Archives for December 2011

Writing for “General Aviation News”

 

General Aviation Airplanes

General Aviation Airplanes

Pays up to $500 for articles of 750 words. Seasoned bi-weekly General Aviation magazine that provides features on aircraft and its maintenance, aviation safety as well as air events and aviation history. E-queries accepted.

http://www.generalaviationnews.com/about

LINDQUIST & VENNUM PRIZE FOR POETRY

NO ENTRY FEE
Established in 2011 with the aim of supporting outstanding Midwestern poets and bringing their work to a national stage, the prize will award $10,000 as well as a contract for publication to the author of the winning manuscript. The winner will be selected from five finalists.

Deadline: January 31, 2012. Submissions for this regional prize will be accepted only from poets currently residing in the Upper Midwestern United States, defined as: North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

http://www.milkweed.org/content/view/396/72/

11 Places to Find Your Next Great Read – or Show Your Own Book

row of books

The Internet is full of great websites that can help you get connected with books that you’ll really enjoy reading. Check out these sites of quality books to discover great stories.

Book Communities
Discuss books you enjoyed, share your opinion on these sites – and if you are an author it is a must to join these communities where you can show your books for free.

1. BookTalk
Find an online reading group and book discussion forum that can help you discover new books.

2. Goodreads
Get book recommendations, keep track of what you’re reading, and socialize over books.

3. Listal
Here you can list, rate, and discover books and other media.

4. Scribd
Find out what others are reading on Scribd.

5. BookMooch
Exchange books with other members.

6. BookCrossing
BookCrossing offers used books, allowing you to share what you’ve read and discover new reads.

7. Shelfari
Build a virtual bookshelf, see what others are reading, and discover new books through Shelfari.

8. Reader2
Find new books to read and put your reading list online with Reader2.

9. Lib.rario.us
This site makes it easy to create a social catalogue of your favourite books and discover what others love.

10. Revish
Read, review and share books with other Revish members.

11. Wattpad
Wattpad has experienced explosive growth since its inception and has become the world’s most popular destination to publish and read e-books. Wattpad delivers billions of pages from its library of works created and published by the Wattpad community.  Authors get immediate response from readers when posting single chapters. One writer had already 16 million readers before she found a publisher – or a publisher her…

Other than your time, it is FREE PR for authors, to be known, talk about your books and often to show images of your books. On Booktalk you can swap a few of your paper books for free advertisements.

How Book Sales are Influenced

… by attractive front cover design.  Five tips how you can create appealing book covers.

Visit bookstores, your library, or go to the internet and research as many book cover designs as possible.  

You learn as much from badly designed books as from beautifully designed books.

In the Western world people read from left to right, top to bottom.

Position your text and image in appropriate levels of importance.

Put your title in the top half of your cover. 

Avoid centering all the text on your cover or title page, this looks pretty unprofessional.  

Right or left aligning creates much cleaner lines.  Never use more than three different fonts on your cover, to not confuse your reader – this includes bold, italic or underline variations.

Use bold or complementary colors, but NEVER use a white or a very light background.  Use light font on dark background for dramatic effects (novels, spiritual, etc.) and dark on light for easy readability (self-help, how-to, business books).

The elements should be clean, not cluttered and the font easily readable,  the text balanced in size and style to the graphics.  Allow at least 0.5″ in from the trim guides to place all your elements. This will ensure enough allowance around the cover’s edge and provide a more tailored look. 

Give your finished cover the thumbnail test.  Your front cover image should look crisp and polished when reduced to post stamp-size for display on online bookstores like Amazon.

Your potential book buyer looks first at the front cover; then turns to the back to read further. Draw her or him in with a catchy back header.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 Tips on How to get relevant links to your website or blog

 

Besides writing content-rich articles, websites with lots of relevant links are rising in Google’s web ranking.  Results are more visitors and success. But how can you get lots of links back to your website?

1. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers or Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.

2. Write thoughtful comment on blogs, but at least a couple of sentences and sign with your website / blog.

3. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist or Kijiji to be a cheap or free classified service, include a link to your website for pennies per month.

4. If you run a longstanding, reputable company, create a page about it in Wikipedia or in topic specific Wikis.

5. Set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to become an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.

6. Submit a story to several e-Zines that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.

7. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content.

8. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links.

Writing Contests: Read the Fine Print

 

Is it really worth to participate in Writing Contests?  For every offer I read, hear or get in person I always ask myself “who benefits?” and so I study always the “fine print”.  Here is an essay contest as example:

“An Essay Contest, 6 Winners Get Manuscript Critiques:
Pick one of the following stories from Book Wish Foundation’s new book, What You Wish For, and write an essay of no more than 500 words about how the wishes in the story relate to the Darfur refugees in eastern Chad. The stories were contributed for free by their authors so we could use the book’s proceeds to develop libraries in Darfur refugee camps. Essays will be judged on style, creativity, understanding of the story, and understanding of the refugees. (1)

If you win, either the story’s author or the author’s literary agent will provide a one-page critique of the first 50 pages of a middle grade or young adult manuscript of your choosing. You will have six months to submit your manuscript and the agent or author will have six months from submission to provide the critique. Stories you may write about:

  • “The Protectionist,” by Meg Cabot.
  • “Pearl’s Fateful Wish,” by Jeanne DuPrau.
  • “Nell,” by Karen Hesse.
  • “The Lost Art of Letter Writing,” by Ann M. Martin.
  • “The Rules for Wishing,” by Francisco X. Stork..
  • “The Stepsister,” by Cynthia Voigt.

You may submit essays about more than one story for a chance to win more than one critique (2). Essays and winners’ manuscripts must be written in English.  To Enter:
Essays must be emailed to contest at …. no later than February 1, 2012, either pasted into the body of the email or attached as a Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, or PDF file. Essays must include the name and email address of the entrant. Book Wish Foundation staff will judge the initial round of the contest and recommend finalists to the agents or authors, who will select the winners. Winners will be notified by email and announced on bookwish.org on or about March 1, 2012. Winners’ manuscripts must be received by September 1, 2012. Manuscript critiques will be sent to winners within six months of receipt.

Essays may be published on bookwish.org (3). By submitting an essay, you grant to Book Wish Foundation the right to edit, publish, copy, display, and otherwise use your essay, and to further use your name, likeness, and biographical information in advertising and promotional materials, without further compensation or permission (4), except where prohibited by law. The preceding applies to the contest essays, not winners’ manuscripts. Winners retain all rights to the manuscripts they submit for critique.(5)”

My conclusions when reading this “offer”:
(1)    
To understand the story and to understand refugee camps you will have to BUY the book, it is not easily available in libraries or bookstores.

(2)     If you really want a good chance to win, you might have to write several essays – this way “donating” all your essays that will not be considered a winner.

(3)     Essays may be published on bookwish.org. You can look at it as a donation or a way to get your name out (also bookwish.org is not a popular website per se) but it is not given that you have a link to your authors website.

(4)     You give them permission to alter, publish, copy the essay and use your name in ads and PR WITHOUT COMPENSATION.

(5)     Only winners retain all rights to their manuscript – also it does not specify if they are compensated in any way other then the critique.

A really clever roguish PR trick to get free content – for the agency – not for the authors.  What is really in for you as an author?  Or am I too critical?  Do you partizipate in writing contests, no matter how benefitial it is for the other party and no matter if they profit from your writing without compensatingyou?

 

Scholarships for Writers Conferences

Photo Christl Walker

KACHEMAK BAY WRITERS’ CONFERENCE
http://writersconference.homer.alaska.edu/scholarships.htm

An early number of partial and full scholarships are available for application covering the $325 registration fee only. Transportation to and from Homer and conference activities, housing and incidentals are the recipient’s responsibility.

To apply, individuals must submit a letter describing why they want to attend the conference and the reasons for scholarship assistance need. Applications are due March 12. Applicants will be notified of their status by April 6.

OP-ED PROJECT SCHOLARSHIPS – SEMINARS
http://theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61&Itemid=76

Locations:  Washington DC, Boston MA, Los Angelos CA, San Francisco CA, New York City, Chicago IL.

We are committed to making The OpEd Project programs affordable for any woman who is committed to changing the world with her voice. To that end, we provide full and partial scholarships for up to 40% of participants in any seminar. Our scholarship protocol is as follows: We ask anyone requesting a scholarship to “pay in words” by sending us a request in writing telling us why the assistance is needed, what op-ed you are committed to writing, and how it will contribute to changing the world.

Found at Fundsforwriters

Google+

opensign

 

Do Writers Need Another Social Media Site?
You have Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest accounts, you are in Goodreads and other reader-author sites. You spent already too much time in all these social networks.  Why join Google+ on top of that?

