The inner circle of freelancers

In eleven years of being a freelance writer and editor, I’ve developed a very tight circle of preferred freelance partners.

These include:

• 4 hybrid publishers
• 1 self-publishing consultant
• 2 graphic designers
• 2 copy editors
• 3 publicists

That is the complete list. It’s a very small list.

This list is important because authors are constantly bombarded with offers for various kinds of help (and countless fake and scammy services as well). They turn to me for advice on who to trust. I take that responsibility seriously.

I know the principals at every supplier on this list. They know me. I know what they’re good at and what they cost. I know how to get the best out of them and which services they offer that the author should turn down.

These folks respond quickly to anybody I send in their direction. They do a dependable job and I know I can count on it. And if I asked them for a favor, any one of them would do it for me (and vice versa).

They also send people to me. I’d estimate that about one-fourth of my business comes from referrals of this kind.

Since I work on about a dozen books a year, there’s a steady set of recommendations going from me to these folks.

How to get on this list (and how to get off of it)

I take regular briefings from people in the business of helping authors. I want to know what kind of work you do and what makes you stand out.

If you brief me, will I recommend you?

Probably not. I already have a bunch of good people.

But I might be intrigued, and I might send an author or two your way.

What happens after that?

I become very interested in what you tell that author, and I am almost certainly going to be reviewing the proposal you send them.

I just spoke to a hybrid publisher that sounds interesting. I’ll add them to the list, tentatively. If they do a good job for my client, that addition might become permanent.

But people can and do let me down.

A hybrid publisher with an interesting model recently not only removed themselves from consideration for an author I sent them, but insulted that author. That was dumb, because they’re no longer on my list.

A self-publishing service I sent people to has become slow and unresponsive. I’m no longer recommending them.

It is hard to get on my list. It is very easy to fall off it.

The old boy network?

The “old boy network” of friends and friends of friends is legendary in business.

Of course, in my network, about three-fourths of the people I recommend are women. But the same coziness applies — I have an inner circle, and most of the people who’d like business from authors are outside of it.

I’m sure this seems unfair to the dozens of practitioners out there who may be doing a great job.

But I need to know that anybody I recommend is going to respect me and to serve my clients well.

It’s a small network. But I like it cozy. And fair or not, that’s how trust works.