Writing and Publishing News from

I’m traveling this week, but I didn’t forget you. Before I left to see the fall colors along the east coast, I revamped some former blogs and asked someone to post them for you. You should be getting a new post every few days while I’m gone. Enjoy:

It’s common knowledge that an author must target a book toward a particular audience. Well, this is also true for freelance article writers.

As freelance writers, we need to focus on our audience/readership, first and then strive to satisfy their needs or desires. What information are they seeking? What can you bring to readers that they want to know about? And, when you are contemplating an article on a particular topic, consider, do they need this information? What do they need/want to know about this subject?

Many writers simply want to write what they want to write. They have a pet topic and sometimes they get really involved in writing an article about it without first checking to see what is needed on this topic. It’s wise to write about what you know but, if you also hope to begin a freelance career or you simply want to sell a few articles on this topic, you’re going to need a different approach.

Rather than burying your head in your work and writing the article that you want to push, you must first get acquainted with your audience. Who is interested in this topic and your slant on it? What magazines/newsletters/websites might publish the piece as you’ve written it? What else is out there on this subject? Has this article been done before many times over?

Folks, before you start thinking about what you can produce or what you want to say or, even worse, what you think others should read, consider your audience—their desires and needs. Discover magazines that this audience typically reads and then work from the inside out—not the outside in.
In other words, do your research and then write an appropriate article for an appropriate publication or site directed toward the right audience.

For more on how to establish a freelance writing career or how to promote your book through articles, read my book, “A Writer’s Guide to Magazine Articles.”
http://www.matilijapress.com

I wrote in my blog recently that everyone today, knows an author. I think this is an interesting phenomenon. But how many of you know even one full-time freelance writer/author—someone who has created a career as a writer or author? There still are not many of us. I do know a few. Most of their careers, however, stemmed from graphic design, web design or editing businesses.

It doesn’t matter how one comes into the writing/publishing profession. What I find interesting is how various career writers work it so they can stay in this profession and why they do it.

As some of you know, I’ve been writing for publication since 1973. That’s when I sent my first article to a national magazine and experienced the joy of being published. That’s when I became hooked on writing and on sharing my writing, my ideas, my knowledge, the results of my research, etc. with others. From the time I knew I wanted to write professionally, I wanted to write nonfiction articles for magazines.

My writing business has changed shape a few times over the years, as I became an author and then a publisher, a leader of an international publishers’/authors’ organization (SPAWN), a speaker on writing and publishing, a teacher, a book coach and an editor. I still marvel at how my career has evolved.

For 36 years, this is all I do (except for a brief period when I worked a full-time job alongside this career). My writing/publishing business has solely supported me for the last 25 years. While I take all of this for granted—I’m the one who created it, after all—others often marvel at the very idea of it. Not many people have the courage or the opportunity to establish a business doing what they love and to spend decades massaging that business into one that actually works.

I’m taking a break from my business this week. I’m leaving today for a fall color cruise along the East coast with a friend who encouraged me to write. I can name few people in my life who influenced, supported and/or encouraged me to pursue my dream. Some of them don’t have a clue about their role in my decisions and choices.

This friend, Kelly, and I met in junior high school. We’ve been best buds ever since—that’s a 50 year+ friendship. We continued our friendship even after we married and had children. And then her family moved to another state. We missed each other. With 3 small children to care for, she didn’t get out to meet people easily and her outlets were long letters to me. I gleefully reciprocated. For years, while she lived in Denver and I lived in CA, we wrote virtual books back and forth to one another sometimes every week. We also visited each other at least once during every year that she lived in Colorado.

How do I credit her with my career success? Those letters kept me writing—practicing my craft. Her response to my letters boosted my confidence level and helped me to establish a, “Yes I can” attitude.

So Kelly and I are off on an adventure together and I will be leaving my business behind. When I return it would be fun to hear from others who are operating full-time writing/publishing businesses and learn how they got started, what caused them to make the choices that they did and how it’s going for them. Maybe we’ll feature some guest bloggers. If you want to be on that list, speak up. Leave a comment here or email me at PLFry620@yahoo.com. I’ll be back to work on the 19th of October.

You will have a few new blogs to view while I’m gone. I wrote them and have someone else posting them for me.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with writing work and other details related to your freelance writing or publishing business? Is it difficult to get it all done when things ramp up and become really busy? Have you ever considered hiring someone to help?

You may laugh because it’s fairly widely known that writers don’t have the money to hire people. In fact, when I presented the editor of a writing magazine with an article on this subject, she rejected it. She said it was unrealistic.

I beg to differ. There are times when we can’t afford NOT to get help. When we are overloaded with work, we’re scrambling to meet deadlines and the assignments are piling up, how effective can we be?

I’ve hired help and I’ve bartered for services over the many years that I’ve been writing for a living. In the late 1990s, when I decided to revise my local history book, I hired a friend to type it into the computer. I originally completed that book in 1983 on an electric typewriter. This same friend used to prepare query letters for me and send them to editors. Of course, I gave her the list of query letters I wanted to send and to whom. I had the templates for the letters in computer files. She simply personalized them, enclosed a self-addressed, stamped envelope and sent them off for me.

I’ve also hired book designers, webmasters, editors, proofreaders and, of course, printing companies.

Over the years, I occasionally paid my teen-age grandkids to do filing for me, type my return address on envelopes, create new file folders and help with large mailings. As they got older, my grandsons helped transport crates of books to my storage unit whenever a shipment came in. During one period, I paid a young neighbor girl to help with mailing and filing once a week. When I travel, I get someone to ship book orders that come in while I’m gone.

I know authors who hire people to help with book promotion. Some hire publicists and others simply engage the assistance of colleagues, acquaintances and friends in various promotional activities.

What kind of help could you use in your office? Obviously, things have changed over the last 30 years. You send query letters, articles, book proposals and manuscripts mainly through email. You may even have a paperless office (I met a writer once who did—impressive). You may feel you do not have enough work right now to warrant hiring someone. But imagine how much more productive you might be if you had help.

How are you spending your time, these days? Are you trying to keep up with the writing assignments while your desk and in-out baskets are overflowing? Are you concerned about having something lined up when you’ve finished the work at hand? Why not bring someone in to do the filing and, perhaps, send queries to editors and your resume and introductory letter to potential business clients?

Are you finishing up a book while trying to handle the details of establishing your publishing company? Help yourself and someone else by hiring a neighbor, friend, acquaintance, college student to handle the mundane details, to research printing companies or to send out pre-publication order forms, for example.

Maybe you are in book promotion mode. It’s a huge job, isn’t it? Have you ever considered bringing in an intern or hiring someone to help locate appropriate book reviewers, send press releases, set up speaking engagements for you and/or research venues for promoting your particular book? Just this week, I researched book promotion opportunities for a client.

It seems to me that when we try to do it all ourselves, we aren’t as effective as we might be if we had the right kind of help. Hiring someone could accomplish the following:

• Free you up to do more of the creative work.
• Possibly increase your productivity.
• Help someone else out while also helping the economy.

I’ll be leaving in a few days for a couple of weeks. I may post a few more new blogs before I go, then I’ve instructed someone to post a new one only every 3 days or so. (Yes, I wrote them and saved them up to use while I’m traveling.) Unless I have time in between photographing the fall colors along the Eastern seaboard and relaxing on shipboard, you’ll only get 3 new postings while I’m gone.
Feel free to enjoy some of the nearly 600, still pertinent, posts in the archives over the next few weeks.

This is a question people ask me all the time. My response used to be quick and easy—“I’m writing a book for authors,” or “I’m working on a book on youth mentoring,” or “I’m spending most of my time writing articles for magazines—just finished one on office politics…” Today, however, I have to think before I respond to this question.

I’m not currently working on a book. I don’t write nearly as many articles as I used to. So what am I writing? Well, I write a daily blog post. I write a lot of emails to associates, colleagues, SPAWN members, conference directors, writers/authors with questions, etc. I write an occasional speech, press release and book review. I rewrite blog posts, articles, speeches, information for the SPAWN website and my online course material. I keep up the SPAWN member list and the online Member Directory. But days and weeks sometimes go by that I don’t do any meaningful writing.

I am actually working on another book for authors. But it has been a few months since it has seen the light of day from under my “to-do” pile.

What has happened to the writing career I established so many years ago? How did my career, which was driven by my passion for writing, evolve into practically total promotion? That’s what my blog is all about, those press releases, the speeches, the articles and a lot of the SPAWN work. It all pretty much boils down to promotion.

Sure, many of these projects fulfill my passion for helping others through the crazy publishing process. And thankfully, I do get to work with other writers/authors on their projects. While I am not doing any ghostwriting right now, I do edit promising manuscripts and derive pleasure from the process.

But I’m realizing more and more that I must break free from some of the day-to-day tasks and “do as I say”—devote time to my writing. Stay posted–I’ll let you know how that goes.

Patricia Gets Published
A Google Alert came in this morning letting me know that my article on PiggyBack Book Promotion appears in the Oct 1, 2009 edition of Self Published Authors. Check it out at http://selfpublishedauthors.com/01Oct09

I Can Help You With Your Fabulous Manuscript
Do you need help with your manuscript? Let me take a look at it and determine if/how I can help you to make it more readable, give it more clarity and create a better flow through more realistic transitions, for example. I’ll check for grammatical, spelling and punctuation problems. Is your nonfiction book well organized? Does your story ring true? Does it move along at a good pace or are there places where it drags?

There’s a LOT to consider when writing either fiction or nonfiction. And it is important to have a professional look your manuscript over before publishing it or before approaching publishers or agents. While your manuscript may be as clean as a whistle (and even cliché-free), most are far from it. Many writers have some bad writing habits and a good editor/book coach, can help break them. I meet muddy writers, for example, writers who are too wordy, writers who misuse words as well as those who have trouble explaining things in simple terms. I see manuscripts where the author does way too much telling when he should be doing more showing.

If you’d like a free manuscript evaluation for either an article or fiction or nonfiction book, contact me at PLFry620@yahoo.com

Note: I will be out of town and have limited Internet access from October 8 through 18, 2009.