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I used to treat writing contests like a gamble. I’d scroll through listings, pay my entry fees, and hope for a miracle. It was a strategy built on “maybe,” and it left my bank account empty. The issue wasn’t that my writing was bad, it was that my strategy was non-existent. I was treating contests like $20 lottery tickets instead of a professional investment. ​After a few years of losing money on entry fees and not applying to win anything, I had to stop and look at the math. I realized that for a working freelancer, “hope” is a dangerous business plan. Here is the advice I wish I’d had before I spent a cent on entry fees. Time is the Most Expensive Entry Fee​ Most writers only look at entry fees in dollar amounts. I started looking at the clock and realized that I was spending way too much time on submissions that may not pay off in the long run. If a submission requires four hours of tailoring, that is half a day I am not spending on a guaranteed freelance check. I now treat every entry as a total investment. If I wouldn’t work for a client More

For years, I’ve counselled writers to avoid religion and politics in their branding unless they are part of their brand. There are always potential readers on the other side of the fence, and with so much competition for book sales, do you really want to alienate a chunk of them? There’s another category rearing its head in this accidental culling of your own market, too, and its totally different than religion and politics. It’s AI. When some readers (more than you think) learn that you might have used AI in the creation of your work, they put you on their do-not-read list. You can call it unfair or not. You can call them troglodytes. You can call them out of touch for not keeping up with progress. But you know what? You still will not sell them a book. But what does that mean? What if you cannot afford a cover designer? What if you just used AI on the cover but not the copy, or vice versa? What if it was used for brainstorming or editing or rewriting a chapter? None of that matters. If the reader who avoids AI hears you used it in any fashion, regardless of More

I’m not a talented writer. I’m not even steeped in writing qualifications. Yet my website is splattered with published features. How? In three words – pitch, ballsiness and research. Pitch – Turtles inspired me to write. While out having coffee, I noticed a company advertising string bags as alternatives to plastic ones. Not very interesting in itself. But, paired with the emotive side that turtles suffer an untimely death by eating an upturned plastic one, I had an idea for a pitch. Ballsiness – I’d never written a pitch so bought a book on how to write a good one. ‘I can try that’ I decided. I found a UK women’s magazine aimed at seniors and read it from cover to cover three times. I’d hit on a topical issue, the editor was interested! Research – The editor guided me. She wanted more ideas for plastic bag alternatives and quotes from supermarkets on how they intended to eliminate them.  Internet searches gave me suggestions for bags. I emailed supermarkets’ media departments (found on their website) to obtain spokespeople. The article was published. Beginner’s luck? Well, yes and no – I continued to work freelance for the magazine for two years. Discovering our local More

Once upon a time not long ago I did an event where several authors appeared. It was at a library. The library didn’t advertise except in its own material to its patrons. They thought the writers would really appreciate the recognition. I asked if they had advertising prepared that I could use. No. I mentioned I would promote via my channels. They thanked me. I asked if they had asked the other authors to do the same. No. So I asked who the other authors were. (I had no idea.) Then I did ads. I sent them via all my channels. I crossed my fingers this was worth the travel and the time. I have done this multiple times over the years, learning a hard lesson each time, but apparently not learning it permanently. One would think I would have. Now, however, my rules as a whole are these: -Get paid to appear unless the sale of books will adequately compensate. -If I speak, present, or teach a class, I get paid, regardless of sales. -Avoid multiple author events. . . anywhere. The average visitor buys 1-3 books regardless how many authors are there. When there are many authors, do More

When I started submitting my work in 2017, I didn’t have an author bio. At the time, I thought the writing should speak for itself. The bio felt like filler; plus, I had no idea what to say about myself. I didn’t have a long list of publications yet, and the thought of writing two or three sentences to sound polished and legitimate made me want to crawl under the bed. Then I received my first acceptance, and the editor asked for a short bio. I stared at that email as if handed a pop quiz for a class I forgot I was taking. Up until then, I’d put all my energy into getting a yes. Suddenly I had to explain who I was in a few lines. The whole ordeal made me realize the bio wasn’t just decoration. It was part of being a working writer. 1st Author Bio: Bethany Bruno is a born and raised Florida writer. She received her Master of Arts in English from the University of North Florida in 2016. She’s working on her debut novel, “From the Passenger Seat.” Since then, I’ve published in many more journals and magazines, and I’ve come to see the More

