call isn't work working with for the peanuts you're likely to be getting paid for your work. An editor like that deserves the quality of work s/he gets when s/he thinks everything can be done by email. Just last week I pitched a story. One editor stayed away, didn't respond to email in a timely manner and wasn't available to talk. The other editor, for a competing publication in the same market, who replied by email and was available to talk on the phone got the story. He said they would consider more work from me in the future. Guess who I am going to call next time I have a scoop? I really do think some editors hide behind a list of excuses when in fact they simply don't like being "tasked". When a freelancer pitches a story, it's a kind of task and a lot of editors feel they can avoid this interaction and it won't make any difference to their work. They can take the call or not take the call and it won't matter, so they don't take the call. The difference is, of course, the editor that ducks calls isn't working in the best interest of his or her publication to get more voices in the book. The editor that engages will get more stories, more voices, undiscovered talent, better stories and more writer loyalty. This is food for thought as the industry seems to be trending toward relying on more freelancers (avoids having to put these workers on payroll, cover their health insurance, etc. -- and other cost-cutting measures). My advice to freelancers is to blacklist unresponsive editors. Go around them to other people at the publication. Do not bother. You deserve to be treated better, and editors that don't treat you right . . . blow them off. You're only going to get peanuts for your work anyway. You're doing THEM a favor by approaching with a story, not the other way around. That's how you shoudl view it. On the other hand. . . I know some freelancers are annoying, clueless, needy, neurotic, pushy, seeking advice that belies their inexperience, and they are pointless to talk to. A good editor has a knack for filtering these people out. So it's important as a freelancer to be self-aware enough to recognize if you're the problem. If you're getting a huge around of editors who aren't responsive, it might be your fault and you shoudl consider changing tack and tact. |
| chucho | Posted – 3/25/2008 9:36:55 AM | show profile Sorry for the typos. There's nothing quite like 10pt type in small windows in an online forum with no "preview" function to bring out the raw copy. (Insert emoticon here.) |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 3/25/2008 12:33:02 PM | show profile Just to clarify, I never meant call INSTEAD of email. I just meant that calling should be part of your pitching strategy. And what is up with all these editors who hate calls? Aren't you assigning reporters/writers to call people up, meet with them, get colour, etc.? If you hate talking to people why on earth would you expect sources to like it? |
| WordyBird | Posted – 3/25/2008 2:25:51 PM | show profile "And what is up with all these editors who hate calls? Aren't you assigning reporters/writers to call people up, meet with them, get colour, etc.? If you hate talking to people why on earth would you expect sources to like it?" That's not really the editor's concern. We're not the experts/celebrities/soon-to-be-immortalized being interviewed. Besides, calling and talking to sources is the reporter's job, not the editor's. It's up to the reporter to charm a source into an interview. That said, as a writer, I often approach potential interview subjects via e-mail first, too. Many of my interviewees are busy researchers and clinicians who are on rotation or with patients and have unusual schedules. Nine times out of 10, they get back to me in a day or so with an open time and date in their schedules, along with the best number to call--which is often their cell number or a direct line, instead of a departmental line. I think they appreciate that I understand how hairy their schedules are. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 3/25/2008 3:13:01 PM | show profile "The Phoning" sounds like the horror prequel to "The Ring". |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 3/25/2008 3:54:58 PM | show profile I was thinking "The Shining" and, funnily enough, it makes sense given the dread of phone calls we're seeing in this thread. OOOh, the phoning..... Wordybird, I take your point that editors are often more reclusive than reporters, but this is a profession that values the ability to get a hold of people and talk to them so I think an editor who hates a reporter to phone her but expects same reporter to nail down difficult interviews is being a tad schizophrenic. Once again, I think email is a wonderful tool and, indeed, it is almost always my forst method of contact, but when I don't get a follw-up from an e-mail I pick up the phone. |
| jjones | Posted – 3/26/2008 11:04:07 AM | show profile honestly, I think it's about time When you ask this question, you think, "I'm only one person, and I want only ten minutes of an editor's time," and that's a fine point, but what if there were ten of you? Fifteen? Twenty? Fifty? Two-hundred and fifty? And this is the problem. There already are not enough hours in the day for an editor to get his or her work done as it is--and it's all on a deadline, all the time--so there just isn't time to chat with writers. I think the same is true for HR people. Though I do find it odd that every job-hunting book says you should "call to follow up" and yet no one will accept these sorts of calls. I think the most important point to remember is that HR departments are designed to screen you out, not to find people to hire, as odd as that sounds. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 3/26/2008 1:14:17 PM | show profile "Wordybird, I take your point that editors are often more reclusive than reporters, but this is a profession that values the ability to get a hold of people and talk to them so I think an editor who hates a reporter to phone her but expects same reporter to nail down difficult interviews is being a tad schizophrenic." Nah. I'd prefer that a surgeon operate on me. That doesn't mean I want to operate on anyone, myself. JJones has a great point about time, too. One person asking for ten minutes of time can very quickly become 20 people asking for ten minutes of time if word gets out or you say "calls ok" in the resources. Plus, the interruptions. Ye gods, the interruptions! I don't know about others, but the phone ringing every 15 minutes or so would not only affect my productivity and the quality of my work, it would drive me up an unholy wall. Plus, there's the headache factor. As it is, I've resorted to wearing earplugs in my office to screen out *other* people on their calls while I try to edit and write. |
| foodlit | Posted – 3/26/2008 1:26:56 PM | show profile Had to comment on this, "I think the most important point to remember is that HR departments are designed to screen you out, not to find people to hire, as odd as that sounds." Because it's dead wrong. And yeah odd, too. Recruiters in HR are there to hire people. That's their job. Unfortunately they also have to wade through hundreds of innapropriate resumes to find the few who fit the requirements. Especially with e-mail, people apply to anything that catches their eye, jobs they want, versus jobs they're even remotely qualified for. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 3/26/2008 3:48:24 PM | show profile More hypocritical than schizophrenic. Really, I think he's just being human. Newspaper publishers, who send reporters off to do investigative pieces of others, aren't usually open when they are being investigated for some reason. --Wordybird, I take your point that editors are often more reclusive than reporters, but this is a profession that values the ability to get a hold of people and talk to them so I think an editor who hates a reporter to phone her but expects same reporter to nail down difficult interviews is being a tad schizophrenic.-- |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 3/26/2008 5:06:43 PM | show profile I think Wordybird, a better analogy would be if you were counselling everyone else to get surgery and then refusing to do so yourself. In any case, I am now bowing out of the discussion as I think I've made my point several times and I have some phone calls to make. |
| snappiness | Posted – 3/31/2008 9:36:40 AM | show profile used to hate the phone I always went for email vs phone with editors and sources b/se phone is more of a committment -- you have to be polite, it's hard to get off the phone if it looks like it's a waste of your time, you have to sit there while it rings. So much more efficient-feeling to toss off an email. The phone just takes too much time. Then I realized what I was missing -- especially with sources but also with editors: Voice inflection, offhand comments, you just pick up a lot more of someone's personality via voice. So now I call all the time. Editors who prefer email just tell me, "Yeah, send an email" so that's no big deal. Having said that, I do ask editors early on which is the best way to reach them. Many prefer email, but some prefer phone. It's an individual thing, and I just do what each one prefers. |
