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One of the best decisions I ever made concerning my
fledgling writing career occurred in late 2004. I made
the decision to create a new email address from which I
would submit the brunt of my queries and finished works
to editors from, wherever online queries and submissions
were allowed. When I began getting more serious about my
freelance writing during the summer of 2004, I was
submitting and querying from an email address that could
be best described as cute. I realized that I needed to
create an email address which would reflect what I was
striving to do in my career. So I picked
"travelwriteroy", because it alluded to the
primary activities I was now engaging in to help pay the
rent, utilities, and food bills; that is, traveling, and
then writing about those travels when I wasn’t
crafting poetry, personal experience essays, or articles
on a variety of other subjects. In December 2004, I
submitted an article on constructive ways for writers to
deal with rejection by editors to an online writing
publication called The Fabulist Flash
(www.fabulistflash.com). Gregory Kompes, the editor,
didn’t wish to use my article in the near future,
but he noticed my "travelwriteroy" email
address. He wanted to know if I was a travel writer, as
he needed some articles on getting started in travel
writing. Well, I had just received my first pay check
ever as a freelancer for a travel article by Transitions
Abroad (www.transitionsabroad.com ) on a piece I did
about a unique volunteer holiday in Spain, which appeared
in their March/April 2005 print edition, as well as
online. In addition, I had previous work experience in
the travel agent and airline industries, which afforded
me further opportunities to be able to travel on four
continents in my lifetime. I let Gregory know about my
credentials, and he asked me to send him an article. It
was accepted and published in the March 24, 2005 online
issue of The Fabulist Flash.
Had it not been for my new email address, I strongly
suspect that Mr. Kompes wouldn’t have even brought
up the subject about travel writing when he passed on
using my article about dealing with rejection. My email
address lets editors know that travel is a part of my
writing forte, even if I am submitting a query or work
that isn’t travel-related.
In addition to having a business-like email to submit
queries and finished works from, listing some of our
publication credits in different categories other than
the category we are submitting to or querying about may
lead to some unexpected surprises. It’s because an
editor is going to know more about the scope of the work
we do as writers. Email addresses and published clips can
provide some free, indirect advertising which showcases a
writer’s abilities. Don’t forgo those
opportunities to, as my father used to say, "brag
about yourself". If you have truly done something,
it isn’t bragging!
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