Freelancers Clinic

Welcome to the Freelancers’ Clinic

Freelance writing is a tough business, and there’s no shame in seeking input from others. Whether you write fiction, non-fiction or journalism, and no matter what stage you’re at, we can help. Dan Baum and Margaret Knox have been making a good living as freelance writers since 1987, writing for most national magazines and producing three non-fiction books. Together, they produced stories for three years under Dan’s byline when he was on staff at The New Yorker.

We offer two services. First is mastering the craft of the proposal. Nothing happens in publishing without an excellent proposal, and producing one is a black art. Do you have an idea for an article or book that you want to sell? Have you written a proposal that’s going nowhere? Visit The Proposal Factory for Dan’s help in writing a magazine or book proposal that will command editors’ attention regardless of how little track-record you have. One of the precious little secrets of publishing is that editors are eager to discover the next great voice, and if the proposal is terrific, your clips -- or lack thereof -- mean little.

Once you’ve started a piece of writing and have a first draft in hand, don’t send it to an editor or agent without having Margaret edit it first. This is how good she is: When we were writing for The New Yorker, the magazine’s legendary editors had little to do; our copy ran almost exactly as Margaret had edited it. She has a brilliant grasp of the power and beauty of English, is tough to the threshhold of relentless, and yet knows how to keep a writer’s spirits up through the whole grueling process. If you’re serious about getting your prose published, contact her.

Margaret Knox editing