Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The Non-Commercially-Viable Blogger

Yesterday, I sent my resume and some writing samples to a handful of creative agencies in the DC area - all folks advertising for writers. My samples included a magazine article, a corporate recruiting flyer, a speech, a marketing piece, and one of my radio commentaries.

I heard back today from one of the agencies. Here's what they had to say:

"Dear Ms. Merujo:

Thank you for submitting your clips to us. We appreciate the time you took to contact us. At this time, however, we do not feel that your writing talents meet the needs of our practice or our clients. While you clearly have good basic skills, your writing is not up to the level required for a commercial agency. I would recommend some writing and editing courses to learn to tighten your copy and make it more viable for commercial needs.

Thanks for the link to the radio commentary. That was some entertaining work.

Good luck to you in your creative endeavors."

Eek!

The fanschmabulous Atomic Editor says "screw 'em." (Thank you, sir.)

Maybe I should have turned the "dog condom" blog entry into a PDF and sent that to these guys...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rejections suck. Welcome to the club -- it's a big one. We're getting shirts.

gina
http://findingmygroove.blog-city.com

suze said...

well, at least they found your radio commentary entertaining.

as for not commercially viable...meh....there's some benefit to learning how to write concisely but really it's more a matter of subjective taste...

although j-skool did make my technical writing better, it sucked the spark of creativity from my brain. i'm only now getting it back - four years later....

Anonymous said...

LOL! I love the idea of getting shirts, Gina... and yes, what Suze said:

"Taste is subjective"...

There are plenty of people out there that still don't "get" Garrison Keillor and the whole "Lake Woebegone" thing, but I doubt he loses sleep over it.

I say to keep knocking on all the doors, but don't take it personally if they don't buy... just move on to the next neighborhood. You have talent, we enjoy your work and I firmly believe there is a market for what you have to offer. Don't give up!

SJL

Merujo said...

I like the shirt idea, too. Cafe Press, anyone? :-)

It is all a matter of taste, in the end, isn't it? There are some blogs about which people rave and rave. I visit them and think, "Ummm... I don't get it." (Then again, I don't get a lot of things...)

SJL - did you ever see the episode of the Simpsons where they mock A Prairie Home Companion? It was brilliant. I got a free ticket to see the show when I was a college freshman in St. Paul, Minnesota (students from my college were given a night to usher in exchange for freebie tix.) I wrote a message to possibly be read on air, and, lo and behold, Keillor read mine. Of course, my parents missed the show. But, the parents of dear friends heard it and knew that message was mine. :-)

Anonymous said...

Ha! I'd get a shirt, too.

I applaud you for trying at least. I've only gotten as far as reading "Writing for Magazines, A Beginner's Guide."

Then again, I have a cousin who is Chief Correspondant for the NYT. Talk about inferiority complexe-inducing relations. Holy crap. I'll mail stuff out one of these days, in the meantime, I'll just admire the chutzpah of people like you who did it.

Rock on.

Taste is *so* subjective.

kob said...

That was a strange note. Is it from some adjective dripping PR agency?

What motivates a person to send out tart and self-aggrandizing advice with a rejection?

Let me guess why you were rejected: You didn't use the word "exciting" at least seven times in your cover letter? Please remember the three "f's" of cover letter writing: Fabulous, Fantastic, First.

And this from the rejection scribe: "more viable for commercial needs." Fine piece of writing there. If that's "commercially viable" prose ... ah. Why don't you set up a Web site pointing out good examples of writing that's "viable for commercial needs" -- there's so much of it hurling over prnewswire. Focus on the DC clowns. Go on the attack. Be ruthless. No prisoners.

Thanks for the shoutout.

Merujo said...

You know, KOB, you're right. There's so much crappy, pretentious stuff out there, and it should be exposed. After getting dissed yet again today, I'm inspired...

Hmmm... think, think, think...

Oh, and it was actually a copywriting firm up in Baltimore (with a really awful website) that gave me the e-mail smackdown. Nice, huh?

Anonymous said...

Don't know if you'd be interested, but Barnes and Nobles has some free online courses that start in sepember at Barnesandnobles.com, click on B and N University. There's a course on getting published that I thought looked interesting. Also, if there's a Knight-Ridder newspaper in the area, they use freelance correspondents. Don't know if you're into writing that kind of stuff.

gina
http://findingmygroove.blog-city.com

Merujo said...

Thanks for the info, Gina! Mucho, mucho appreciated - I'll check it out!

- MJ