Still Waiting on Freelance Payment and Payoff

Okay, I'm not holding my breath about freelance writing paying off, by which I mean paving the way for me to break into book publishing with a royalty publisher. I anticipate that will take at least three years--if it works at all. I'm following that path, but I have zero confidence that I will be successful.

So why do I do it? Well, I just can't sit there. It seems silly to write books, go to conferences and pitch them to editors and agents when the first question back to me will be, "What kind of platform do you have?" Or even to try it through the mails. The same results are most likely: no platform, no book deal. So I hope through freelancing to generate a little bit of a platform, hopefully just enough so that my books will be judged on merit alone, with lack of platform not clouding the issue.

I'm waiting on payout from Suite101.com. As I believe I mentioned before, I just barely had accumulated enough revenue at the end of August to receive payment in September. That should come via PayPal sometime early next week. It is enough to put a couple of fast food meals on the table. I hope for more in the future, but I'll take this now and be glad for it.

I'm also waiting on payment for my article that was published in Internet Genealogy. That should have come the end of July or in early August. I finally was able to reach the editor and make arrangements for payment, though I have not seen it yet. It was delayed, the editor said, due to summer absences and some cash flow issues. Hmmm, does not bode well for future association.

So far this year I have the following submission record:

• Submissions made: 14
• Acceptances: 3
• Rejections: 4 (Edited on 8 Sept 09; guess I can't do the math)
• Not heard: 7
• Withdrawn: 0

Two of those are actually for non-paying gigs, but I'm still counting them. By the end of September I'd like to have a few more added, perhaps six to get the total submissions up to twenty. I have plenty of poems ready to go; it's all a matter of market research and willingness to risk the time, and in some cases the postage, to submit.

Even with my limited goals, September should be a busy month.