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We started out this little three-day series of posts by comparing column-writing to blogging. As a columnist or a blogger you must fulfill your obligation to your audience by writing at a regular pace. Your newspaper, newsletter or magazine editor might require that you submit your column daily, weekly or monthly. I believe that you should post new blogs at least every few days, if not daily.

I sometimes visit blog sites where the most recent posts are weeks or even months old. You won’t get regular traffic to your blog site when you don’t consistently present new material. But how does one come up with years’ worth of ideas for a blog site or a column? How do you manage to satisfy your audience with fresh posts or columns?

Some of you know me as the “idea person.” I have a lengthy section on how to come up with article ideas in my little book, A Writer’s Guide to Magazine Articles.
http://www.matilijapress.com.

I sometimes blog about article and blog ideas. I teach on this subject in my online article-writing course.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

Most columns have a theme. Probably those with the most leeway in the area of topic ideas are those who write opinion or editorial columns. You can pretty much choose your theme; write off the top of your head. You can share your thoughts on practically any subject whether it relates to a local or world issue, seasonal theme, your family/friends/pets/neighbors or whatever. And if you didn’t have a knack for recognizing topics, thinking deeply about them and spinning them, you wouldn’t have this job for every long.

Those of us with columns (or blog sites) focusing on a more concrete theme—pet care and safety, issues around local teens, vegetarianism, public speaking, writing fiction, publishing, photography, cats, narrow gauge trains, etc.—have a greater obligation to stay on the subject.

Anyone with even minimal brain power and creativity can come up with good ideas for the first few columns/posts. But what will you be writing about a year from now, in three years? When you think about that does it absolutely stop your ability to think? Do you experience columnist’s block? For some reason, I have never had this problem. I have, somehow, trained myself to see potential articles, columns, blog posts in some of the strangest places. Well, I think you see the proof in my pudding with this publishing blog (this is post number 659 since November of 2005), in the fact that I’ve published 29 books (number 30 is in the works) and the fact that I’ve had hundreds (maybe thousands) of articles published over the years.

How easily do you come up with ideas to write about? Do you see column/blog ideas practically everywhere? Can you dissect those ideas into many? Can you approach each of those dissections from several different angles? Can you develop several meaningful articles/columns/posts from each mini-idea? This is what it takes to be a successful columnist, blogger or article-writer.

Tomorrow, I’ll give specific tips and techniques for coming up with ideas. Until then, you might consider signing up for one of my online courses. I’m starting two classes in January:

Patricia Fry to Teach Two Online Courses
January 5, 2010, Successful Book Proposal Course. This course runs 8 weeks (or work through the course faster, if you like). Learn more about what to expect here:
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookproposal.htm For $200 you get one-on-one guidance through the process of writing a complete book proposal during the 8 weeks, only.

On January 12, 2010, my online Book Promotion Workshop begins. This workshop runs $200 for 6 weeks. Learn more about what it involves at http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion

Let me know if you’re interested in my article-writing course, PLFry620@yahoo.com
SPAWN members get $25 off each course.

JOIN SPAWN NOW!
Dues go up January 1, 2010. It’s $45 until then. http://www.spawn.org

Yesterday, we talked about how blogging is like being a columnist. Today, I’d like to discuss how to become a newspaper or magazine columnist.

I told you that it was once my desire to be a columnist. I became a columnist for a while and truly enjoyed it. In fact, I believe that this experience was an important step in my writing career. It taught me a lot about meeting deadlines, quelling writer’s block, the interview process, developing articles from column ideas and so much more. The little weekly newspaper column that I wrote for three years, helped groom me for my lifelong writing career.

If you want to realize your dream of being a columnist, here are some ideas to help you get started.

First, let me say that pay for writing a regular column might not be all that impressive. It depends on the publication/website. The pay for a newspaper columnist is notoriously low, unless your column is syndicated and published in large newspapers nationwide. That’s where the bucks are. Most likely, you’ll land a job as a columnist in your small or medium-size community newspaper. As for magazines, if they pay $1,000 per 1,500-word article, the pay for monthly columns will be similar. If the magazine pays only pennies per word for contributions, you can expect to get the same for your column pieces.

There are a variety of types of column types:

• Essay (you share your thoughts and perspective on world events, education, politics or?).

• How-to (you teach aspects of some activity—cooking, gardening, parenting, crafts, healthy living, for example).

• Reporting (you write about what’s happening in sports, world events, local schools, politics, etc.).

• Theme (seniors, pets, book reviews, ghosts/spirits, art…).

• Informative (medical, hiking, real estate, automotive).

