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As writers we make promises. We forget that sometimes. -We promise to write a great article that fits the readership, giving it our absolute best, delivering it on time. -We promise to write a solid book, published professionally. -We promise to spin a tale that entertains while tickling the intellect. -We promise to provide a regular article/blog post/periodical/column that maintains a standard. But the promise we are making, the unsaid promise but the very expected promise, is that we will continue to fulfill these promises in each and every piece of writing we do afterwards. We will not backslide. We will not rest on our laurels. We will continue presenting our best work, in the best way possible. Quality is character. Maintaining a standard can represent a dozen or more different aspects of you and your writing. -Quality of word choice. -Quality of grammar. -Quality of topic. -Quality of delivery per contract. -Quality of cover. -Quality of speaking ability. -Quality of website. -Quality of voice on social media. -Quality of reachability. -Quality of storytelling. -Quality of voice. -Quality of concern for the reader. -Etc. For instance, because you won an award does not mean you’ve arrived. Your next work should More

A variety of skills are needed to earn a consistent income as a writer. Next to writing aptitude and business proficiency, relationship building rounds out the top three. In more than 30 years as freelance writer, I’ve grown to appreciate the power of personal. Building authentic, mutually-beneficial relationships with editors, business clients, and fellow writers has had a positive impact on my income, as well as my overall state-of-mind. Despite the convenience and widespread use of email, text, social media, and video meetings, a significant percentage of people still feel lonely and disconnected. “Loneliness is a growing health epidemic,” wrote former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in an article for Harvard Business Review. “We live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s. Over 40 percent of adults in America report feeling lonely, and research suggests that the real number may well be higher. In the workplace, many employees – and half of CEOs – report feeling lonely in their roles.” Sometimes an email or social media shoutout just doesn’t cut it. Call your editor or send a card to congratulate him on a recent award or other professional recognition. More

I have yet to attend a writer’s group of any kind without someone fussing about submitting and only hearing crickets in return. They’d prefer an acceptance, but if that’s not in their cards, they want a rejection, and on top of that, they want to know why they were rejected. My questions then become: – Are you willing to pay for that critique of your work, which is what it takes for someone to give you the reasons why? – Or, on a lesser scale, are you willing to pay a fee when you submit, in order to assure yourself of a response, whether acceptance or rejection? Nobody does. However, on the other hand, you are expecting a publication/editor/agent to take time away from time they could be spending earning an income, just to tell you they cannot use you, or you did not win, or you don’t fit their needs at the moment. You are expecting them to pay an employee to reject you with no gain out of it whatsoever. With some publishers/freelance markets/agents, considering the number of submissions they receive, that would take a fulltime employee. Let’s assume this is a minimum wage employee just sending out More

Writers make a living in different ways. I am lucky enough (and struggled hard enough) to have a job that includes writing: an anthropologist who works in academic research. And yet I found myself wanting to write more and differently, to be creative, to produce fiction and creative nonfiction in addition to peer-reviewed manuscripts describing research results or grant proposals to fund further research. The difficulty for me has been ensuring that I have both time and mental energy left over from the paid work to give to my creative endeavors. I think of it as establishing—and maintaining—a ‘work-write’ balance. Academia can be all-consuming, but whatever the day job, many of us are guilty of overworking. When it comes time to clock off, but the project deadline is at the end of the week, walking away may simply not be a responsible option. But what if you face a writing deadline as well as a work one, perhaps for a contest entry or a journal’s reading period? Maybe you made a commitment to yourself to finish a first draft of a chapter or a short story by midnight tonight. How, as writers-with-jobs, can we ensure that writing keeps its rightful More

The world is grappling with adopting AI in all aspects of itself. We, of course, are concerned about it infiltrating our writing. All over the web, we see writers bragging about using AI to write better. They are claiming that putting their ideas into a program, and accepting what comes out, even tweaked, is their property to submit and be proud about. That saddens me to my core. They did not struggle to improve their word choice or syntax or flow by reading great works and practicing. They instead accept these “corrections” as their property, daring even so much as to think it can be copyrighted. That is plagiarism. Literary journals and publishers are screaming about not accepting AI. Professional journals are turning down work that is AI written. Amazon is attempting to make AI writers transparent to the public. The Authors Guild has filed a class action lawsuit against ChatGPT for using authors’ fiction in feeding the AI machine without compensating the authors. The courts are beginning to see that AI material cannot be copyrighted to the “author.” Unfortunately, Grammarly promotes AI, which means FFW no longer endorses it. Generative AI to help you write, rewrite, ideate, or reply in seconds, plus suggestions to improve grammar, More

