Writing and Publishing News

Today I have things other than writing, publishing and book promotion on my mind. We’re hosting our family Christmas gathering here this morning with a ham brunch and there is much to do and think about before our 23 guests arrive.

Among our guests will be my ninety-year-old mother and my six-week old great granddaughter and will include my three daughters and all of my grandchildren and their spouses and significant others. We have cut way back on our gift-giving since the grown grandchildren are all struggling to make their way in the world and money is an issue for some of them. Among them are a full-time mom and her husband who owns a construction company; an airplane builder; an electricians’ apprentice; a hostess in a fine-dining restaurant and a hopeful nursing student. One grandson just landed a new job in the world of technology—his wife is an executive with a local bank.

Instead of exchanging gifts, we now each bring one $10 gift for a drawing. If we get it on sale and pay $10 for a $30 gift, all the better. Everyone goes home with something. Gifts to one another are not allowed. However, some of us cheat. We engage in under-the-table gift giving. The more established family members—those over 50—all manage to have special little gifts for each family. And everyone brings goodies for the little ones. This year, we’re having an auction. We’re auctioning off my deceased aunt’s paintings. We thought it might be an interesting way to find homes for her artwork and have fun doing so

It will be quite a crowd of people spilling into my living room. I hope the commotion doesn’t upset the resident cats too much.

What does my family Christmas gathering have to do with writing, publishing and book promotion? It depends on how you look at it. I can see several potential article ideas within the four paragraphs above. Here’s what I mean:

1: Recipes and tips for serving twenty-plus guests in an ordinary home environment.
2: Family holiday traditions; how and why they morph over time.
3: A study of family traditions and how they benefit families.
4: How to keep pets safe and comfortable when entertaining.
5: A comparison of the type of jobs young adults are accepting now as compared to ten, twenty and thirty years ago.
6: Why are we staying single longer?
7: A tips sheet of potential family traditions.

Some of you will be able to come up with many more article (or even book) ideas based on this theme. But, in the meantime, I’m going to go experience a wonderful family Christmas party. While I’m partying, you can be ordering my books, signing up for one of my online courses for freelance writers and authors, or preparing your manuscript for me to edit. My bookstore is open 24/7.

http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

I have three articles (so far) appearing in publications this month. My article on how to promote your book locally is featured in the IBPA Independent. Fran Silverman, who publishes the Book Promotion Newsletter, published my piece on how to evaluate your author success potential. And my article on the importance of writing for your target audience appears in the Freelance Writer’s Report this month.

If you are the author of a nonfiction book, you should be submitting articles to a variety of appropriate newsletters, magazines and e-publications. Why is this important? It keeps your name in front of your audience. Your book gets exposure and you gain additional credibility in your field. The more your audience trusts you, the more apt they are to purchase your book. And, think about it—if they don’t know about your book, they definitely won’t be buying it.

I send out anywhere from six to a dozen articles to writing, publishing and book promotion newsletters and magazines every month. I submit them to small local club newsletters as well as larger national magazines. And most months my articles appear in three to six (or more) of these publications.

I continually seek out new magazines, ezines and newsletters and I log them in a binder, along with submission information. To date, I have 53 listings for publications in my niche (writing/publishing/book promotion). I am published in around 12 of them fairly regularly.

If you want start promoting your book through articles, sign up today for my on-demand, online article-writing course. It’s a six-week course. Each week, I email you a lecture and an assignment. I work one-on-one with you on your assignments throughout the six-weeks. The fee is $125. If you sign up this month, I will send you a free copy of my book, A Writer’s Guide to Magazine Articles. Visit this link to learn more about this course and to find out how an online class works: http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

If you are promoting a novel, I recommend that you submit stories to appropriate publications as a way to promote your book and yourself as a writer in your genre.

For additional book promotion ideas, order my latest book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author.
http://www.matilijapress.com/PromoteYourBook.html

This book is also available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and IndieBound.com.

How many different types of articles can one write? The answer hovers somewhere around a dozen. There’s the essay, opinion, bulleted piece, how-to, informational/research piece, Q & A, article with expert quotes, interview article, photo feature, review, book excerpts, profile piece and the personal experience article, for example.

But which article types are most popular? And which style should you choose for your subject? You can take almost any topic and create a valid article using any one of these styles. Of course, your choice should reflect the needs and requirements of the magazine you wish to write for. You’re not going to offer a magazine that thrives on hard news an article featuring your viewpoint. Nor would you submit a personal experience piece to a magazine that publishes only how-to and research articles. Before you write that article, be sure that you are writing the right piece for the right magazine.

So which article types are the most popular; the most often used? I suggest the following:

1: How-to. We all want to learn new things—as long as the learning process isn’t too complicated. You’re reading this article in hopes of learning how to write the types of articles that will sell. We read books and articles in order to learn how to prepare certain meals, groom our dogs, make a quilt, tend a garden, get along better with our spouses, take better photographs, travel to exotic places for less and so forth. The how-to is probably at the top of the article chart when it comes to popularity among editors and readers.

