In this Issue:

• "Welcome" - Dan Case, editor
  
• Feature "How To Optimize Your Market Search" by Kathleen Ewing
  
• 13 Paying Markets - High, Medium, and Low
  
• Feature "While Waiting To Sell The Great American Novel" by Willma Willis Gore

Want to contribute to this newsletter? We are a paying market. Read our guidelines for contributors here: http://www.writingfordollars.com/wfdguidelines.cfm

Welcome

Check out our new article database. We finished adding our whole inventory of past articles from WFD, now over 400 articles are available to search and read. Find just the right information you need to make a few more bucks in the new year.

Don't forget our database of writer’s guidelines is readily available to everyone for FREE! All links have been checked within the last year (the date that they were last checked is listed) so you can be sure to have the most up-to-date information.

Here are the top-selling writing books at AWOCBooks.com - FREE SHIPPING on selected books! ($2.95 value)

1. THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO WRITING & SELLING MAGAZINE ARTICLES 2nd Edition by Peggy Fielding and Dan Case. FREE SHIPPING!
   
2. CONFESSING FOR MONEY 2nd Edition Writing and Selling to the SECRET Short Story Market by Peggy Fielding FREE SHIPPING!
   
3. MAGIC STEPS TO WRITING SUCCESS by Charles W. Sasser. FREE SHIPPING!
   
4. DEVOTED TO WRITING by Nancy Robinson Masters & Maurice Parsley Mallow FREE SHIPPING!
   
5. BOB BLY'S FREELANCE WRITING SUCCESS (How to Make $100,000 a Year as a Freelance Writer and Have the Time of Your Life Doing It) by Robert W. Bly
   
6. JUMPSTART YOUR WRITING CAREER & SNAG PAYING ASSIGNMENTS by Beth Erickson.
   
7. BEYOND THE BRANCHES: Writing and Scrapping Your Complete Family Tree by Robyn Conley
   
8. THE ORGANIZED WRITER IS A SELLING WRITER by Kathryn Lay. FREE SHIPPING!
   
9. WRITING HUMOR FOR MORE THAN LAUGHS by Phil Truman FREE SHIPPING!
   
10. BE YOUR OWN BOOK DOCTOR: So You Can Cure What Ails Your Writing by Robyn Conley.
    

Dan Case, editor
editor@writingfordollars.com (put WFD in the subject line)

When you are searching for the perfect market to query for the article you plan to write, what do you do with the markets you pass over along the way? If you simply file them for later, you are not being frugal with your time management. You have already studied the market once. You have a fair idea of what the editor wants and you know what the market pays. Why would you squander your valuable time by going through that same process every time you have an article on your drawing board?

1. While you're looking for that ideal market, identify secondary markets for your article just in case your primary target passes on your query. Make a list of these markets and shuffle them around in the order you will send queries to them while you still have the information close at hand. Better yet, create a standardized submission form for your article and list these markets on it in correct order so you won't have to transpose the information later. The fewer times you write something, the more time (translation: money) you save.
   
2. During you search, be on the lookout for markets for other articles you may have in the hopper. If you find a likely match or an idea pops up unexpectedly, don't assume you will remember at a later date what you had in mind when you first studied the market. When you save the market to your files, make a notation designed to jog your memory. (Ex: Indoor herb gardens; bonsai for stress relief.) It won't do you much good if you come across the market in six months and find yourself asking, "Why on earth did I save that market?"
   
3. If you find a market that will work for a reprint piece from your published inventory, print a copy of that market and set it in your to-do basket for the first thing tomorrow morning. Again, make a notation about what article to send the editor, so you'll remember if you get side-tracked by an unexpected assignment. If you are making these notations in longhand, make them legible. Print, if you must. Remember you need to be able to decipher your notes in the future.
   
4. Another possibility is that you might come across a market for a subject that you have never written about. It might be a topic you've been chomping at the bit to explore or simply a market that pays those elusive big bucks. You can save it to your miscellaneous file or your to-do basket with a note to pursue a specific train of thought in the future.
   
5. Once you find that perfect market for your existing article, consider what else the editor might like to see from you. That way, if you receive a rejection on your existing article, you can follow it up immediately with another query while your name is still fresh in the editor's mind.
   
6. Enter a date at the top of every market you save. You don't want to waste time submitting a query or an article to a market that is no longer current or has ceased publication. A lot can change in the publishing industry in a few months. If the date is over six months old when you re-visit your market, update the listing for your files before you proceed.
   
7. Be especially cautious about sending your article to a market with information you gleaned from a secondary source such as a writer's website, a market book or another publication. Before saving a market to your files, always check the guidelines information directly at its primary source, whether it is online or print. This is the best way to assure that it remains a viable market and that the publisher hasn't changed the policy regarding freelance material.

By practicing these time-saving techniques during your next market search, you can save yourself that most valuable of commodities - time. Time to do what a professional writer does best—write.

© 2008 by Kathleen Ewing

Kathleen Ewing is a freelance writer who lives in the central mountains of Arizona where she enjoys hiking, horseback riding, four wheeling and target shooting. Among her more recent credits are articles in Art Calendar Magazine, American Falconry, Funds for Writers and Hobby Farms Magazine. You can visit her site at www.nothingbinding.com/writer/kathleen-ewing.html

• FUSE Magazine - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Accepts simultaneous submissions.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Visual art, film, video, performance art, community-based theatre. 

• Good Housekeeping - Guidelines:  Pays on acceptance.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments. Subjects: Real Lives, health narratives . 

• Japan Media Review - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction. Subjects: Developments in journalism in Japan that have a technology, Internet, wireless, or convergence angle. 

• Times of the Islands - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction, columns/departments. Subjects: The Turks & Caicos Islands. 

Medium - $125 - $500

• Friction Zone - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction, columns/departments, fillers, photos/artwork. Subjects: Motorcycles. 

• MOTHERING - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Parenting, mothering, child care. 

• The Mountain Astrologer - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, fillers. Subjects: Astrology. 

• The North Coast Journal - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, fillers, photos/artwork. Subjects: Humboldt Co., Ca. weekly newspaper of politcs, people and art. 

• The Saturday Evening Post - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Accepts simultaneous submissions.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, fillers, photos/artwork. Subjects: Travel, health, general interest. 

• ViaMei - Guidelines:  Pays on acceptance.  Seeks nonfiction, photos/artwork. Subjects: Tourism, cultural and educational exchanges and business between China and US. 

Low - Less than $125

• Funny Times - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Accepts simultaneous submissions.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction, columns/departments, fillers. Subjects: Tabloid Humor. 

• Opinion Asia - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction. Subjects: Asian political, social issues of today and tomorrow. 

• Western RV News & Recreation - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, fillers, photos/artwork. Subjects: RV lifestyle. 

It is rumored that every person has "at least one great book" in her or him. Most writers who come to my workshops want to write books. Several are working on self-help books, a couple working on novels, reading a chapter per meeting to the assembled workshop members. But are books the only published works that can allow one to claim distinction as "an author?"

That's what I thought when, at age 12, I was reading and loving the fiction I found in mother's issues of Good Housekeeping. I believed then that only publishing stories and novels would bring me the coveted label, "Author."

However, at age 19, I got a surprise. I had submitted a short profile to an auto club magazine my parents received as a part of their AAA membership. At the time I couldn't have defined what a "profile" was in the "writerly" sense.

The next piece sold a year later to the same magazine—Westways—an account of a bicycle trip taken with my college girlfriend. I was "smitten." The "carrot in front of this donkey" was a sale. I began to write travel, humor, profiles—articles pertaining to whatever I was doing at the time. Nobody told me: "Write what you know." I just discovered that I could sell what I knew—or could learn.

As young newlyweds my husband and I loved to hike and fish. We teamed up—his photography and my writing—and sold travel articles and photographs to Westways Magazine. When our sons came along I added Parents and Boys' Life to my markets.

During this time I was a volunteer publicist for a local philharmonic society, learning "at the knee" of a woman who needed a substitute during her two months in Europe. This work (the musicians gave monthly concerts) improved my writing skills and later when I decided to work out of the home, led to a job as Manager of Publications at the local Chamber of Commerce.

At the library one day I met a children's book editor. She was seeking writers for a planned series of nonfiction "About" books. With my recent experience in publicity fresh in mind, I suggested a title, About News and How It Travels. This was the first of a total of seven children's books I wrote for Melmont Press, later affiliated with Children's Press of Chicago. A few years later two other women and I wrote a series of twelve career education books for Children's Press.

When my children were grown, I was newly married to a British expatriate who wanted to move to a mini-ranch. We chose the San Joaquin Valley of California. More than 250 commercial crops are grown there. I began to write profiles of farm women for magazines such as Farm Woman News (now Country Woman), and articles about raising everything from artichokes to zebras. California Farmer, Farm & Ranch Living, Landhandler, and Western Fruit Grower, among others, published my work. By that time I was doing my own photography. Before I left that area I had sold profiles of 100 people connected with the farming industry.

Following the death of my husband I moved to a little town in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. In the daily San Bernardino County Sun, under a 400-word profile, on the Family Living page was a small item: Do you know an interesting family you might photograph and write up for this page? I didn't yet know a soul in the community, but my new hair dresser knew many interesting families. I profiled her for the paper and about a half dozen of her regular customers who had interesting, creative lives. Within two years I photographed, profiled and was paid for stories about 65 area families for that newspaper. By now my articles have been published in more than 80 national and regional journals.

Did I ever get around to writing adult books? Yes. My first adult book, Just Pencil Me In—Your Guide to Moving & Getting Settled was published in 2003. My first novel—humor—Something's Leaking Upstairs; was published in 2004. My most recent book, Long Distance Grandparenting, was released by Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press (Sanger, CA) in November 2007. The second novel is in the hands of an agent. All my books—fiction and nonfiction—are based on personal experiences. Back to the wisdom I stumbled upon at age 19: "write what you know."

© 2008 by Willma Willis Gore

At age 86, Willma Gore is still writing daily (having sold her first article at age 19) with her most recent book Long Distance Grandparenting, released by an advance/royalty publisher in Nov. 2007. She welcomes visits to her blog and website: http://willmagore.com/blog/ www.willmagore.com