Sunday, October 4, 2009
About Blogging
Come on over to Writing Mommies to check out a book review on a book about improving your blogging, which could in turn improve your writing in general.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Invoicing
Sometimes a magazine will request an invoice from you so they can forward it to their Accounts Payable department. (printable sample included with my e-book kit). Just fill in your information, save it on your computer with an appropriate file name (2009 Family Time 01.doc or 2009 Family Time Moms Making Money.doc) using the Save As function in your word processing program, then e-mail it to the editor as an attachment.
Some magazines prefer to pay you via PayPal. Sign up for a PayPal account, and you can quickly send and track invoices using PayPal’s templates.
If an RPM asks you how much you want for an article, consider the size of the RPM and ask anywhere from $15-50. If you are promoting something in your byline/bio (like an e-book or book), you might consider offering the piece for free.
**Some magazines get so many submissions that they sometimes forget to e-mail you first to talk payment, etc. before running your piece (or they assume you are giving them your submission as a gift, so watch out!). To catch mentions of you or your writing to make sure you’re getting paid for your work, sign up for Google News Alerts at http://alerts.google.com. Just enter your name as the search term and have Google notify you via e-mail when it pops up on the Internet. Since you can enter many search terms, go ahead and also enter any article titles that you submit.
*The above was taken from my e-book, “Get Published in Regional Parenting Magazines” … available now for only $15.
Some magazines prefer to pay you via PayPal. Sign up for a PayPal account, and you can quickly send and track invoices using PayPal’s templates.
If an RPM asks you how much you want for an article, consider the size of the RPM and ask anywhere from $15-50. If you are promoting something in your byline/bio (like an e-book or book), you might consider offering the piece for free.
**Some magazines get so many submissions that they sometimes forget to e-mail you first to talk payment, etc. before running your piece (or they assume you are giving them your submission as a gift, so watch out!). To catch mentions of you or your writing to make sure you’re getting paid for your work, sign up for Google News Alerts at http://alerts.google.com. Just enter your name as the search term and have Google notify you via e-mail when it pops up on the Internet. Since you can enter many search terms, go ahead and also enter any article titles that you submit.
*The above was taken from my e-book, “Get Published in Regional Parenting Magazines” … available now for only $15.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Being Successful
Come on over to the Writing Mommies blog today to check out my post on being successful as a writer (hint: quit screwing around on Twitter!).
Saturday, September 19, 2009
My Editorial Wish
I wish all editors would take 3 seconds to send out a NO or a "we don't use freelancers" for every article sent to them. It would save EVERYONE so much time ... save editors time reading email they can't use and save writers time submitting to dead ends! In a perfect world!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Mistakes to Avoid, Part 5
This week I’m taking the 18 Mistakes to Avoid from my e-book, “Get Published in Regional Parenting Magazines” (only $15!!!) and putting them here. Good luck with your writing!
15. Don’t get in a rut of only writing feature-type articles because many RPMs love personal and humorous essays.
16. Don’t take it personally if you never hear back from an editor on a piece. They receive far too many submissions to personally reject or accept every one.
17. Don’t assume your piece isn’t wanted if you don’t hear back immediately. I once got an acceptance from an editor two months after I had submitted my piece.
18. Don’t forget to do a little research. Set aside a little time to check out some of the RPMs online, especially if you don’t have writer’s guidelines for them. Many even have back issues so you can get a feel for what they have already published.
15. Don’t get in a rut of only writing feature-type articles because many RPMs love personal and humorous essays.
16. Don’t take it personally if you never hear back from an editor on a piece. They receive far too many submissions to personally reject or accept every one.
17. Don’t assume your piece isn’t wanted if you don’t hear back immediately. I once got an acceptance from an editor two months after I had submitted my piece.
18. Don’t forget to do a little research. Set aside a little time to check out some of the RPMs online, especially if you don’t have writer’s guidelines for them. Many even have back issues so you can get a feel for what they have already published.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Mistakes to Avoid, Part 4
This week I’m taking the 18 Mistakes to Avoid from my e-book, “Get Published in Regional Parenting Magazines” (only $15!!!) and putting them here. Good luck with your writing!
11. Don’t forget to keep records so you don’t send a piece to the same publication twice (and for tax time!). Sample Excel spreadsheets are included in this kit.
12. Don’t expect to see a final draft of your article before it prints.
13. Don’t give up; getting published is a numbers game, even with a well-written piece. There are a lot of writers out there competing for limited print space. You may not hear back from the majority of magazines you submit to. This doesn’t mean they hate you; it means they get a lot of material to wade through and your piece may not fit in with what they need or they may already have something similar. They may also contact you months later. Keep sending out different articles all the time!
14. Don’t make international mistakes. Watch out when submitting to other countries … check over your article and make sure you aren’t mentioning a business they don’t have in Canada, for example. Or that you don’t send a piece on the 4th of July to Australia.
11. Don’t forget to keep records so you don’t send a piece to the same publication twice (and for tax time!). Sample Excel spreadsheets are included in this kit.
12. Don’t expect to see a final draft of your article before it prints.
13. Don’t give up; getting published is a numbers game, even with a well-written piece. There are a lot of writers out there competing for limited print space. You may not hear back from the majority of magazines you submit to. This doesn’t mean they hate you; it means they get a lot of material to wade through and your piece may not fit in with what they need or they may already have something similar. They may also contact you months later. Keep sending out different articles all the time!
14. Don’t make international mistakes. Watch out when submitting to other countries … check over your article and make sure you aren’t mentioning a business they don’t have in Canada, for example. Or that you don’t send a piece on the 4th of July to Australia.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Mistakes to Avoid, Part 3
This week I’m taking the 18 Mistakes to Avoid from my e-book, “Get Published in Regional Parenting Magazines” (only $15!!!) and putting them here. Good luck with your writing!
7. Don’t mix up a query with a submission. A query is a detailed letter outlining what you propose to write for a magazine. A submission is when you send the entire article or essay, sometimes offering to grab local sources and quotes if the editor is interested in publishing your work. RPMs want you to submit the entire article or essay.
8. Don’t forget to get a concrete deadline from the editor on rewrites or on getting local quotes/sources. Don’t bust your butt if an editor is going to be on vacation for the next 2 weeks.
9. Don’t forget about your time. You can choose to hunt down local quotes or not. It’s often time-consuming when you’re just starting out and before you have a large networking database. You can say no.
10. Don’t waste too much time on networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Café Mom, MySpace, etc. Get in, post your link to your author web site or newly published article, and GET OUT.
7. Don’t mix up a query with a submission. A query is a detailed letter outlining what you propose to write for a magazine. A submission is when you send the entire article or essay, sometimes offering to grab local sources and quotes if the editor is interested in publishing your work. RPMs want you to submit the entire article or essay.
8. Don’t forget to get a concrete deadline from the editor on rewrites or on getting local quotes/sources. Don’t bust your butt if an editor is going to be on vacation for the next 2 weeks.
9. Don’t forget about your time. You can choose to hunt down local quotes or not. It’s often time-consuming when you’re just starting out and before you have a large networking database. You can say no.
10. Don’t waste too much time on networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Café Mom, MySpace, etc. Get in, post your link to your author web site or newly published article, and GET OUT.
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