I am lucky to make a living as both a songwriter and a “regular writer.” When I tell other writers about my songwriting, they typically respond with, “I wish I could do that!” My response is always, “Why don’t you?” I hear reasons like, “I don’t know how,” or “I can’t sing.” These excuses seem reasonable, but I’m here to tell you that if you’re a writer, you CAN be a songwriter and you CAN get paid for it! Here’s a step-by-step process to becoming a songwriter: 1. Analyze your strengths If you’re someone who doesn’t use a lot of creative writing, you’ll want to start putting some work into this. Songwriting is all about emotion. Take your latest piece of writing and see how it could be a song. If you’re thinking, “nothing I write could be a song,” here’s an example: Let’s say you’ve written an article about online shopping. It’s a straight-forward, how-to guide. What if the person shopping is buying things to care for a sick loved one? What if they have a spending addiction and need to stop? Use imaginative stories to find your lyrics. 2. Practice lyric writing Having a great story won’t matter More
The Good Ones: Hitting the Higher Paying Markets
/ 2017-12-01By Alex J. Coyne One of my first high-paying features sold to The Investor for $170 (Six String Stocks, October 2015). I’ve sold others since, including a piece for Catholic Digest that earned $500. I sure didn’t think it was possible when I started out with $20/article rates. Here’s how I got to higher rates and why you should. Searching terms Use search engines to find work, contacts and guidelines. Use quotes (“) to search for specific terms, minus and plus-signs (“-“) and “+”) to include or exclude them and asterisks (“*”) as wildcards. Include terms like “pay”, “rates”, “$200” and “guidelines” to dig for new markets – or add terms like “co.uk” to search abroad. Try other engines like DeeperWeb, DogPile,GigaBlast and DuckDuckGo. Get out of the rat race Say no to content mill-like rates of $5 per 1, 000 words, even when desperate: Your time is more valuable elsewhere, and realizing that early on will ensure that you get to writing for better rates and stronger markets sooner. Going up Many markets offer low starting rates, but higher rates or bonuses with more exposure and experience. These are worthwhile over time, but don’t put all your eggs in More
Are There Grants with No Strings?
/ 2017-07-28One of the most common questions that FundsforWriters receives is where can someone find a grant to self-publish a book, ninety percent of the time their first book. No mention of genre, where the author lives, the purpose of the book, or why anyone would want to fund such a book, much less read it. They just want the money with nobody asking questions and no strings attached. There is no such grant for that purpose, anywhere. Just like every publisher publishes certain genre, every agent prefers certain writing, and every magazine emphases certain topics, grants have their niche as well. And most of the time it has absolutely nothing to do with whether your pockets are empty and you are in need of money. To apply and receive a grant, you have to understand the grant…intimately. 1) Why does the grant even exist? 2) What does the grant provider hope to accomplish by giving out grants? 3) What does the grant provider want in return for giving out grants to applicants? 4) What do you have to prove to the grant provider to show you are kindred spirits? 5) What are the qualifying requirements in terms of your experience, More
Why They Extend Contest Deadlines
/ 2017-07-01I have a writing friend who gets downright angry when a contest extends the deadline. He considers it an insult, or that the editors are looking for specific people who didn’t make the deadline. In reality, contests are run by people and they make mistakes or misjudge or simply didn’t plan well enough ahead. Here’s how I see it when a contest announces a later deadline for submissions: 1. The obvious. They didn’t receive enough quality submissions. Keep in mind that their reputation is based upon what they publish as a result of contest entries. So, if they extend the deadline in order to obtain better material, is that so wrong? However, if I had entered on time and saw an extended deadline, admittedly, I would interpret that as my work not being acceptable enough. Professionally, however, I see this as the contest not being organized enough to get the word out properly. Just my two cents. 2. They received fewer entries than expected. Contests like to grow over time. When I ran the FundsforWriters Essay Contest for nine years, the submissions grew in number each year. . . such that I could not manage it any longer and write More
Your Income Depends on How Well You Cope with Rejection
/ 2017-06-09To make money as a freelance writer you can’t just play offense (networking, learning how to pitch, improving your craft, finding new markets, negotiating). You also have to play defense. And that means developing something researchers have identified as crucial to financial success: a higher threshold for failure. The eminent psychologist Dean Simonton, in his masterpiece On the Origins of Genius, investigated personality traits of highly successful creative types. What exactly made them successful? With all had talent, discipline, creativity and intelligence, why did some succeed and others fail? It turns out that the most successful had a high threshold for failure. They owned a coping strategy for rejection. The unsuccessful tended to give up sooner, approaching their work with more fear and trepidation and, hence, could not raise their creativity to the level it needed to be. What’s your coping strategy for rejections? I realized I had to change after a series of painful rejections threatened to derail my writing career. So I studied up on the latest research on resiliency and interviewed a host of “grit” experts. The centerpiece of my coping strategy, and the one I teach fellow writers, revolves around purpose. Why do you write? If it’s More
Are You Polarizing?
