Reply To: Marketing, Getting yourself out there.. Trying to self-employ

[riva pomerantz]

Passion, I can only speak for myself here, but I can tell you that I never advertised myself even once. What I DID do was PUT MYSELF OUT THERE! What does that mean? I set a goal for myself: I wanted to write for Mishpacha magazine. Well, how did I go about making that happen? I emailed the editor. I heard nothing back from her, of course! (No surprises there–she probably gets hundreds of emails a day!) So what did I do? I CALLED her up in Israel, while we were still living in the States. I called several times, persistently, and when I finally got through to her I begged her to give me a writing assignment, ANY writing assignment, assuring her that she would be supremely pleased with my work. Well, she did throw me an assignment (one of the most banal topics I have ever written about: carpools! :-)), but she was impressed with my work and gave me more. That’s how I got into writing for Mishpacha.

I will give a caveat here: I really knew I was a good writer when I did this. How did I know that? Because I had spent much time and effort perfecting my techniques, I had received excellent feedback from the people around me, and I knew I had a talent for writing. All the advertising and even self-promotion in the world wouldn’t have helped me if I had let that editor down by giving her underwhelming work! So my top two tips (love the alliteration!) would be:

1. Become an amazing writer. Primarily you do this by writing. A lot. And by being on Masterpiece, asking for and receiving feedback AND BEING OPEN TO IT! ;-), and sharing your work.

2. Put yourself out there. Do not wait for anyone to knock on your door; rather, “pound the pavement”. Make phone calls, drop in at local businesses to see if they need any marketing materials, all that good stuff!

Tons of hatzlacha to all of you! Keep us posted–we are totally cheering you on!

[riva pomerantz]

Passion, I can only speak for myself here, but I can tell you that I never advertised myself even once. What I DID do was PUT MYSELF OUT THERE! What does that mean? I set a goal for myself: I wanted to write for Mishpacha magazine. Well, how did I go about making that happen? I emailed the editor. I heard nothing back from her, of course! (No surprises there–she probably gets hundreds of emails a day!) So what did I do? I CALLED her up in Israel, while we were still living in the States. I called several times, persistently, and when I finally got through to her I begged her to give me a writing assignment, ANY writing assignment, assuring her that she would be supremely pleased with my work. Well, she did throw me an assignment (one of the most banal topics I have ever written about: carpools! :-)), but she was impressed with my work and gave me more. That’s how I got into writing for Mishpacha.

I will give a caveat here: I really knew I was a good writer when I did this. How did I know that? Because I had spent much time and effort perfecting my techniques, I had received excellent feedback from the people around me, and I knew I had a talent for writing. All the advertising and even self-promotion in the world wouldn’t have helped me if I had let that editor down by giving her underwhelming work! So my top two tips (love the alliteration!) would be:

1. Become an amazing writer. Primarily you do this by writing. A lot. And by being on Masterpiece, asking for and receiving feedback AND BEING OPEN TO IT! ;-), and sharing your work.

2. Put yourself out there. Do not wait for anyone to knock on your door; rather, “pound the pavement”. Make phone calls, drop in at local businesses to see if they need any marketing materials, all that good stuff!

Tons of hatzlacha to all of you! Keep us posted–we are totally cheering you on!