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Novelists dream of becoming full-time writers, when the truth is being able to support yourself with book-length fiction is quite difficult. I make more than I ever have with my novels, but I still freelance to make the writing income I desire. There is a reason that FundsforWriters posts Contests, Grants, Markets, and Publishers. I firmly believe that novelists can participate in all four categories. Even if you’ve found a publisher you adore, it behooves you to submit to the other options. Contests 1) Placing in a contest can open doors to a bigger platform. 2) Placing in a contest can elevate your bio further and faster. 3) Placing in a contest can acquire you a publisher. 4) Placing in a contest can help you decipher how well your writing is progressing. Grants 1) Winning a grant/residency can gain you financial reward. 2) Winning a grant/residency can introduce you to influencers for your work. 3) Winning a grant/residency can earn you an expense-paid trip and writing time. 4) Winning a grant/residency can improve your resume when pitching elsewhere. 5) Winning a grant/residency can lead you to mentors for your work-in-progress. Markets 1) Writing freelance can increase your income. 2) Writing freelance attracts More

I’ve always enjoyed writing stories about family experiences, experiences so memorable that no matter how much time passed, my mind goes back to them. However, not being targeted for a specific market before I wrote them, they were hard-sells. For example, I wrote a short essay about taking my 12-year-old granddaughter hunting on a family ranch in Texas where, under the guidance of a hunter friend, she bagged her first deer. I went along on the hunt, and although it was a memorable moment and I wrote about it, unless you’re a hunter, which I am not, it wasn’t likely that I could sell it to a hunting magazine. No other magazine was likely to purchase an essay about a 12-year-old killing a deer. But I took a chance and sent the essay to North American Whitetail anyway. They published it on their back page column and I received $250. https://www.northamericanwhitetail.com   Another time, I wrote about a large flock of Canada geese that made a temporary home on the river that ran by my home in Wisconsin. Again, I wrote it for the simple reason that it was a memorable moment, and I liked the geese, not considering that More

Despite having actively worked as a freelance writer for over a decade, I confess my resume looks far more horrible than my college guidance counselor would like. My work history over the past decade has been akin to a hodgepodge of paint splatterings; only, I didn’t have the foresight of a Jackson Pollock to weave it into a work of art. Everything you’re not supposed to have– gaps in work histories, retail jobs beneath someone with a master’s degree, tiny gigs lasting bare minutes – is all evident in my resume. And updating a resume is my least favorite activity in the world.  But here’s the thing: I wouldn’t have it any other way. I grew up and currently live in in what I imagine is the most resume-obsessed city in the country in Washington, DC. Fortunately, my field of freelance journalism doesn’t care whatsoever about resumes. For all my editors know, I could have spent time in prison, been fired from every job I worked, or been in an insane asylum. What’s more important to them is past published work, proper communication, and a good idea for their use. For all of freelance journalism’s faults with instability and pay, More

My books are published with a small press with three imprints under their umbrella. They are recognized by the major writers’ organizations as a very credible press, with the one most important to me being the Mystery Writers of America. And before you ask who, just know that they are not taking on new authors at the moment. So many people are writing these days, and publishers are inundated with submissions. As a result, over the last ten years, the number of small presses has risen. There’s even a sub-category of small press called a micro-press, and there are a zillion of those.  But the Department of Justice/Penguin-Random House anti-trust case is showing us that big traditional publishing has problems, and frankly, is out of touch. A smaller press, however, is closer to grassroots level. In other words, the author and the publisher can actually talk to each other. I could talk about specific New York publishers and how they’ve treated friends of mine, but I won’t. Said authors aren’t much more than a number, and editors rarely return their calls. If a book doesn’t sell well, it’s finished, with reversion rights held up for a good long time. Don’t More

Literary agents have an important role to play, but the agent route is not for every writer. As I look back on over a decade of work as a lone writer and journalist, there’s a fair amount of advice about how I’ve managed without one. Here’s how to steer your literary career forward (without an agent). First, What You’ll Miss Without an Agent Forget about agented only submissions if this is your chosen route. Publishers and other literary markets will specify in their guidelines, and they do not negotiate their stance. The good news is that most publishers are no longer agent exclusive. If you’re not after a movie deal or international rights negotiations right now, you’ll get by just fine. I, Author Agents represent authors, but authors without agents represent themselves. Where literary agents would negotiate rates or press appearances, individual authors fulfill the same role. Writers become business people, not to be taken lightly. Biographical information, from LinkedIn to About the Author, is yours to update. Relationships with publishers (and editors) are yours to seek and strengthen. Agents do market research, meaning you’ll have to do that, too. Monitor your market niche from the business side of things. More

