(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — It’s Time to Publish, with Cathy Alter, author of Up for Renewal, and Tim Wendel, author of The New Face of Baseball. I got back late from lunch and missed the first five minutes of the session — sorry! But ANYWAY…
Cathy got started by writing for free for Dave Egger’s first magazine and says it was the best investment she ever made in her career because he went on to become Dave Eggers.
She and Tim both recommend checking out Gawker to see who’s were and who’s changing publishing houses. Tim also recommends that when someone moves to a new house, that is the time to query them because they likely didn’t bring their whole list with them and they’re looking for new blood.
“I’m often afraid of querying editors, but they need you, they need writers to fill their pages with stuff, and they’re looking for new writers,” says Cathy. Answer these questions: Why you? Why now? Why should an editor care?
Don’t undersell your experience, says Tim. “Be passionate about what you’re into. Even if your credentials are, I don’t know, I love rowing or I’ve read every mystery by Raymond Chandler,” he says. “Your writing is going to be on display in that query/cover letter. What they’re looking for is, in a sense, an opportunity to give you a chance.” [continue reading…]
(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — Finding Work in Commercial Writing with Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions, Lisa Daniel, and Lester Reingold.
<<< LESTER REINGOLD >>>
“It’s kind of a shock to hear yourself as being a spokesperson for the old school, but I guess that’s me. …I’m the old school, Shashi is the cutting edge, and Lisa is the golden mean.” It’s not a replacement process. You might call it additive. The new methods add to but don’t replace those older methods of finding and keeping work, which is what Lester has been doing since the beginning of his career.
Achieve the right amount of specialization. You want to be able to have enough expertise so you can engender interest and ongoing work from editors in a given field, but at the same time it’s valuable not to close off other opportunities. Specialize, subspecialize, but be open to other possibilities. Have enough specialization to be able to talk to the people you’re writing about and be able to speak their language — jargon, issues that concern the people every day — and you can’t just walk in and know all of those aspects of the field.
Organizations and government agencies all need writers; they all subsist on words. [continue reading…]
(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — The Business of Freelancing, presented by Al Portner (freelance writer and author), Ken Norkin (copywriter), and John Mason (attorney).
<<< AL PORTNER >>>
About 50% of the room is new freelancers.
Most people start otu believing that they will write mainly for publication but quickly learn that this is not the case, and most of income will be derived from work for hire (WFH).
WFH has some advantages, namely quick turnaround and quick payment. AP had a couple of publications where the lag time was as much as a year. 7-8 months is fairly common.
WFH can be many things for many kinds of organizations:
- Advocacy groups
- Advertising and PR agencies
- Associations
- General business
- Campaign consultants
- Charities
- Colleges and universities
- Individuals
- Internal organizations
- Lobbyists
- Media of all kinds
- Newsletters (opp for continuing revenue — note to self!!!)
- Internet
- TV
- Think tanks
- Trade pubs
- Many, many more
Generally commercial work pays the best and is the most dependable income. [continue reading…]
(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — Today I’m attending the Fifth Annual Going Freelance Seminar, jointly sponsored by American Independent Writer and the Johns Hopkins University Master of Arts in Writing Program. I’ll be live blogging the sessions for your reading enjoyment. I’m going for volume, not perfect transcription, so you get to enjoy my fast typing chock full of abbreviations and typos. ;) Go with it. It will be a blast.
Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King
(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — I just finished the Blogging Basics: 6 Steps to Personalize, Polish, and Promote Your Blog session at BlogHer DC on the BlogHer Reach Out tour, and it was excellent. My co-panelists, Liz Henry, Roni Noone, and Andrea Meyers, shared some excellent information, including Andrea’s PowerPoint presentation on polishing your blog.
As promise, here are the links I shared during my intensive break-out session on promoting your blog:
- Twitter — A platform to tell people what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. Free. Addictive. “Follow,” or receive updates from, people who interest you and share your updates with them if they follow you back. Great for building community and finding new blogs and blog readers.
- TwitterFeed — A tool to automatically push blog post titles and links (and lots of other things) to your followers.
- StumbleUpon — A social bookmarking tool and community valuable for promoting strong content, finding new blogs and bloggers, and building social authority in your content area. Give posts you like a thumbs up and ones you don’t a thumbs down, and pick a category like writing, parenting, health, inspiration, etc.
- Buzz — A new social bookmarking tool from Yahoo where users can submit blog posts and articles that are then Buzzed Up or Buzzed Down by other users.
- Digg — One of the best known if not THE best known when it comes to social bookmarking and social authority. Submit posts, Digg what you like, bury what you don’t.
Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King
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