All I wanted for Valentine’s Day was a basket full of submissions for the EFA’s Freelancer newsletter. The happy holiday (I hope it was happy for colleagues) may be past, but I’d love to see its spirit live on for a while. Show me the love, folks!

The Freelancer comes out six times a year. The deadline is the twentieth of the first cover date for each issue (e.g., March 20 for the March–April issue). Content is almost entirely member-generated. We don’t pay for submissions (nor does the editor get paid, in case you wondered), but hey – it’s good exposure. If you write an article for the EFA newsletter, you can add it to your portfolio as proof of having been published. It’s a welcoming environment for colleagues who aren’t writers but would like to add the occasional publication to their professional lives. A newsletter article also will make you more visible to and better known by your fellow members, which could translate to being remembered when colleagues need someone to subcontract with or recommend or refer for projects.

What can you contribute to the Freelancer? As you may have seen for however long you’ve been a member and receiving the newsletter, there are two key ways to contribute. One is to send news of your triumphs and achievements – cool new clients, published work, awards, etc. Those “member news” items are a great way to let colleagues know what kind of work you do, which again can keep you front and center when they need subcontractors or referrals.

The other is to write articles about anything related to freelancing in general, including to writing, editing, proofreading, indexing, graphics and any other editorial or publishing service or resource that you either provide or are interested in. There’s no limit to article length; one newsletter page is about 750 words, but more is fine. If you have a lot to share, your article might end up as a two- or even three-part series.

Articles do get edited. If an article needs a lot of editing work, it will go back to the author for review and approval of any changes. The preferred style is AP, with a few publication-specific quirks, such as two-letter postal abbreviations for states. That means no serial commas, please.

I hope this post encourages all members to at least think about writing for the Freelancer. It’s a lot of fun to put the newsletter together because of the insights and information it generates from fellow members. This is your publication; feel free to be part of it!

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter (newsletter@the-efa.org) has been editor of the Freelancer since around 2010 and a full-time freelance writer, editor, proofreader and speaker since 1984. She is also coordinator of the EFA’s Rochester, NY, chapter. She recently was named editor-in-chief of the An American Editor blog and chair of the first-ever literary conference of Writers and Books in Rochester, NY, to be held June 16, 2018.