2: Research piece with expert quotes. This piece is generally formed through research and interviews. The article typically consists of facts and information with quotes from experts in the field to validate the material. Always get written permission from anyone you interview for an article of this type.

3: The profile piece is not the same as one in which you quote experts. A profile piece features usually one individual related to a specific aspect of his or her life. You might profile a celebrity who owns several dogs for a dog magazine. So your focus will not be her celebrity status as much as it will be her interest and interaction with her dogs. Perhaps you’ll profile the head of a major company on the topic of management for a business management magazine or on his thoughts about working past retirement age for a senior magazine.

4: The personal experience piece. We all like to talk and write about ourselves. This is an easy, slam dunk sort of article to write. But make sure that your experience is truly worth writing about and that it fits with your target magazine’s theme. Here are some areas that you might consider when writing the personal experience article: travel, healing/fitness, recovery from a severe illness or accident, adopting children from other countries, a brief and unusual encounter with a celebrity, a truly unusual wedding or birthday celebration or an identity theft experience, for example.

5: The essay or opinion piece. We all have opinions. I love to write the essay—there’s no (or little) research involved. You don’t have to conduct any interviews. It’s strictly your thoughts—your words—your perspective. And many magazines publish essays or opinion pieces on the topics of their publications.

The key with the Essay or Opinion piece is to write skillfully, make it interesting, stay on topic without too many sidebars and leave the reader with something to think about.

Don’t avoid submitting articles to certain magazines because they want article types that you are not familiar with. Practice writing the How-to, Profile piece or Expert Quote article, for example, and you will expand your earnings considerably.

Many of us are writing articles as well as blog posts designed to promote our books. For more about how to do this along with hundreds of other book promotion ideas, purchase your copy of Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author at Amazon.com TODAY http://amzn.to/oe56Ia

I have been in book promotion mode—giving interviews, responding to questions for blogs, sending out notices about my new book, stopping in at downtown bookstores, sending out review copies, setting up speaking engagements and so forth. And I have been offering a lot of information and perspective for authors through this blog. Today, I thought I’d blog for my freelance writer friends.

I’m sort of in freelance writing mode these days for two reasons. I’ve been submitting articles to a lot of writers’/authors’ publications in order to promote my new book on book promotion. And I’ve also been compiling the SPAWN Market Update and it is heavy with material, suggestions, ideas, leads and resources for the freelance writer. In fact, I always provide quite a bit of material for article and story writers. This month I am focusing on magazines—both consumer and trade—that use the profile/interview piece. Last month, I featured magazines that use how-tos. In July, I wrote about placing the essay. In June I covered some of the less-likely magazines that carry travel articles. I’ve also featured trade publications and high paying magazines that you may not know about.

The thing is, most of us, when we decide to write for magazines, zero in on those that are well-known and high-paying. When I was earning my living writing for magazines for all of those years, few people had ever heard of most magazines I wrote for. And some of them paid quite well. Some of them were only mediocre when it came to their pay scale, but they were reliable and they liked my work. I earned thousands over the years writing for some obscure magazines fairly regularly such as The Toastmaster Magazine, Business Start-Ups, The World and I, Signs of the Times, Communication Briefing, St. Anthony Messenger and so forth.

I also wrote for the trades on occasion. Even though I am not enmeshed in any of these industries, I was able to sell a few pieces to trade magazines related to the hairstyling business, farming, management, commercial art, massage, church administration, education, engineering, public services and others.

How can you break into a magazine on a topic you are not familiar with? Bring in a topic that you are familiar with. For example, most businesses have a management element and there are numerous issues that you could cover within the management realm that don’t necessarily have to do with designing financial portfolios, manufacturing widgets, etc. Workers within many industries might be interested in reading about how to get along with your passive aggressive manager, dealing with the irate customer, using intuition in the workplace, tips for having a more productive afternoon at work, how to make the most of your weekend off, etc.

Many trade and consumer magazines use profile or interview pieces. Just locate someone related to the industry or topic (growing, aviation, hobbies/crafts, fashion, art, public speaking, etc) and interview them for the appropriate publication. I interviewed a former Miss America for an issue of The Toastmaster Magazine once. I interviewed a customer service manager in a large firm years ago and wrote several articles for a variety of magazines on how to handle the irate customer. I interviewed well-known artists, heads of humane organizations for animals and so forth.

You can do the same. If you want to write articles for magazines, consider joining SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) where you have access to the monthly SPAWN Market Update. I always include a meaty section filled with Opportunities for Freelance Writers, often including job boards. Of course, the archives are always available to members, as well. It’s $65/year. http://www.spawn.org

As a SPAWN member, you also have access to other freelance writers through our discussion group, SPAWNDiscuss. Sign up for our FREE enewsletter, SPAWNews and receive a FREE ebooklet for writers, authors and artists who have something to market.

I also offer an online course for freelance writers who need a nudge: http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

Learn more about me and my work: http://www.patriciafry.com