• Advice (relationships, health and fitness, spirituality, religion, psychic…).

How do you land a column? Here are some ideas:

• Look for a need. What is missing from your local newspaper or your favorite magazine, ezine or website that you could provide? As I mentioned yesterday, when I decided I wanted to write a column, I noticed that our community (a tourist town) had quite a turnover in businesses. Interesting people would come to town and start a new business, but they didn’t last long. I was curious about some of the proprietors and I thought others might be, too. So I developed my business column, “Profiles in Business.” Of course, this was a win-win situation for everyone. I was getting exposure, experience, a little wage, ideas for magazine articles and I was having fun. The business owner was getting free advertisement and some of them were starting to pay for newspaper ads.

• List column ideas. Can you come up with enough ideas to fill your column for the next several months? If you can’t list a year’s worth of column ideas (for a monthly column) or three months worth (for a weekly column), you might want to consider another theme.

• Create some sample columns. Go out and interview a few people or write a few essays and then present your idea and the examples.

Tips:

• A new publication might be more open to column ideas. They are also more prone to closure, too.

• Consider the audience before pitching your idea. If you’re writing for a regional publication, make sure that your column always has a local flavor. If it is a regional magazine on parenting, then your audience is interested in parenting issues and activities, events, services occurring/rendered locally. If it is a national health magazine, your focus should be aspects of health for all Americans.

• Mix it up. It’s your column and sometimes you’re given quite a bit of leeway. If so, you might write about your experiences in this theme, conduct an occasional interview (with experts and with regular citizens), review related products, report on extreme happenings and occurrences within the realm of your theme topic, express your thoughts on the topic and so forth.

Syndicate your column. What is syndication? It means that your column is published in more than one newspaper or magazine. There are a couple of ways to get syndicated.

1: In some cases, other newspapers will pick up your column.

2: If you own the copyright, you can pitch your column to various syndications in hopes that they will arrange to have your column appear in newspapers throughout the U.S.

3: Or you can self-syndicate, which means that you hand-sell your column to individual newspapers or magazines of your choice.

Not all column topics are conducive to syndication. If you want syndication, you’ll need to come up with a topic/theme that is universal, such as pet care, health/fitness, world events, seniors or travel, for example. You’ll also have a better chance of getting syndicated if you are an expert in your field. Do you have one or more books on this subject? Is this topic related to your profession? Have you been writing, practicing or teaching in this field for many years? In other words, do you have a platform?

You’ll find syndicates to contact here: http://www.writing-world.com/links/syndication.shtml or http://www.syndicatedirectory.com

Are you ready for Christmas or will you be shopping and wrapping at the last minute as usual?

If you procrastinate this time of year, you probably have trouble meeting your writing deadlines year round. And if you’re like most procrastinators, you really would like to change. It would make life less hectic.

But do you have it in you to change? Are you actually capable of or wired to calmly work toward a deadline without the drama? Can you organize your time and your life in order to accommodate a new way of being? I guess it depends on your motivation and what’s in it for you. If calm and peace isn’t your atmosphere of choice, then there may be no hope. If your habitual tardiness is linked to your attempt to be noticed or to gain power, then forget it.

Some writers love the excitement of rushing upon a deadline and finishing it barely under the wire. I have friends who use their bent toward procrastination as a way to get sympathy and other kinds of (often negative) attention. There are people who seem to live their entire lives showing up late. They just can’t (or won’t) get organized. But if you want to do better in 2010—you want to enjoy a more peaceful existence without the constant commotion—you wish to stop disappointing and irritating colleagues, co-workers, friends, family members and editors by always showing up late—here are a few tips and tricks that might help.

• Use lists. If you write it down, you are more apt to follow through. Plus, it frees your mind when your tasks are committed to paper—you’re no longer required to try remembering everything that needs to be done.

• Break big projects into smaller tasks. Rather than look at your assignment as a major project wherein you must research and write a complete article by mid month, view it in segments.

• Plan to finish the assignment early. Forget about the deadline date. Establish your own date and focus on finishing then.

• Make friends with the clock.

When you are planning to meet with an editor or a friend, rather than just letting things happen as they might—which is what you would typically do—thus, showing up late, actually plan a time to arrive. Learn how to use your friend, the clock, to help you change your tardy habits.

Here’s how I mange my time so that I can meet my commitments. Let’s say that I have a 9:30 a.m. meeting and I get up that morning at 7. The drive will take me10 minutes in heavy traffic (I plan for the worst case scenario). That means I must leave the house no later than 9:20. I note what I must and what I’d like to do before for the meeting: shower, dress, straighten up the house, eat a bite of breakfast, feed the cats, make some calls and gather some paperwork for the meeting, for example. I would also like to write my blog, respond to the email that came in overnight and ready some books for shipping. Now, I will give each task a portion of the time I have allotted that morning.