Joel Friedlander explains in his superb blog http://www.thebookdesigner.com why it makes sense for writers to join the 170+ million users.  He explains the features that distinguish Google+ from the other networks and why it is a great location for authors:

–  decide which circles will receive your message (segmentation)
–  follow circles published by leaders that are of interest for you
–  instantly have a real-time video conference right inside Google+
–  there is almost no limit of characters compared with Twitter or Facebook
–  your profile will be always top ranked on Google search
–  If you share a post on G+ it instantly gets into the Google ranking machine – as in you don’t have to wait for the crawlers to get to your site.

Read his full article on Google+

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2011/12/google-do-writers-need-it/

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Hyper Smash

5 Tips for Your Self-Publishing Business

 

SourcePDPhoto.org

1. Discover your niche: As a self-publisher you will most likely find the biggest success by narrowly defining your market niche. It is much easier to become an expert in a very specific market where it is much less crowded.

2. To start with an ebook is the smartest way to get started. It is fast and inexpensive. It is the perfect way to dip your toes into the water and see how comfortable it is. It also allows you to make any changes or corrections well before sending your book to a print-on-demand printer and distributors.

3. Set-up your blog and create a website: Once you figure out what your niche is, start your free WordPress blog right away. This will get your creative juices flowing.

4. Start your next book: Now that you have accomplished the previous steps, keep improving your business. Never stop learning about marketing and promotion.

5. Realize that this is a business: Self-publishing can be your side-business, main business, or even be your hobby. But you must still run it like a business, but eep your current job. Learn the basics of management, marketing, sales, public relations and accounting.  Research what will be involved in self-publishing.

Get the most popular books about self-publishing, e.g. those by Dan Poynter, Peter Bowerman, Aaron Shepard. Visit popular self-publishing blogs, such as TheWellfedWriter.com,  TheBookDesigner.com, Savvybookwriters.wordpress.com,  and SpanNet.org.

 

 

 

 

Plenty of Freelance Writing opportunities

 

typewriter

THE CATTLEMAN MAGAZINE
http://www.thecattlemanmagazine.com/advertise/writer-guidelines.html
Editorially, The Cattleman covers all aspects of the beef
industry in Texas, Oklahoma and the Southwest. In the most
recent readership survey, subscribers said they were most
interested in the following topics in this order: range/
pasture, property rights, animal health, water, new innovations
and marketing. Our feature stories are generally more in-depth
than other livestock publications. Word counts average between
1,500 to 2,000. Pays up to $450 for articles up to 2,000 words.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE WEEK
http://www.ccweek.com/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=7&zoneid=1
Published biweekly, Community College Week’s readers include
college presidents, chief academic officers, faculty, student-
service professionals, librarians and other educators. In
each edition, our readers find news and features not provided
by other news sources, including analyses of critical academic
trends and issues, vital statistics, technology updates and
employment opportunities. Very nice guidelines with many
columns open to freelancers.

TRAVERSE NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S MAGAZINE
NORTHERN HOME & COTTAGE
http://www.mynorth.com/My-North/Contact-Us/Writing-Submission-Guidelines/
We want features to have entry points. As we use it, the term
includes sidebars and extended captions designed to bring in
a reader not enticed by the main subject. For a 2,500-word piece,
perhaps 1,800 words would be devoted to the main body, and the
rest divided into three sidebar-type sections. Topics include
nature and the environment, regional culture, personalities,
the arts (visual, performing, literary), crafts, food & dining,
homes and cottages, history, outdoor activities (e.g., fishing,
golf, skiing, boating, biking, hiking, birding, gardening).
One-time right to publish in our magazines and right to publish
on our web site. Fees: $200-$700. Articles work best for us at
1,500 to 3,000 words. Departments are limited to 700 words.

RELATE MAGAZINE
http://www.relatemag.com/about/
The mission is to inspire teen girls to pursue their dreams
with confidence and to teach them to be an example for others
in their speech, life, love, faith and purity. Topics include
design, entertainment, the future in terms of college and jobs,
beauty, faith, life, quizzes. Average article is between 650
and 1,600 words in length although longer work will be considered.
Sidebar information is also encouraged, as well as graphics,
including illustrations, and photographs.

Feature Article (around 1,800 words): $350-$700
General Article (around 800 words): $150-$200
DIY Article (around 500 words): $50-$100
Teen Profile (around 800 words): $200-$250
Reviews (around 200 words): $50-$75
Celebrity Interviews (around 1,200 words): $500-$700
Quizzes (around 800 words): $100-$200