how i differentiated my query freelancing

two and a half years ago, i launched a writer feedback group. it has grown to 400 members, my twitter account supporting it has grown to 4,000 followers and i have now gone pro for the second time.

how? by differentiating myself:

1. i diverged from them on bio

early in my time observing freelancers, i saw most of them had bios with a few commonalities:

a) a college degree

b) a stated passion for reading

i have a college degree. i don’t mention it because it has little bearing on my editing. why? because in my experience, college degrees in english are rarely a great indicator of editing acumen. furthermore, tons of people have college degrees, so in a niche market, that isn’t necessarily distinct.

then there’s reading. lots of people enjoy it. the publishing industry exists partly because people enjoy it. so it too is indistinct. further, enjoying reading is rarely a great indicator of editing acumen. so in my push to find clients, i did not focus on indistinct attributes. i focused on what clients would want: help. so i offered it free. and as i got clients, i also got testimonials and successes. i put those in my twitter bio to give other potential clients discrete, distinct reasons to choose me.

2. i diverged from them on process.

a lot of freelancers sell passes, such as $15 for two passes.

i hope they get the money they need. but in my experience, a document is ready when it’s ready, not after two passes. so i charge for the whole document’s fixing.

furthermore, the back-and-forth of emailing a draft with changes and such can take a long time, so instead, i emphasize private or public livestreaming of editing in a google document. it takes hours. it often results in the writer discussing the book’s backstory, which can inform the query, such as when the writer accidentally says the book is dual-pov where they hadn’t said so because they didn’t know they needed to. it also results in the writer feeling more confident going into the querying process. and at the end, the writer has a query — ideally, a sub package — that is ready to throw at a hundred agents (with occasional personalization).

true, i often worked for free, but i also worked thoroughly. plus, free work that doesn’t fix anything is worth what you pay for it, and i still got — and get — ghosted plenty. but word of my skill spread for a reason.

3. i went freemium.

people have a ton of questions about publishing. i’ve been looking at this stuff for some years, so i have a lot of answers. instead of requiring people to pay for those answers, or simply not offering them, i give them away and charge for my time doing higher-level stuff.

why?

a) people who get free stuff from you are more likely to pay for advanced work because:

i) they feel guilty: “this guy has published hundreds of pages of research for free; i should pay him for something.”

ii) they are amazed: “this guy has published hundreds of pages of research. he knows so much. i trust him with my submission package.”

this is the concept behind freemium.

b) putting basic answers out there makes me look good and saves time i can put toward paid/advanced work.

for example, before every pitch event, writers want to know things like what a successful pitch looks like. so instead of hunting for a few every time, i just link to my spreadsheet. when people ask about comps, i can link them to NoveList, BookBrowse, Literature-Map and Edelweiss. and, of course, for “i want to read successful queries,” there’s this.

c) anyone who won’t comply with the basics won’t comply with more advanced stuff. the less time i waste there, the better.

most writers see my resources and my successes and decide they should listen. others decide they’re still right about things like a query not needing age range or specific information. so if they say they’ve gone through my checklist and their query still lacks age range, that can be a sign that they’re not going to listen. a short conversation confirms whether they are being obstinate or not. if they are, i wish them well with someone else.

4. i focused on the person, not the writer

most people don’t like to feel attacked.

most people like to feel helped.

so when i talk to a writer about their work, i emphasize them in what they did well:

“your first two paragraphs are fantastic.”

but when something’s wrong, i decenter them from the problem and/or focus on the togetherness (“we”) in the solution:

“but there’s decentering and vague language in the third. we need to center the language on what the character does and add specific plot elements.”

this turns them messing up into a fix we—the person and i — will execute together. and since they came to me, they want my help, so the idea of “we” is appealing.

another key aspect of this is blood sugar. most people don’t know about decision science, so they go through a livestreaming session not realizing they’re getting closer to burnout because they’re making a bevy of decisions, particularly in an unusual setting and with an unusual person. i eat, and i recommend that clients eat, fruit throughout a livestream so they’ll be feeding their brains. this approach can require being delicate, because i don’t know their fruit/health situation, but it works consistently.

the last part of this is the hardest, but also the most needed: people need to feel heard, and they need to feel respected. sometimes that’s a matter of giving them a minute to deal with a child. sometimes it’s a matter of nodding with a soft face as they cry. sometimes it’s a matter of letting them talk about their book for ten uninterrupted minutes. i always learn something when they talk, but also, only when they talk about their query’s emotional support plot points do they feel heard. and only when they feel heard do they then agree that removing those emotional support plot points is best because the query will more sharply focus on the book’s core.

and speaking of …

5. i kept improving

hook, book, cook is solid general/overview advice. but you can have all three and still not have a good query if your word choice is poor or you capture facts about the book, but not its essence. not its core.

at its core, every book is about someone who wants something: love, peace, a healthy relationship with or a connection to someone, vengeance, whatever.

find the core, build the query around it, and get requests. easy, right?

figuring that out took me five years.

figuring out that a query should be a document of longing, of determination — of wrath—took me five years.

queries are not about plot. queries are about character.

6. i kept trying to do more

six years ago, i joined a query-editing facebook group and got to work.

eventually, i got good. but i had really only gotten started, because a query by itself is useless unless the agent or publisher doesn’t want a synopsis or first page. also, a query can have plot holes the synopsis helps fill. so i started working synopses too.

i discovered i was uncommonly good at them. why? because my background is journalism, and a synopsis is a summary of events. so are many news articles.

then i got into first pages and had to basically learn a new language.

two years later, i’m … significantly passable. more importantly, i’m better able to help people — and i’m better at queries. having everything in front of me helps me find the core faster. in a sub package livestream, i can take the documents from dumpster fire to credible in three hours. the writer will then generally need to revise parts of their book for the things i flagged on their first page (75 percent of the writers who come to me aren’t ready to query), but a week or two later, they’re ready, so they start querying, and then they tell me about their successes and i add to my bio and my heart.

7. i didn’t try to know everything

once upon a time, i was determined to know everything. and when you’re a kid, and you memorize well, you can seem like a know-it-all — which is an insult but shouldn’t be one.

but as you age, and as your world expands, knowing “everything” becomes impossible. and after a point, it becomes destructive. you drain your life and your energy competing against people who … aren’t competing against you.

and without trying, they still know things you don’t.

my feedback group has 400 members. they all joined because they wanted my help, and they all know things i don’t.

they feed me information.

and if you want to get anywhere in life, you need smart people telling you things. i learned that lesson from my grandfather, who ignored the conventional wisdom that said if you wanted to look good, you had to put idiots under you so you’d look good by comparison. he wanted good people to make him look great, so he got smart officers to work under him, and they elevated him to the rank of brigadier general.

twenty-five years after he retired, people were still talking about him.

we should all be so fortunate.

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