I don’t just start moving through my morning and let things happen as they might. For example, I won’t start making the bed and then pick up a book from the nightstand and start reading it nor will I go out to get the paper and get in a long conversation with a neighbor or get suddenly distracted by a stack of bills I left on the desk the night before.

No, I have a mission. I have an obligation to be on time and there are certain tasks I want to finish before I leave, so this is my focus.

First, I figure my priorities—taking a shower, feeding the cats, getting dressed, eating something, packaging the books to be shipped, responding to important emails and preparing for the meeting (although, I probably would have done that preparation the night before). If I have time left, I might write (or at least start) my blog, straighten the house, make the calls and play with the cat for a few minutes. At any rate, I will be driving out of my driveway, hair combed, lipstick in place, briefcase in hand at 9:20.

Can you see how I prioritize? When there is a particularly tight time crunch, I will allot each priority task a segment of time in writing. For example, I can generally shower, dress and be ready to leave in 20 minutes. It takes me approximately 5 minutes to ready a book to be shipped, 10 minutes to prepare and eat a bowl of cereal and fruit (I can feed the cats while fixing my breakfast). I can generally straighten the house and deal with litter boxes within about 20-30 minutes. And my blog generally takes 30 to 45 minutes to write. Those calls I wanted to make might take me 15 minutes and checking all of my email could delay me by 15 or 20 minutes.

Do you see how when you know how much time you need to spend on each task, you can actually pretty realistically schedule so that you are always on time.

Are you generally prompt or do you struggle with punctuality? Do you easily meet deadlines or are they a real problem for you? I’d like to hear your story and learn your tips and tricks for meeting those all important deadlines.

For more tips, tricks and solid advice, resources and information, read The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. I’m also starting two online courses in January. See my blog post for December 18 for details. http://www.matilijapress.com

I had an interesting challenge over the weekend. My niece, Maria, asked me to critique a couple of her stories. One of them was a class project and she got an A+ on it.

Maria asked me to be honest (has she ever known her auntie to lie?). She is actually an excellent writer for any age. She is 12.

How do you critique the work of a young writer? Your first priority should be to encourage him or her to keep writing, so you want to avoid discouraging words. I also felt it was counter-productive to nit-pick. Fine-tuning can come later. So I looked for the piece of advice or critique that could most significantly help Maria to improve her stories. Here’s what I focused on—her ending. She writes a rather tantalizing beginning (she makes you want to keep reading). The meat of her stories is strong. Her endings are nice, actually. Where I think she lets her reader down is somewhere between the middle and the end. I advised her to practice winding down—transitioning from the active, “happening” middle to the conclusion so she doesn’t end so abruptly.

Knowing Maria, I’m pretty sure that she quickly tires of the story. She wants to end it and move on to something else. In my brief critique, I suggested that she spend more time fleshing out that section between the middle and the end. In one story, she left conflicts unsettled and she passed right over her excellent opportunity to offer a lesson or help readers reach a conclusion.

Do you end your stories properly? Do you bring your stories full circle? Do you resolve conflicts and allow lessons to be learned where appropriate? Do you ease your readers into your magnificent ending or do you just sort of leave them dangling in outer space?

Leave your comment at this blogsite.

When is Self-Publishing Self-Publishing?
Here’s the link to the publishing options article Bobbi Florio Graham, Dan Poynter, Susan Daffron and myself (Patricia Fry) contributed to.
http://www.simonteakettle.com/options.htm

If you are confused as to what self-publishing means, what “self-publishing” companies do, etc. you might want to refer to this article. For one thing, we’ve attempted to rescue the term “self-publishing” from those pay-to-publish companies and attribute it back to where it belongs—indicating that an individual produced his/her book through his/her own publishing company.

You have not self-published if you don’t own the ISBN and the only way you own an ISBN is if you purchase it under your publishing company name.

Read the enlightening article and let me know if you have any questions. PLFry620@yahoo.com. Also, do yourself a favor this holiday season, join SPAWN. Remember dues go up January 1, 2010. So act now. http://www.spawn.org.

Be sure to check my array of books at http://www.matilijapress.com. You may want to put a couple of them on your Christmas list.

Book me to speak to your group this year. PLFry620@yahoo.com.

Contact me about editing your manuscript. I give FREE evaluations—email me your first 20 pages. I edit nonfiction, novels and young adult manuscripts. I just finished editing a detailed tour guide. I must say that novels and interesting nonfiction books are much more fun to edit. PLFry620@yahoo.com.

Have you ever wondered what makes different writers choose different genres? Why does one writer embrace fiction as his medium, others lean strongly toward nonfiction and still others only want to produce books for children? And then there are those who are stuck on horror writing, humor, spiritual works or strictly business books.

I’m not a psychologist or a philosopher, but it’s always fun to observe people and try to get into their heads.

It seems to me that those of us who stick to nonfiction are basically more organized and precise. We have trouble veering far from the truth. Some of us have a desire to teach, to lead, to change minds, even. We’re generally good at prioritizing, multi-tasking and we’re a very curious bunch. Truly diverse nonfiction writers tend to see stories/articles/books in every situation. I think that when we try to write fiction, it is more factual than fiction written by the true storyteller/novelist.

Novelists may have a lot more going on in their heads—imaginary stuff. They find it easy to fabricate and some of them become expert at weaving stories around nearly any life circumstance. Fiction writers typically have active imaginations, of course. But ask them to write their bios or a description of their books and they can become lost in the woods.

What is the make-up of a children’s book author? I think they probably have talking pigs, ferocious dragons and fair princesses living in their heads 24/7. I’ve met many of these authors who also have a strong desire to connect with and to teach children life lessons as well as character values.

Certainly, I’ve only barely touched the surface of what’s in the head of authors. I’m going to leave it to you to add to this. What type of writer are you? What inspires or motivates you to write in this genre?

Visit my website at: http://www.matilijapress.com

It has been an exciting few months for a couple of my clients. Roy Raynor’s novel, Chameleon Man, His Women, His Journey came out this month. Check it out at http://www.rarpublisher.com.

SPAWN member, friend and occasional client, Sandra Cropsey’s hilarious book, Who’s There? is being presented as a play in February and March. Here’s an introduction to the play and book:

“Each day, on a chicken farm in the rural south, Momma, Sister, and Ivylee have a bizarre memorial service for Bunk’s amputated leg, which they otherwise keep in the freezer. Each looks for love and each waits. Someone knocks, but Momma’s beliefs are not strong enough for her to answer. So she looks for signs to help her understand who’s there.” Learn more about this book here:
http://www.outskirtspress.com/whosthere

It’s December first. We are looking at fresh calendar pages and launching into a new season. I see it as a season of promises. I hope you do, too. In today’s blog post, I promised to tell you how to come up with article ideas. So here goes:

1: Write about what you know. And this doesn’t mean to limit yourself to just those things you excel in or in which you are an expert. Perhaps you teach math, but you also know how to build exhibition kites and fly them. Maybe you have had a lot of experience with farming, you are raising a teen-age girl and you are a self-taught chef in your home. These are all things that you know something about and that you could probably write about—if not with authority, at least from your perspective and experiences.

2: Write about what you want to know. How many times have you been intrigued by a concept or something tangible? Do you sometimes question how something works or where it came from? If you are a writer, you are probably curious. Learn how to turn your curiosity into cash. I once saw a pair of rare and unusual Pallas cats at the Denver Zoo. I was charmed and I wanted to know more about them. So I contacted the editors at Cats Magazine and they gave me the go-ahead to do the research and write an article about this interesting species. I suffered a heat-related illness once. I wanted to know more about this condition and how to prevent it happening again, so I pitched an idea for an article to a national magazine and was able to get paid to research and write a piece on this topic.

3: Share your experiences. Your experiences and how you perceive and react to them are completely different from anyone else’s. I’ve written about my experiences caring for an older horse, presenting Hawaiian luaus on the mainland, succumbing to hypnosis, writing a newspaper column, taking in feral kittens and more.

4: Relate the experiences of others. Here’s where it is really important to tune into others—listen to what they’re talking about, watch what they’re doing and how they do it, read about their adventures and journeys. You can interview individuals and write about their experiences or use their experiences to write an essay or how-to piece. For example, maybe you know someone who works part-time in another country. Interview her, but also write a piece about the trend to work outside America and get quotes from several people who do. You could create another article featuring tips for acclimating to the customs of another country before visiting or going there to work. Can you see how a germ of an idea can expand into an explosion of ideas?

5: Look everywhere for article ideas. A successful freelance article writer does not limit himself when it comes to finding those ideas. He always has his article-search radar up no matter where he is or what he’s doing. Some of my most fascinating assignments came in the most unusual places—the Little League field, in line at the grocery store, at the post office, while waiting in an airport, during a lecture on a completely different topic, at social gatherings, on top of a mountain, while walking on the beach and even while preparing a holiday meal.

