Friday, November 16, 2018

$$$ and sense of publishing specialties


Sometimes writers, caught up in the editorial content side of things, forget that publishing is by-and-large a business, with many financially-sensitive cogs in the wheel that ultimately deliver your article to the readers.

Writing for corporation's specialty publications is one career field. According to news figures Corporate America spends $14 billion producing its own publications and another $4 billion to $8 billion in postage to distribute the material. And that's only roughly half of the combined amount generated by the traditional consumer and business-to-business magazines.

Who's spending this money?

Publishing is costing health care, technology and finance businesses $510 million.

What types of publication is the money spent on?


Canyon Media has an excellent article on calculating the costs of Custom-publishing a quarterlymagazine, on average here.

The marketing and public relations departments of corporations handle the majority of custom publishing in-house.

Tip: Marketing and public relations departments need employees with writing skills.

Typically, companies produce 1.82 unique publications, each at an average frequency of 6+ times. If publications are aimed at non-company audiences, approximately 50,000 copies (20+ pages each) are printed and three quarters of those are in four-color.

Companies spend, annually, a billion dollars on these publications. Advertisers add millions to the publishing pot.


Michelle Goodman's
The Anti 9-5 Guide has an article on freelancing titled, "Do you need a freelance Portforlio site?

Associations and freelancing
National Association of Publisher's Representative (NAPR)

The Editorial Freelancers Association's site offers courses on medical copy-editing, grammar and usage, editing footnotes, picture research, interviewing and breaking into corporate communications. Followlinks, and discover a wide variety of markets, too.

For more writing and publishing information visit Access The World and Write Your Way To $$$ and Ultimate Internet Writers Directory.

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Where You Generate ideas Matters


Generating ideas ~ First, use APB Speakers Bureau website as a resource to spark ideas: https://www.apbspeakers.com/.

Create an Idea Calendar where you'll keep the ideas you generate while browsing the speakers.


Double click a speaker's photo to bring up their profile. Scroll down to see a list of topics, and a wealth of information that will spark ideas for you.

What does your mind conjure when you're reading them? Think out of the box.

Read what speakers speak about, where and how to find them, and get ideas for your own articles\speaking engagements  here, https://www.apbspeakers.com/topics/all-topics/

This is also a fine resource to visit when you're writing an article for publication in a bonafide medium (on spec or assignment.)
*Do check their engagements and fees links.
*Do not contact the guests before a magazine has assigned your article.
 
You'll find plenty of variety.
 
Start with an idea.Make a note of it, or a few pages of notes.
  1. File it in a folder labeled, Idea Folder.
  2. Put it away and jot your next idea note on a separate paper.
  3. File it in your Idea Folder.
  4. Continue to jot down and file ideas as they come to you.
TIP: Use a titled contest/or categories for this assignment and double the use of your time.
  • Select one idea from your Idea Folder.
  • Brainstorm and topic spoke the idea. (*See Topic Spoke handout.)
  • Consult a Writer's Market, new or old - it doesn't matter much at this point.
  • What you're looking for are categories.
You might also browse other market directories such as Working Press of the Nation, Religious Writer's Marketplace, Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory, etc. Most are available at the reference desk of libraries.

OLD MAGAZINES-NEWSPAPERS - www.unz.org is an excellent resource to research past publications.

There's no need to ever be at a loss for ideas.

Saturday, November 3, 2018

Worry About Telling Your Story, by Jamie Wilson


Jamie Wilson, a member of Internet Writing Workshop, gives valuable advice in this guest blog.

"Don't worry about taste or any other sense. Worry about telling your story.

Start with an arrival or a departure - it introduces chaos into a balanced system and gives you instant conflict. You have this stable system - a jail or a mental institution or a home or an office - and when you introduce a single person to it (or subtract one) the social dynamic changes, often catastrophically. You can do all kinds of things with that. (This idea came from John Gardner)

Start your story with something that inspires the reader to ask a question. You want your reader to finish that first sentence. When you open like this, readers want to keep going until they get that answer. The trick to keep them moving: make sure you keep adding new questions before answering the old ones.

Give your reader a tiny little taste of the world, and then focus on a single character.  Cut out everything mundane: eating, walking, chatting about action taking place, clothing, men looking at women's bodies.
Focus on what is important. Focus on conflict, inner and outer. Look around, and use the surroundings to define your characters. Feel. Express emotion. Make things active - do not discuss what has already happened, but rather start your story in the middle of action.

 Above all else, make every word move your story toward a goal - something that happens at the end of the scene, the building of a relationship critical to the story, a plot conflict, a problem. If a word does not at minimum do that, you need to cut it out. Try to make each word do several  things - build mood, describe, move plot forward, etc.

Finish the story. Do not obsess about this stuff. Give yourself permission to write utter crap. You do not have to make every word perfect. Few writers create a stellar work the first time around, and sometimes not the tenth or hundredth time around. Most of your work is done in editing. You have to have a story written down in order to edit."

Learn more about Jamie and read her stories here:
http://jamiekwilson.com
http://www.conservativefiction.com
http://www.conservativefeminism.com

Founder, The Conservative Fiction Project
Senior Editor,
Liberty Island Media
Twitter:@jamiekwil
 
Become a member of Internet Writing Workshop for valuable help to successful writing.