As the editor of www.roadjunky.com one of my jobs is to go through freelance submissions. We only pay for country and city guides but a lot of writers send us travel stories to get some exposure. On average, I accept about 3 in 10 of the articles sent in and the rest leave me yawning, crying or laughing in disbelief. I even thought about setting up a spoof website called www.roadflunky.com for all the worst travel writing we'd received over the years.

Include waterfalls bit and other

But sometimes I don't even get as far as looking at the writing and just dump the message in the bin for the following reasons:

• the letter is addressed dear sir/madam and has obviously been sent to a bunch of other editors.

• The writer clearly hasn't bothered to look at the site to see what kind of content we run.

• The writing in the cover letter is so bad, full of typos and unsupported statements that their article is bound to be as bad.

That might seem a bit harsh but the freelance writer must understand just how busy most editors are. There's copy to be written, articles to be checked, photos to be sourced, correspondence to answer, writers to chase up and the next move in Yahoo Chess to be played...

If you want to get an editor's attention, you need to give him as much attention as you're asking for. If, for instance, you want to get an article published on Road Junky, mentioning in your message that you enjoyed the latest editorial on 10 Interesting Diseases to Catch Around the World wins you bonus points. Make an editor laugh, feel good about the publication he runs or offer unconditional shoulder rubs and you're that much nearer publication.

Freelance writing is a tenuous profession that depend upon the goodwill of various editors scattered around the place and you'll fall in and out of favour like subjects at a royal court. There are swarms of other freelance writers out there who are hungry for their slice of the available budget and you're in direct competition with them. You may never meet each other but the editor's inbox is full of submissions and pitches, each with the assurance that circulation/traffic is bound to increase with this latest hot article.

There will be times when you get several commissions in a row from an editor and you fondly imagine yourself as part of the staff – until 6 months go by without a reply to your last emails and you eventually discover the editor has been replaced, the magazine went bust or he just forgot all about you. Boo.

So the creative freelance writer is always looking for new markets but getting your foot in the door is about the hardest thing to do. If a publication is paying decent money then there are likely to be very few slots open and a pitch from an unknown writer doesn't stand much chance. Apart from anything else, if you don't have much of a track record then the editor won't know if you can really come up with the goods. Deadlines are pressing and he may well choose to go with a trusted, established writer instead.

To this end it's good to look professional. This means:

• Spell check your pitch and check for typos.

• Read the goddamn submission guidelines and if they ask for writing samples, send them. If articles are divided into categories, make it clear you understand the structure. Otherwise it looks like you're wasting the editor's time.

• Make sure you know what the magazine or website is actually about and explain why your story will fit in.

• Don't confess your dream of becoming a full-time writer in the email. The editor isn't there to make your wishes come true, he's after good copy. Period.

In addition, try to build up as much a reputation as you can for yourself by getting clips published here and there even if the money is crap or non-existent. On the other hand it doesn't look great when you boast to having been published on www.weacceptanyoldjunk.com

But having your own personal website www.yourname.com shows that you, at least, take yourself seriously. Just don't include a page of that teenage poetry that you couldn't quite face deleting.

Just for fun, I'll leave you with the very worst pitch I ever received: