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Dimitri “Have pen, will travel” Ly is a writer, editor, illustrator, podcast host, and webmaster. He works on pieces for websites, magazines, universities, DVD releases, private corporations, and government services.

We talked previously with Dimitri about his work. In that interview (the first part is here, the second part is here) he spoke about how he got his break, how you approach getting an agent, and the craft of freelance prose fiction writing.

In this next part, he shares his advice and some interesting thoughts and tips on freelancing in general:

On Writing:

The minute my life changed as a freelancer, when I went from feeling like I was struggling to thinking I’m making a good living,  was when I started valuing my time more than my money.

In terms of choosing assignments, it’s not about choosing the thing that pays the most; it’s the thing that pays the most in the least amount of time.

A job that pays $300 but involves a huge amount of research might be less worthwhile than something that pays only $100 bucks but you can pop out in a couple of hours. You have to think about how much you are being [paid per hour and not how much you are being paid total.

And that selection process made my life a lot easier and a lot less stressful.

In general:

Networking is incredibly important and I think people sometimes misunderstand what networking is really all about. People are always saying things like “I did this and it got me that and that” and nobody ever talks about just hooking up people with no benefits for themselves.

And it’s an incredibly important part of networking, and it’s a big part of the freelancing culture – to be giving without expecting anything back – because if everybody did that everybody is going to get work.

But we’re in a situation where people are guarded about sharing their ideas and their contacts, and it is a bit silly because there is more than enough work to go around, it’s just that nobody is aware of where there is work.

And a lot of the people that don’t have the skills that a lot of us freelancers have are getting that work because they know somebody and nobody is sharing that information. These are people who would be better off doing an administrative job, and for a lot of them they are doing a full time job without any real training and they don’t really like it. Then suddenly they get promoted into management positions or something, and then the company scrambles again to find a replacement.

But if we had just passed the word around that “Company X is looking to fill Job Y, but I don’t really do that”, and not expecting to gain something form doing that, just share the information, it’ll come back to you, for sure it will, particularly if this networking culture changes.

The Competition:

A lot of succeeding also has to do with confidence and knowing what you are good at. It also means knowing that the people who are competing with you are not necessarily good at the same things as you.

If you are going to freelance and get paid properly, you have to pick the assignments that you are best at. By keeping all of the assignments to yourself you spend an enormous amount of time doing the stuff that you suck at. If you let somebody else do the stuff that you suck at, that leaves you with more time to do the stuff you are good at and then you’ll be making much better money for your time.

That attitude that we writers all have of being very protective of our contacts I find to be generally quite destructive, and I’ll be the first one to say, I never would have been able to have the lifestyle that I wanted if people hadn’t been very generous with helping me.

On Agents:

I was referred to an agent but the traditional way of getting one as far as I understand it, is to send to them the same way you’d send to a publisher. You send them a letter saying here’s who I am this is where I’ve had work published before, in this and that publication, and you’d send that letter even to an agent you’ve been referred to. And you say I am working on this project for this kind of audience, and here’s a first chapter if you’d like to read it, and here’s a sample of some of my published work.

That’s the standard agent approach, and then they get back to you, or not.

In terms of finding them, writers magazines are really good, because agents tend to advertise a lot in those, or even writing for the magazine is a really good way of getting noticed, say an article on your experience as a writer or even just a short story if it’s that kind of magazine, because the agents do get subscriptions to those magazines specifically to look for new talent.

So knowing who you are and what you’re about – I’m this person, this is what I’ve done, this is what I want to do, and here’s the stuff that I have done in preparation for what I want to do next…

Yes, absolutely. That’s certainly what I did and it didn’t play against me. And I’d say that mentioning the target audience you want means the agent can say “Here is a list of contacts and clients that I can pitch this writer to” right away.

You make their job a lot easier by doing that, so yeah, including the target audience is really important.

Thank you very much to Dimitri Ly for talking with Mediaville.

You can read more about Dimitri and check out his work at his site.