Writing and Publishing News

Writing is a rather self-serving activity, don’t you think? We derive great pleasure from the process of stringing and weaving words together. We thrill at the idea of moving someone to tears or laughter through our writing. We love coming up with new and interesting ways of presenting a thought, dialog or information. And, as writers, we can create material strictly to please ourselves—that is, until we start writing for publication.

Some writers, when they decide to turn their writing into earnings, find a niche—a specific area of interest. Two of my writer friends write almost exclusively for animal and pet publications. Others do only travel writing. There are freelancers who write primarily for the childhood education, gardening or senior markets.

How do they earn enough money to keep writing when they write only on one subject? By using every creative fiber in their being to expand on and rework that subject.

For example, let’s say that you typically write a pet column in a local newspaper, submit regularly to a paying newsletter for dog owners and occasionally contribute to various national pet and animal publications. You could conceivably increase your earnings by doing a little extra research, altering some of your pieces and submitting them to regional, family, environment or senior magazines, for example. Your column piece on local dog parks and how to behave when visiting them could be reworked to fit any community or state publication and several other types of magazines. Your article featuring the dangers of walking your dog in wilderness areas could be altered for any number of regional magazines.

I once wrote a piece for a parenting magazine on how to teach your children responsibility. I sold a similar article called, “How to Teach Your Child Responsibility Through Horse Ownership,” to a horse-related magazine and, “How to Teach Your Child Responsibility Through Owning a Cat,” to a cat magazine. So an article that originally paid around $400, suddenly blossomed into a $800 or $900 paycheck.

I write on a variety of topics. But, over the years, I’ve also submitted hundreds of articles to a niche market. That niche is writing and publishing. I’ve also written over 400 blog entries related to writing and publishing. How can one person come up with so many different ways to present material and insight on a single topic? By knowing the questions.

What does that mean? Well, in order to write for a particular audience, you must know what that audience cares about, needs to know, is interested in, could benefit from and what they are asking. Listen to people. Visit forums and blogs in your area of writing interest. Read newsletters, magazines and books on your topic. Be in constant research mode whether you are surfing the web, watching TV or chatting with someone in the supermarket.

And once you come up with the original article idea and sell it, begin immediately looking for ways to change or expand on it. Here’s another concrete ideas for those of you who find this difficult: I once saw an article in the newspaper about raised gardens for the disabled gardener. My research led me to eventually write several articles on therapy gardens, therapeutic gardening, gardening tools for the handicapped gardener, healing gardens for the ailing and meditation gardens. These articles appeared in family, senior, regional, general, health and walking magazines.

This week, why don’t you work on expanding and altering some of your most promising or popular articles to use in other types of publications. I’d love to hear of your successes.

For additional help, check out my array of books at http://www.matilijapress.com

Among them, you’ll find, A Writer’s Guide to Magazine Articles, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book, The Successful Writer’s Handbook. And, if you love cats and need a warm fuzzy experience, order your copy of Catscapades, Tales of Ordinary and Extraordinary Cats.

Have you noticed the little button just to the right toward the end of each of my blog entries? It says “Subscribe To My Feed.” How many of you have subscribed? Do you even know what this means? Well, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. And when you subscribe at my blog site, updated information from this blog is automatically downloaded to your computer.

As most of you who visit my blog know, I post a new entry almost every day. If you haven’t established a habit of visiting my publishing blog daily—as part of your morning email ritual, for example—this may be the solution. Your subscription to my Feed will bring you the updates rather than you having to remember to go to my blog site to get them.

I’d like to know if any of you are using this Feed and how it is working out for you.

I’d also like to dialog with you about the economy and how this downturn is affecting you as a writer, author or hopeful writer/author. Is it affecting your writing or book promotion? In what way? And here’s the big question, what are you doing about it? What changes are you making in the way that you work, in your expectations, in your short-term goals? Have you gone back to a paying job? Have you lost your paying job and are turning to writing? Are you having difficulty finding your niche in the world of freelance writing? Are having trouble collecting for the work you have done? Have you found a new way to make a few bucks within the writing realm?

What is your demeanor? Your mindset? Are you frightened out of your wits? Or are you secure in your abilities to always come out on top?

