Now you've started writing up short stories or your best solutions to common problems as mini-articles, and it seems a shame to keep this good writing all to yourself. Wouldn't it be great if others read it and found it helpful, or amusing?
Once they accept that they can and do write, a lot of people still find themselves too shy to market their works. Some, of course, are bold and outgoing in every area of their lives, so they show off their written pieces every chance they get, but the vast majority think, "I'm the creative type; I can't sell myself!"
But listen! If you've got well-written articles and stories, you do have marketable products, and you need to learn one more area of expertise - how to market goods.
There are umpteen courses for this, so if you have the cash to spare, go to it, race ahead of the rest of us.
If you're working from the proverbial short shoestring like I am, you'll like the tips that follow here, for a slower self-study method.
First, study your favourite subscription magazines and newspapers. The free ones generally use free stuff, but if they sell their issues, those publishers are likely buying their articles and stories and poems from freelancers like you and me.
You probably know the topic well (or you wouldn't have subscribed); you are familiar with that publications' slant and audience. That's important, for a magazine for entrepreneurs is not going to accept a sad story about your dog getting lost and found.
Today some web sites accept articles and stories too. Some are paying and some just offer you the glory of having your byline on their site. (Like my StoryGame).
Study the markets that accept freelance writing, and get to know them Make friendly acquaintances of the editors, but don't hog their time as they are generally overworked. Look even at the ads they accept from advertisers. They are full of clues as to what readership they have.
There are literally hundreds and thousands of paying and non-paying markets. Serious freelancers have on hand, one or both of two comprehensive market books, which update their database of markets annually. These are the Writer's Markets, (by Writers' Digest), and Sally E. Stuart's at Christian Markets. They are available as digital downloads now too, and of course cost. I have bought both in the past and considered that purchase my major freelancer's expense, besides postage.
Nowadays, however, you can go online and find sites which provide markets and keep them fairly up to date. You don't have to purchase the guides to have these at your fingertips.
By the way, writers' groups that you can join by email, and the ezines from certain sites, will give you lots of tips and places to submit your writing to as well.
Almost every bit of information you want is in a book that you're suppose to buy. Can't afford that? Just subscribe instead to ezines of the better writer resources sites, and you'll slowly gather good links. Remember to set up some sort of filing system on your computer to save what you gather and use.
To find the online sites with market listings and some sort of description for what each market is looking for in submissions, you can do a google search like I did to come up with the following examples;
Now a Facebook Group: Writing for Dollars
WorldWideFreelance.com -
(You need to be a paid subscriber to get the password for the markets database).
Not all these sites carry the same information or the same level of details, but generally you will find information such as in the following sample listing.
A Sample listing might look like this;
Dog Fancy 3 Burroughs Irvine, CA 92618 www.dogfancy.com
Contact: Martha Everett, Managing Editor
Subjects Covered: Monthly magazine for people who love dogs.
Pay Scale: $350-600 for features; $200-350 for
department: $80-100 on short pieces. Pays on publication.
Length: Features - 1200-2200 words; Department
articles - 500-700 words; Short pieces - 100-350 words
Rights: 1st N. American serial. Negotiates kill fee.
Queries & Submissions Formats: Query with SASE.
Responds in 1-2 months.
Tips: Share a new story from a dog's experience, but
not a dog's perspective. "No talking dogs, please!"
That's quite helpful, isn't it?
By the way, I should explain the notes about Rights and Queries. Not all publications offer the same rights with pieces they publish. This one wants your submission to be the first time ever published in North America in a serial or magazine format. If you have already sold this story to another publication before, they don't want it. If they did, they'd say they accept Reprints.
Negotiates kill fee - means if they change their mind after they've said they'll accept your article or story, they'll still pay for it, but negotiate for how much.
Query with SASE means they only want pieces submitted with a Self-Addressed-Stamped-Envelope. No email is given, so you have to write them by snail mail.
Dog Fancy will get back to you in one to two months. Some publications take longer, and some less. That's why you read those listings very, VERY carefully.
Today, there are many that accept submissions by email or via a form on their site where you just paste your entry into a text area, and include your other info in the blanks provided. Watch for those as it will save you a lot of postage money!
You get out of freelance writing and marketing what you are prepared to put into it. The more practical and systematic you get, even about your creative and fantasy writing, the more likely you are to reap good financial results. You'll have to develop that right side of your brain too!
Back to Writing/Publishing (index).
Ruth Marlene Friesen
The Responsible One
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