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Ten years ago, my husband and I moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina for a job he’d been offered. I’d always worked in publishing (for national trade magazines) and found work writing and editing for local lifestyle magazines in the area, but it was difficult to gain a sense of community in a brand-new city and I found myself craving new creative outlets and connections. Finding an Untapped Local Focus One of the perks of working at local magazines was that I received press releases about all the latest happenings, including new restaurants opening in the area. Since my husband and I are big foodies, I’d forward these emails to him, and he would then share the news with co-workers. I realized there was no central platform to keep up with food and beverage news across the city we lived in: Durham, NC, which at the time, was growing in popularity and getting put on the map as “The Tastiest Town in the South,” labeled by Southern Living Magazine in 2013. I decided to create a blog and website where I could curate and share the exciting local food news that was coming across my desk. This was the beginning More

Many book aficionados write reviews. That’s great. However, if you are interested in writing reviews for publication or payment, you might consider how to formally write a review. In my own search for guidance, I came across this site that actually offers templates to escort you through the process. And another site that has more book review templates in case you need guidance to get started is https://bookriot.com/book-review-templates/ But whether you write reviews for Amazon, blogs, magazines or newsletters/ezines, consider getting the formula right. Become known for your reviews and you might wind up as a paid reviewer, or as a minimum have a blog with advertisers knocking on your door. The University of North Carolina has a great post on this at its Writing Center. Basically, a reviewer gives the reader a concise summary, offers a critical assessment (good and bad), and ends the review with a suggestion as to whether the audience would enjoy the book. Dru’s Book Musings is a fine example of prolific reviewing. She leans toward the cozy mystery but isn’t limited by such, and, oh boy, can she cover ground. Not only does she review, but she allows writers to do A Day in the Life posts with More

And when you see those markets that do not fit your preference, pass them by. Here at FundsforWriters, we’ve had writers fuss, comment, opine to us about what we post and why we post it. There have been the Catholics who think we favor Jews . . . and Jews who think we hate them. There have been the LGBTQ+ folks who wonder why we don’t post more that favor them . . . and others who think we post too much. Some think we hate Democrats or Republicans, just depends on the day. We’ve been accused of disliking Africans and Middle Easterners. And recently we had someone scold us for posting a market for wildlife hunters, then unsubscribe because of what we were doing to the planet and all its sentient beings. Not all markets are for you. And markets don’t want to be all things to all people. They pick their niche and stick to it, molding their market. FundsforWriters posts markets that pay ten cents/word or more (six cents or more for scifi/fantasy markets per their professional rate level). Our focus is on payment to the writer. What markets don’t we post? Markets that don’t pay well. More

With the beautiful fall weather fast approaching and the holidays after that, you may be taking time off of your writing business. Try the following tips to make the shift easier to manage. 1. Plan Ahead of Time Calendar in the days you will be gone and then work backward. What has to be done when to make your vacation work? I’m always working at least a month ahead on all my projects in preparation for my next travel period. By scheduling extra time to manage the extra work, you lighten the burden of squeezing in deadlines right before you leave or right after you return. 2. Think About Your Cash Flow If you rely on your writing business for even part of your income, you understand that when you’re not working, you’re not making money. That means you need to check the financials and plan accordingly. I’ll admit to getting through a few vacations early in my career with a credit card and a prayer. In my opinion, as long as you’re careful with your money most of the time, it’s better to get away however you can than not to get away at all. Vacations are beneficial, including More

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