As you can see, being a successful freelance writer means being ever present in your life and with regard to what’s going on around you.

I’d like to hear where some of your best article ideas came from. Leave your comment here.

Tomorrow’s column will feature how to use magazine and newspaper columns to promote your fiction or nonfiction book.

For more about me and my books and services, go to
http://www.matilijapress.com

This is a good time to thank those who help you in your writing/publishing career. Who am I suggesting that you thank? And why? All of those individuals who have given you a leg up, provided help/information when you needed it or in some other way supported your success as a writer/author.

We tend to take kindnesses and gifts of time and expertise for granted. Oh, we may really appreciate the gesture at the time and even thank the person who reached out to us. But how many of us follow up with a report on how the information, material or experience ultimately played out? Here’s my suggestion:

• Always thank a magazine editor who publishes your article or story.

• Send gracious thank yous to folks who provide quotes and material for your article or book. If I quote an expert in an article, I always send them a copy of the published article. I send books to those who provide a lot of information and material for a book and I’ll discount the book to others. I often get a free copy of books I edit and a discount for any books I wish to purchase.

• Thank your book editor with a signed copy of your published book and a note. Send periodic announcements with regard to your book sales and promotional activities.

• Send a thank you to your publisher and the editor assigned to work with you once your book project is completed. (I’m not sure I would apply this to the pay-to-publish companies as they seem so impersonal—there is typically no relationship there.)

• Thank the author of a book that helped you through the process of producing a book or establishing a freelance career, for example.

• Send a thank you to a particular speaker who gave you the information you needed at that time.

• Thank the writers’ conference coordinator for a well-organized conference.

• Personally thank those in your writers’ group who provided the information and/or support you needed.

• Thank the leaders of your favorite writing/publishing organization for providing those things that benefit you most.

• Leave comments on those blog sites you like—those that give you the most encouragement and pertinent information.

• And thank you family for putting up with your weird writing hours and your occasional spacey-ness when you’re working through a plot. It’s not always easy living with a writer.

Thanks by email is okay in most cases. Some sentiments, however, call for a written note sent through the mail. I like to use seasonal cards to express my thanks—Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, spring, for example. And some expression of gratitude are best done by phone.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for visiting my blog site. I know that some of you are regulars and I truly appreciate you taking the time to visit. Thank you to those who are visiting for the first time—please come back often.

And be sure to visit my website http://www.matilijapress.com. And contact me if you have any questions. PLFry620@yahoo.com.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Do you ever choose a book by its title?

I know that we’ve discussed titles before, but there is a lot to be said about a book (or an article) title. As titles go, there are excellent ones, bad ones and many levels in between. A title is sometimes subjective—while some people love it, others might not resonate with it at all. But, I guess, a good title is one that the majority of the audience for that book are attracted to or drawn to.

It seems to me that if you like cats, you might be attracted by books with “cat,” “kitty,” “feline,” or “kitten” in the title. If you enjoy adventure stories, you’re going to be more intrigued by books with the words, “adventure,” “journey,” “escapade,” “quest,” etc. in the title.

That’s definitely one reason why it is important and even wise to use words that identify your genre or topic in your title or subtitle. You want to let readers know whether your book is a mystery, history, romance, memoir or a collection of short stories.

Be honest with your readers. I’ve known “self-published” authors who wrote one book, but wanted it to fit into another genre—one that was, perhaps, selling better. I applaud authors who study the industry and know what’s selling. But you can’t fit a square book into a round hole. You can’t fool the readers. If they want a light read and they pick up your book of “gentle stories,” they will be extremely agitated to find murder and mayhem inside the pages. It’s not fair or ethical to label your erotic book as a young adult novel.

And this is a dumb thing to do, anyway. If you plan to establish a reputation as a writer in a certain genre or topic, you’d darn well better create books that are representative of that genre or topic.

So how do you entice your particular audience to buy your book? Through your amazing book cover and through your title. Once you know who your audience is, then direct everything toward their tastes, their interests, their intellect, their questions… For a nonfiction book, choose a title that responds to your readers’ questions or concerns, for example.

So what does this tell you? What have you deduced from this blog post so far? If you’re paying attention, you’re beginning to understand how critical it is that you know your audience. And this takes us back to the evergreen topic of writing a book proposal. Yes, a book proposal is a multi-purpose document. It can even help you to determine your book’s title.

For more about how to write a book proposal, purchase my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Also consider signing up for my online Book Proposal Course. http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookproposal.htm