Querying And Bidding Strategies

A post from Allena Tapia made me think more about the process of querying for freelance writing work. The post outlined all the stuff that writers sell to editors along with their idea when they pitch to a magazine. At the end of the post, Allena asked three questions:

I pitch most of my work to those buying web content, and I thought it was worth replying to those questions here.

Streamlining The Query Process

I’ll start with the last question first. I found it essential to streamline the querying process. If you want to win bids, especially when you’re starting out, you have to bid for a lot of work. That means you can’t be writing bids from scratch every time. That’s part of the reason I have an online resume and testimonials, so that I can send potential clients there to look at what I’ve done. (I confess that it’s not as up to date as it should be, but I am working on that.) It also gives me a handy list of links to my work so I can choose the appropriate ones when bidding.

A Matter Of Form

That brings me to the second question — the form letter. Yes, I have a form letter. It contains a paragraph which outlines my experience, a paragraph with examples of the writing I can do, a bid amount, a paragraph with links to my resume and testimonials and an invitation to contact me for more information. That’s the basis of every bid. However, I do change it depending on what I am bidding for. I change the examples and I highlight different parts of my experience.

Starting From Scratch

Sometimes I throw out the form letter altogether and start from scratch. In some cases, that’s because the form letter doesn’t meet the criteria. Some potential clients ask you to bid in a particular way, in which case I do. Sometimes something comes along that I’m so enthusiastic about that I want a fresh start. Only you will know when it’s right to do that. As an example, today someone posted a job about articles on house moving. As a serial mover, I have the personal experience as well as the writing experience and I wanted my bid to reflect that.

Taking Some Time

Allena’s first (or final, depending on how you look at it) question was about how long I spend on a query. Again, that varies. If I have bid template and only need to change a line, then I can have a bid ready in a couple of minutes. If I am starting from scratch and the stakes are high, then I may spend 20 minutes (longer, if I have to include samples or other supporting material). Here’s a tip, though. Whenever you do a bid, query or proposal that you think is really great, save a copy in a bids folder on your computer so that you can use the format again. And make a note of which types of bids work best for you.