Anyone who has been in this business for any length of time has experienced difficult periods because of the economy or maybe other circumstances. If you become ill or otherwise become distracted and stop promoting your services or pitching your articles, for example, your income will suffer. You’ve probably learned this lesson a time or two during your career. And here it is facing you again. But the situation is even more dire.

There’s more competition for the work that you do, people are not as readily spending on services, they are putting off educational opportunities, magazines are not getting the advertising dollars and are either folding or they’re faltering when it comes to paying their contributors, publishers are receiving more projects and investing in fewer. It’s tough. It really is.

So what is your answer? How are you managing during this difficult period? I’d like to hear from you. PLFry620@yahoo.com.

In the meantime, if you need help jumpstarting your writing career, making the right moves that will entice a publisher, coming up with ideas for promoting your book, for example, check out my wide array of books for writers and authors at http://www.matilijapress.com

And if you want to escape for a moment from the reality of life and living and enter into a world of fur and whiskers, order Catscapades, Tales of Ordinary and Extraordinary Cats. It’s a sweet read. (Click on the picture of the cat, top row of books, far right.)

I want to give you something to think about as you write your memoir, a true story about your cat or dog, for example, or an account of something you witnessed. While it’s not okay to fabricate to the point that some authors in the news have done recently—to write blatant lies—it is okay to ignore some of the details. In fact, I tell authors that it is sometimes okay not to tell the entire, complete truth. Many times, it’s best that you don’t.

If it is not pertinent to the story whether you used your right hand to open the door or your left, don’t mention it. Give your reader the information he needs in order to visualize the story—to help him to be a part of the story—but not so much detail that he becomes distracted by it.

Maybe, in reality, you had to cross two streets and walk around the other side of a green Honda with a dangling license plate and a child’s car seat inside to reach the dry cleaners where you picked up your linen table cloth for your intimate dinner that night. But is all of this detail necessary to the story you are telling? If not, drop it. Say, instead, that you walked around the corner to the dry cleaners and picked up the linen.

Sometimes keeping to the order of things rudely interrupts a story. Maybe it happened that John came to your door and walked right in. But it may make a better story if he hesitates at the door before knocking and reconsiders what he’s going to say. Instead of writing the true account—that Jayne called the doctor three times before she got an answer—if this isn’t important to the story, just have Jayne dial the phone and speak to the doctor.

In other words, stick to your story, of course, but don’t be so truthful that it hurts your readers.

Computers and Cats
It has been a rough morning computer-wise. I got a message that I have a nasty virus. But that turned out to be some company trying to sell me virus protection. We are running my virus protection program now just to be on the safe side. Then someone emailed me at my website saying that they could not get an email through to my yahoo address.

We certainly become complacent with our computers, don’t we? We get so accustomed to the computer following our every command—on command—that we get frustrated when there is a glitch of any kind.

Sometimes my computer reminds me of my cats. At times, it’s unpredictable, finicky and seems to have a mind of its own. The computer, like a cat, can provide such pleasure. But you never know when it will decide to turn on you. While a cat who may nibble on your favorite house plant, use your garden for a litter box, upchuck a soggy furball in the middle of the night on your route to the bathroom and shed all over your black suit, your computer sometimes freezes up, looses contact with the printer or refuses to perform a simple, much-needed function.

Speaking of cats, I received a call from my sister-in-law yesterday in Idaho telling me how much she is enjoying reading Catscapades, Tales of Ordinary and Extraordinary Cats. She said, “The stories just make me smile. They’re so uplifting. And I’m really getting to know more about you. I love it.”

Others, who have bought copies, are coming back and purchasing additional copies for their cat-lovin’ friends and relatives. Don’t forget that I have a Valentine’s Day special going on. I send you a dollar back for every copy of the print edition of Catscapades that you purchase before February 14, 2009. And what a lovely and sweet Valentine’s Day gift this is for anyone who adores cats and enjoys reading about them.

Order your copy at http://www.matilijapress.com/catscapades.html

I am now taking new clients. If you need editorial help (every book manuscript needs an editor) and/or a publishing consultant, contact me at PLFry620@yahoo.com.

I am frequently amazed and amused at how some writers shy away from using the period. Does it frighten them? Are they afraid that if they end a sentence, they will lose the essence of their message? On the contrary, the intent in a sentence that goes on and on is much more likely to be lost than the intent in a series of succinct, well-placed and pointed sentences.