by Angela Yuriko Smith As an author, having a marketing plan is essential to earning money from your books. It’s not enough to rely on your perceptions, as this can lead to flimsy publishing plans that fall apart in the face of unforeseen events. Instead, you need to base your plans on data, specifically on the numbers that come from your book sales. You need to know how much money you’re making, where your sales are coming from, and which books are selling the best. An easy way to gather this data is to use a data analyzer such as Book Report (getbookreport.com) or BookTrakr (booktrakr.com). These tools gather sales information for all your books and organize the information for you. Once you have this data, you can use it to make more informed decisions about your publishing plans. For example, if you see that a significant percentage of your sales are coming from a particular country, you might consider investing in translations to appeal to a new set of readers. If you see that one of your forgotten titles is suddenly surging in sales, you can adjust your plans to promote it and release a sequel. With this data More

I spoke to a library group this week, and one man stood out in the audience. I wish I’d gotten his name and contact information. He was 80 years old, a retired engineer, and he’d written creatively his entire life. He’d written many shorts, poetry, and five novels. He said his time was running out and he needed to either publish or set fire to it, but in essence, do something with it. Would someone even be interested in the writings of an 80-year-old? I told him to query agents and publishers with his best, not to mention his age (after all, younger people don’t query using their age), and dazzle them with his story. Delia Owens was 70 when she released Where the Crawdads Sing. Frank McCourt was retired in his sixties when he published his debut title Angela’s Ashes. Agents and publishers just want a great story. You’re never too old or too young to pitch your work. It’s just about how you tell the story. 29653299 © Mikphotographer | Dreamstime.com

The stability of a consistent paycheck eludes many freelance writers, but scribbling out a regular column in a local rag can help address this shortcoming and provide a fulfilling sense of community connectedness. It is also more attainable than you think. (Look at the amount of your local daily’s content that is purchased from without.) A well-crafted cold pitch may work, but consider my unintentional path; it is repeatable. It began with a need to scratch an itch, lodged deep in my being by a former career in intelligence, to apply solid data, sound reasoning, and honed prose in public discussions of current events in a forum with standards exceeding those found in social media platforms. So, I regularly submitted to the editor of my local paper short letters tackling everything from agricultural initiative debates to public works decisions, from war in Ukraine to Polynesian cultural norms. They were all published, save one. With a dozen or so letters in print, on a lark, I proposed contributing regularly for pay. I leveraged my demonstrated quality of writing and analysis, and my decades of experience with the CIA, to pitch a column on national security matters. The response was quick: “We’ve More

Modern writing often goes on the internet first, and isn’t just on the tactile, tangible page anymore. When writing becomes online content, the pitch is also about the characteristics of website reading – and not just about landing a good idea. Here’s how to pitch and write content for online markets. Working On Content Shared work platforms (like Slack and Google Docs) are popular for writing today’s content, where editors might add thoughts into a shareable document to send back. Latest versions of MS Word allow for direct document sharing, too. Comments and Track Changes are tools in these programs, and expect them to become your friend. Remember to remove these, however, before the final version gets sent off. When sharing documents, make sure you share the individual document only, not the folder it might be in. Test first: click share links yourself before sending. Content Has Keywords & Links Content is indexed by search engines, and then ranked for users. Keywords, readability, and links influence how content will score with search engine bots. Basic SEO knowledge helps. Include relevant keywords (say ‘plumbing’ for an article about the topic, but don’t overuse it 45 times). Add links to reputable websites, like the New York Times rather More

Alarm bells went off when a copywriting agency asked me to write a testimonial about MyPillow, a product known for buying their reviews. Black hat copywriting is everywhere, and is meant to manipulate consumers (and swing search engines). Here’s why I left the job the moment I realized their game. What Is Black Hat Copywriting? White, gray, and black hat are cybersecurity terms applied to writing. Black hat copywriting has three intentional goals: 1. Misleading customers, 2. Misdirecting search engines, 3. Damaging competitors Companies hire black hat writers when they want unfair market advantages. In extreme cases, companies know they’re selling dangerous or untested products or scams. Often times the writers they hire don’t. For example, writing a bad review for a client’s competitor, or creating copy that sells unverified steroid supplements will need black hat writers: ethical (‘white hat’) writers won’t do it. If a company asks you to write a review for a product you’ve never seen, that’s black hat. Customer satisfaction isn’t the goal: manipulation is key for black hat writing to work as the hiring company desires. How to Spot Basic Black Hat Techniques Anything that feels like it manipulates the reader (or the search engine), More