As freelance writers, we struggle to find markets that suit our interests. Even sites dedicated to providing freelance listings, while excellent for the most part, can’t list every available market. Often, the smaller niche publishers aren’t even included in listings, but with some effort there are ways to find them. Search Medium for [Subject] Writers’ Guidelines or Article Submissions Medium is widely known as an online home where writers can create their own home for their stories and content. However, it has become much more than that, having also evolved into a search engine and a powerful tool to find markets you never even knew existed. By searching for your subject, you can also narrow the returns for those journals and/or sites. For example, I searched for “lifestyle writers guidelines,” and the guidelines for Cosmopolitan Magazine showed up alongside The Lifestyle Café which had a listing for “Writers Wanted.” A little further down in the search I found more guidelines for Wellness Travel Adventures and for a site called Ice Cream. There were also articles with publications that paid lifestyle and health writers. While some Medium content is behind a paywall, there is still enough available to make this worth your time to search. Magazine More

Believe it or not, online sites and magazines are seeking freelance writers they can rely upon. And if they develop a reliable relationship with them, they’ll use those writers as long as they can. The reason? Reliable writers who can follow direction, think intelligently, and write well without AI are few and far between. I am one of those editors. I just received a submission from someone new. Oh my goodness, her work was well written, all guidelines followed, and the thought well presented. I bought the article and extended an invitation to submit again. People, those invitations are worth their weight in gold. 1) Look for guidelines first, then follow them to the letter. 2) Never ask an editor is they are looking for writers. Why do you think the guidelines are out there? Don’t make the editor answer because you are too lazy to. Asking me that earns you instant rejection. . . or no reply. 3) Respect the market by knowing it well. Respect the editor by not asking if you can pitch, telling them how reliable you are, or asking for ideas. Editors are strung out and juggling a lot of balls. They don’t need anymore More

A week doesn’t pass that someone doesn’t write me and ask what books I recommend on learning how to write well. And I never fail to go to a conference and not meet a writer who thrives on how-to-write books, with a library of two dozen or more. To them all, I preach this: The best book to learn from is one already published, successful in its own right, in the genre you wish to pursue. Take that baby and read it. Then start over and dissect it. Underline, highlight, write in the margins, and dog-ear those pages. Cross through what you didn’t like. Circle the breath-catching phrases. Underline and star the sentences you wish you’d written. Nothing beats the doing. Nothing beats learning from those who have gone before you. Nothing beats seeing greatness and backing into how it came to be. Your best instruction book isn’t a how-to book. It’s a how-it-was-done book. And any author worth their clout can’t recall a how-to book that shaped their writing more than having read the classics, the best-sellers, and the popular books that made them go WOW in reading them. That said, I am reading How to Write a Sentence-and How More

Launching a book as an indie author can feel overwhelming, but with a clear schedule and targeted strategies, it can also be a source of income, reviews, and long-term visibility. I learned this while preparing my travel memoir Stray: Breaking Free, Falling Hard and Growing Stronger, and I want to share the exact steps that helped me monetize my launch. Start Early: Build Your Assets Five months before launch, I focused on the foundation: creating an author bio, back-cover blurb, and a polished book cover. I found an editor I trusted through Reedsy. To help craft my back-cover blurb, I relied on Book Blurb Magic, whose free downloadable PDF “Unlock the Hidden Formula of Bestselling Blurbs” offered practical guidance for creating an attention-grabbing summary. To design the cover, I used 100Covers. I was impressed by their fast response time and flexibility. I went back and forth dozens of times until I found a design I loved, all at an affordable price. For formatting, I used Vellum, and I was amazed at how easy it was, even though I’m not tech-savvy! (Be aware: Vellum only works on Mac. If you’re not a Mac user, Atticus has great reviews as an alternative.) I used Canva to create shareable graphics featuring quotes More

Last year, I made more money from my writing than I ever had before, and it came from one change: submitting to writing contests. I don’t pretend contest winnings can replace a full-time income, and they haven’t for me. But contest money has helped in concrete ways, and it gave me a takeaway even more useful than a check: momentum. I won $1,000 from The Saturday Evening Post’s Great American Fiction Contest. I also won $500 from Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Contest over the summer. Those two wins did not solve everything, but they paid bills, funded entry fees, and proved to me that my work could earn. If contests have always felt like a long shot, here’s what worked for me once I started treating them less like a lottery and more like a targeted submission strategy. Step 1: Put finding contest leads on autopilot I stopped relying on random scrolling and started subscribing to newsletters and databases that routinely post contest calls. I use these often: •    Chill Subs: https://www.chillsubs.com/ •    Authors Publish: https://authorspublish.com/ •    FundsforWriters: https://fundsforwriters.com/ The goal is simple: I want a steady flow of contest opportunities coming to me, so I’m not reinventing the wheel by searching from scratch every time I’m ready to More