Storytelling is a process. You rely on step-by-step momentum in order to develop your story and to carry it. When writing instructions or a self-help piece, you must use logic in presenting your material and present it so that it can be easily assimilated.

One clever little object that helps us to do this is the period. It indicates to the reader, the end of a statement, thought or bit of dialogue, for example. A story without a period, would keep readers from creating a connection to the theme, your characters and the flow of the story. He would get confused quite early on.

Commas cannot take the place of periods, nor can semi-colons or connector words such as “and,” “as,” or “so.” Try to sneak a lot of these guys into your sentences and you’re probably creating run-on sentences that go nowhere and say little.

A run-on sentence, one with more than 26 words max, it’s fragments woven together by commas and connector words, is generally so diluted by the time you finish it, and so confusing and hard to follow, that the meaning is completely lost.

Now that’s a sentence with 42 words. A bit long, don’t you think? It’s not awful, but it could be pared down and made more easily understandable.

When you write your next paragraph, article or letter, examine your sentences. Do you have any that seem terribly long? Do some of them carry on for several lines? Do you think this is okay because you’re sticking to the same topic throughout the entire sentence? Let me answer this by example. Take a look at the following sentence:

“She so wanted to have a child that, with a face flushed with embarrassment, she rushed to the front door of her apartment and, as she grabbed the doorknob with her right hand and opened it wide as she ran out the door and to the apartment next door and began ringing the bell as if she was desperate, which she was because, having a child was her destiny, or at least, she believed this and so did her parents who were pressuring her to have a child, even though she was still in her twenties and unmarried without a job or a future with a man.”

Sure, this sentence focuses on one theme, and it gives the reader some insight into the character’s situation and dilemma. But you’re asking a lot of the reader if you expect him to muddle through this mess of thoughts, facts and actions in one giant bite. Not only does this sentence include some unnecessary aspects (who cares which hand she uses to grab the doorknob?), it is terribly convoluted and downright muddy. Do I actually see writing like this in the course of my editorial work? Yes, I do. How do I handle something like this? I either break it down into reasonable bits and bites or I ask the author to do so. I suggest that she eliminate several instances of “and,” “as,” and “so,” that she write this with more clarity and that she create maybe three or four complete sentences from this one.

Don’t fear or hate the period. It is there to keep you looking good as a writer. The period is your friend. It can help you to get your point across, move or touch your readers and clarify your thoughts and ideas.

For more help with writing, punctuation and self-editing, order your copy of The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book today.
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Are you making it during these difficult financial times? Is your writing suffering as you concentrate your efforts on a paying job or on finding a job? Are you a professional freelance writer or do you rely on the income from your published book? How are you handling the slowdown? Or are you experiencing a slowdown? Are you scrambling to get more writing work—doing more promotion? Are you willing to expand your services in order to get work? Or have you given up on your writing work in exchange for a regular job?

What is your story? How are you keeping your head above water? Comment here. Let’s share and network. Maybe we can help each other.

I’ve been in touch with some of my former clients this month. I like to know how their projects are going. One of them gave me a newsy update and included this comment, “I am realizing that the more patient I am about this process (of publishing a book) the better things tend to work out.” She goes on to tell me about some opportunities that have come up with regard to her book project because she is taking her time moving through the process rather than rushing things. She said that if she’d grasped at the first straw offered, she would have spent more money and missed out on some marvelous opportunities. She doesn’t have a published book, yet. But she still has money in her pocket. AND she is currently negotiating with an organization who wants to help her with promotion.

Perhaps you recall my article, Hurry Up and Fail. It deals with this very issue. Check it out at:
http://www.matilijapress.com/articles/publish_hurryfail.htm

Herein, I suggest that hopeful authors take the publishing process in manageable increments and logical steps. I list the important steps and when to initiate them. If you are writing a book for publication, if you do not read another article this month, read this one—Hurry Up and Fail.

My article, How to Protect Yourself From Publishing Scams appeared in the January 2009 edition of the SPAN Connection (the newsletter of the Small Publishers of North America).

Have you checked out my latest ebook, Catscapades, Tales of Ordinary and Extraordinary Cats? This book is also available in print (comb-bound) form. http://www.matilijapress.com/catscapades.html