I took a few weeks off from querying while I finished a major assignment and prepared to move , so things were a little slow until this week. When I started getting new assignments again, my first inclination was write up my articles right away to make time for future assignments and queries. But then I realized that if I stopped querying to work on articles I’d end up right back where I started (without assignments) in a few weeks. Better to keep querying and work on assignments closer to their deadline so I’ll have more assignments coming in gradually.I'm working with a couple of new-to-me editors, so I found it helpful to write up a checklist of questions to ask before accepting assignments (I feel kind of lame asking after the fact and they don't always offer up all the details up-front). Here it is...
- What would this article pay? Is there a kill fee?
- What rights do you purchase?
- What's the required word count?
- How many expert sources (if any) should the piece include?
- What's my deadline?