/ 2017-06-04This is one of my most important messages. One of the many reasons I left my day job was stress. Many of you have done the same or are in the process of finding ways to leave the lifestyle that makes your world less palatable. I worked for the federal government, and my job entailed balancing the wishes of my politician boss, the needs of the public, and the competition of my peers. Add family to the mix, and it made for some sleepless nights and tight-chested days. I left that life to write, and it was one of the best decisions of my existence. Then I read an article in the latest Psychology Today (love that magazine) about how polarization saddens us and, if we do not control it, can make our lives toxic. But humans like to congregate. They evolved from packs. And we interact accordingly. “So when the world looks safe, mammals happily fan out to find resources to meet their needs. When threats are perceived, mammals retreat to the safety of social alliances.” The problem these days is that we belong to multiple groups. We are writers. That’s one group. Many of us relate to one More
The Wrong Bio
/ 2017-05-30A gentleman at a conference came up to me and asked how he was supposed to include a bio in his query letter to literary agents when he had not published. He had a couple of stories in anthologies, and his day job had nothing to do with his writing. He kept catching himself making excuses in his bio. I told him never to talk negative in a query. I spouted off a few rules I’ve learned over the years to use in bios, and here are some of them: 1) Never say your age. You never know the age of the person on the other end and what their prejudices may be. Instead, be “Every Man” or “Every Woman” so that age doesn’t even come into play. 2) Never say your publishing history unless it’s accomplished. If you have not published, just don’t bring up the subject. You want your writing and query to make the statement. By giving the initial impression you do not know what you are doing, you again prejudice the reader on the other end. 3) Never give your life’s story. If your profession means nothing to the query, then leave it out. I once More
How the Shy Writer Copes
/ 2017-05-27When I speak at events, people tell me they can’t believe I’m an introverted person. That’s not to say I can’t become a Mama Tiger when it comes to my family, or a real BE-ATCH when someone’s wronged me or mine. But for the most part, I avoid throngs of people. Throngs meaning as few as four, sometimes. (NOTE: Scroll down for the previous podcast on this topic – or click here.) I also avoid events that require interaction as in role playing. Oh my gosh, if I see anything that requires me to step up and adlib, or pretend, or act a character, I might have nightmares before and after. I’m a grown up now, and grown ups can pick and choose their activities. I WILL NOT ROLE PLAY. That’s almost throwing up time. I’ve done it, and felt too damn miserable before, during and after. That also includes those situations where an audience of writers may be asked to write for ten minutes then share their work with the class. Say what? My first drafts suck like buttermilk through a straw–that means really sucks in Southernese. And then you want me to stand there and take criticism for it? Like, what More
Why Pay Contest Entry Fees?
/ 2017-05-12I received this email from a reader this week: “I see an entry that might work for me, but then the publication requests $10, $20, and sometimes more to enter the contest. Many times I just pass. Why should we pay to present our work? To date, I have paid a few, but generally I balk at anything over $10.” My immediate response is this: Would you fund a contest out of your pocket and would you work for free? Some contests do not charge a fee, but they are a tiny minority of the contests out there. Why? Because they have the financial means or the sponsorship to avoid having to ask for fees. However, most contests do not have that luxury. Contests are not cheap to run. I ran a contest for nine years and offered a no entry fee category and an entry fee category. To make a point, I gave the winner of the non-entry fee category a big $50 first prize, then I gave the winner of the entry fee category a big $500 first prize. When considering contests, and wondering why you have to pay an entry fee, consider the costs of the contest More
Entertainment Writing Jobs You May Not Have Considered – Part 2 of 2
/ 2017-04-21In this follow-up article, I put more of an emphasis on the feature film world. Thanks to the proliferation of “prosumer” technology like HD cameras and editing software, more films are being made now than ever before, offering increased accessibility for writers who are willing to attempt a more non-traditional approach to their careers. Write Film Treatments Feature film scripts usually begin with a treatment – essentially an extended synopsis between two and ten pages that outlines the entire narrative beat by beat in prose form. The treatment serves as the framework for the script and is a crucial part of the film development process. Since a treatment simply reads like a short story, less experienced writers who may not be totally familiar with the nuances of script formatting, dialogue, and the like can still manage to create something valuable for filmmakers. First, you should read books like “Story” by Robert McKee to make sure you’re clear on the basic elements of film narrative like structure and character arc. Next, generate a list of one-sentence ideas (called loglines) that you think might make for catchy movies. Select your top three or four and crank out a treatment for each. You More