As an aside, my Facebook page is where you’ll see a lot me, find review requests (which means free books), hear opinions, and experience giveaways. I’m limited to 5,000 friends, and yes, I consider them friends. I hit the 5,000 mark often and have to spend crazy time getting rid of the odd closed accounts here and there to make room for new friends, but if you cannot be a friend, at least follow me. There are 2,500 of those at present. They still get the same material, opinions, and opportunity.

Anyway . . . recently on Facebook I posted a call for submissions for FundsforWriters on a particular topic. In an hour I had four serious people interested. I asked two of them to entertain the opportunity seriously and send me something on spec. What I liked about both of them is that they came back with suggestions on how to cover the topic. Then one asked if he could submit a three-part series. The other asked if I would raise my rate from $60 to $75 since that was closer to what she regularly charged.

Since both of these writers had websites and a history of freelancing and publishing, they came with a certain degree of street cred under their belt. As a result, I said yes to both. That one Facebook post gave me five articles (yay!), and I told both to consider writing more for me.

Did I reject others? Yes. I turned one person down in that call for submissions, because she had never practiced the topic. She only wanted to research it and interview people. I wanted someone with experience. I rarely take articles from those who have zero experience in the how-to topic, and I never take interviews.

Most people I turn down in my day-to-day do the following, in the order of frequency:

1) Exceed the word count.
2) Pitch a topic we do not cover.
3) Write with serious flaws in grammar (and the English language).
4) Write academically instead of conversationally.
5) Write from online research and have no experience. (It shows in the writing, believe me.)
6) Have no online presence.

But the refreshing, professional presentations of those two writers who replied to my call for submissions excited me, because they did everything right. They read the guidelines. They understood the market they were writing for. Which means they respected me.

So I gave them what they asked for . . . multiple assignments and higher payment. It pays to ask, but only if you followed the other rules to start with. Respect begets respect.