Writing and Publishing News

Some freelance writers have trouble seeing possibilities in their articles. They get hooked on presenting a particular article in a certain way for a specific magazine and, when that doesn’t pan out, they give it up.

In this age of recycling, renewing, regenerating, replenishing, it only makes sense that freelance writers would conserve time and energy by revising rejected articles and even published articles to fit new markets.

If you would like your articles to work harder for you, here are some ideas that might help:

1: You sold your 1,200 piece on how to achieve family togetherness to Family Magazine (a regional parenting magazine for New Jersey parents) and earned $200. Now tweak that piece to fit other regional parenting markets. Mention family-related events, activities and programs in Massachusetts for Bay State Parent Magazine, New York for Hudson Valley Parent, Atlanta for Atlanta Parent, Alabama for Birmingham Parent and so forth. These are regional magazines, covering only certain areas and there should be no problems with rights overlapping.

2: Health Magazine purchased your article featuring the whooping cough epidemic and paid you $2,000. Now start submitting spin-offs of that piece on whooping cough facts and fiction for a general interest, religious, senior and/or parenting magazine.

3: Your submission focusing on therapy pets was a big hit with Vim and Vigor. Now change it to fit several regional publications (featuring local people and organizations), a religious magazine (focusing on families using therapy pets), a travel magazine (how to travel with your therapy pet) and senior publications (how to locate the right therapy pet).

I met a man many years ago who had written an article for a magazine that I frequently write for. He asked me to read his article and tell him why I think they keep rejecting it. (Yes, he has sent it to them more than once.) I looked it over and told him that this magazine publishes how-to pieces and his was an essay. I suggested that he change his article to comply and gave him some pointers on how to do this.

The next time I saw him—about a year later—he was still trying to get the same article (the essay) published in the same magazine. It’s kind of like trying to fit that square peg into a round hole.

If you have an article that is repeatedly rejected, perhaps you should start looking at it as that proverbial square peg. Certainly, there are methods of driving that peg in, but it will take some significant changes. As I see it, you have 3 choices. You can continue to try making it fit and experiencing failure. You can hone the angles on the peg so that it conforms to the round hole, thus will fit. Or you can enlarge the hole. What will you do?

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

Yesterday I wrote about writing for major magazines and/or the magazines of your choice. I hope you found the suggestions helpful.

When I started out writing articles (in 1973)—and throughout most of my career—I relied mainly on small and medium-size magazines. While, in the beginning, I accepted as little as $50 per article, I eventually got to a point where I would not write for less than $200. Obviously, I broke into this field through some rather obscure, low-paying markets. And I can tell you there’s not much prestige for a freelance article writer when no one has heard of the magazines you’re writing for.

(But then you’re not writing to impress your friends, are you? Your goal is to earn some money and/or reach your audience with your message.)

Unless you own a copy of Writer’s Market and study it often, even you have probably never heard of Minority Engineering, Bodywise, Children’s Voice, Seattle’s Child, Teacher’s Vision, Family Motor Coaching, The Edge and National Barbecue News. These are some of the low-paying markets I submitted to in the early days.

I learned during those years about the importance of quantity versus quality. Several low-paying magazine editors loved my work and the work was fairly easy to produce. So I could earn a decent part-time salary (and, by the way, credits) by being a loyal contributor.

As time went on, I also earned some fairly good money from magazines such as Columbia, The Walking Magazine, Pages, Business Start-Ups, Sam’s Club Source, Technology and Learning, Vim and Vigor, HOW and The Toastmaster Magazine. While some of these magazines paid well per article, others used many of my articles, thus were reliable sources of money. How many of these magazines have you heard of?

I find that most authors who want to promote their books and most writers starting out are focused on some of the big name magazines—Family Circle, Glamour, Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic, Harpers or The Atlantic Monthly, for example. They aren’t even aware of some of the other magazines in these categories—magazines that pay less, but are more apt to accept your submission. And some of them have fairly good circulation. Columbia has 1,700,000; St. Anthony Messenger, 300,000; Vim and Vigor, 200,000.

When I was earning my living through article-writing, I discovered early-on that I could make $3,000 more quickly and surely by selling articles to 6 small to medium-size magazines than by trying to sell one article to Parade or Reader’s Digest.

If you’ve been unsuccessful at breaking into the article-writing business, you might consider changing your strategy. Rather than setting your sights on the big time with your amazing article idea, lower your standards and seek out some of the more realistic opportunities. You may want to set aside your amazing article and start earning money and credits through smaller markets.

I have used several tactics for finding markets. Here’s one. Sit with the Writer’s Market (or your favorite directory of publications) and go through all of the magazine listings in the categories you could potentially write for—general, regional, religious, parenting, inflight, etc. Read each listing. If you are sitting with an open mind, article ideas will begin to occur to you. As they do, write them down.

If you’re like many freelance writers, you have a favored topic and some article ideas. By reading through the listings, you’ll also discover potential magazines that you may want to approach with your article. A serious article-writer is willing to tweak his/her article to fit the requirements of the magazine. I’ve seen numerous writers enter into the world of article-writing without the flexibility necessary to succeed. Don’t make this mistake.

Tomorrow, I will write about how to creatively tweak your articles to fit markets outside of the norm.

Be sure to visit my websites:
http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com