I know, I know. How many times do we see this in blog posts? I usually delete them as if they carried COVID, but between Jane Friedman’s post in The Hot Sheet (subscription only ) and Penny Sansevieri’s in A Marketing Expert, I figured it time to say something about the direction the publishing industry is leaning. I do not predict anything in stone. In some ways this industry seems like a dinosaur, hung up in ancient ways, then in other it shoots out with innovation (i.e., Spotify is jumping with both feet into audiobooks). If anything, the recent DOJ – Penguin Random House antitrust trial has opened our eyes to the self-absorbed mentality of the Big 5 publishers versus that of the smaller press, and that doesn’t even mention self-publishing. First, the words that resonated around the world from those hearings involved advances and sales. The loudest words remembered of late are “90 percent of titles sell fewer than 2,000 units.” That’s traditional books, people. Not self-published. The other quote was “about 98 percent of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies.” Before we faint from gasping at that reality, face the music. With traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing More

Most writers want to know if there is a magic formula to getting published in any capacity, and most published writers will tell you that there isn’t one. The only way to get published is to continuously send your work out there. The trick is to figure out the “continuous” part. As a working writer, I have discovered one kind of formula for success. The best part is that it is free! This formula comes in three easy steps, and if you stick to them, you can improve your chances of seeing more of your work published. All you need to do are these three things: keep writing, keep submitting and keep earning! Keep Writing You know the advice to “write every day.” Try taking this credo one step further by writing everything you get ideas for. Besides articles, I also write short fiction. One day, I was inspired by an idea for a short story. I didn’t know where to send it, but I wrote that story anyway. I later found somewhere to submit it. How This Can Work For You Writing variety can help you sell more work. How cool is it to be paid to write something More

Most authors and writers, we’re talking both in this piece, think that pitching is a 12-month, year-round activity when it is not. Whether talking contests, book publishers, or magazines, there is a bit of a science in the process, and if you want to improve your odds in this profession known for its high odds, it would behoove you to take note. BOOKS – Of course this advice is not 100 percent because the world is full of big, small, and mid-list publishers, each setting its own rules, but, general rules of thumb are these: 1) Pitch when you see a call for submissions. These are not common, but they happen, especially with small presses. If you are wishing to seek an agent to do this for you, then follow the same advice. Watch them on social media (they love Twitter) for when they say, “Hey, would love to read something involving……” That means they have markets in mind, and they feel the genre/topic is hot enough to quickly sell. You also want to feed them something they are in love with at that moment. That’s assuming what you have to offer fills their void. But this is why you shop for More

While a journalistic interview seems like a chummy experience at first glance, it can often be a complicated dance. The interviewer has to build rapport and keep the subject engaged in conversation while also keeping in mind that the person you are talking to isn’t your customer or boss. As someone who has worked most of the past dozen years freelance, I often liken it to that of a substitute teacher (a job I have also suffered) in that you have to maintain boundary lines with your subjects or you’ll get walked all over. As you start to talk with the source, there’s usually a sussing out on both sides. It self-consciously happens in every conversation but this is a heightened experience since the stakes are higher. From your end, you’re trying to figure out what kind of a source they are. Nearly all sources have something they want out of it: They could have something to promote (often more the case in soft journalism), they could have a message they want to get out, or they need to look good (especially in the case of a publicity representative). If not, why are they participating? To what degree do they More

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m in my sixth decade, and as I sit here at the computer wondering how to define this point in my life, I realize I’m okay with it all. First of all, I have family. My heart goes out to those missing theirs, and I see on Facebook several of my fans who have lost spouses in the last two years. A day doesn’t go by that I do not silently wish them well. That’s an adaptation I do not look forward to. Maybe I won’t have to. I am not blind, however, to the fact that sometimes folks look at me as an older woman first before they see what I’m about. Especially in person. Everyone does it to a certain degree, making preliminary assumptions about someone due to their years, hair color, and lines around their eyes. I fight hard not to do that, and I work hard to avoid judging others. I can control me. I cannot control them. I avoid saying the word retirement. I retired from another profession that served me well, and few people realize that. But that’s okay. I am the sum total of my past, and what you More