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Vol
14 Number 15 - April 20, 2010
In this Issue:
Want to contribute to this newsletter? We are a paying market. Read our guidelines for contributors here: http://www.writingfordollars.com/wfdguidelines.cfm Welcome One of the best things you can do to become a successful writer or to make more money as a writer is to attend good writing conferences. I’d like to invite each of you to join me at one of the largest and best writing conferences in the country this month on April 29 thru May 1 in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc (OWFI) is holding its 42nd annual writers’ conference, “Write Every Day,” at the beautiful Embassy Suites Hotel on Meridian Street. There will be thirty speakers and presenters putting on more than forty workshops, panels and speeches. Plus, there will be buzz sessions on Friday night, bonus workshops on Thursday night and Friday and Saturday at lunchtime, appointments available with agents and editors, and plenty of opportunity to smooze with all thirty of the guest speakers. You can take them to lunch, sit in a buzz session in their hotel room, or sit and have a conversation with one at breakfast. There will be a famous authors’ banquet on Friday night and an awards banquet on Saturday night… all included in your conference fee of $175 for the 2-day conference. Who will be there? NY Times bestselling author Dana Stabenow (www.stabenow.com) will be the Keynote speaker at the Friday night banquet and will be smoozing around at the conference for the entire weekend. There will be an autograph party and booksigning on Saturday afternoon so you can get those autographed books. In addition to Dana, there will such notable speakers as Jane Friedman of Writer’s Digest, writer Kelly James-Enger (www.becomebodywise.com), writer Jessica Burkhart (www.jessicaburkhart.com), writer Deborah LeBlanc (www.deborahleblanc.com), writer Christina Katz (www.christinakatz.com), writer Page Lambert (www.pagelambert.com), writer Jory Sherman (www.jorysherman.com) (Jory Sherman has written over 400 published novels!), writer Nancy Robinson Masters (www.nancyrobinsonmasters.com), writer Margaret Daley (www.margaretdaley.com), writer K.D. Wentworth (www.kdwentworth.com), four agents, eight editors, and many more. And best of all, the conference will be hosted by ME! Yes, I am the president of OWFI this year and I was able to invite many of my favorite authors, agents and editors, and to put together my dream writing conference. Plan on attending, please! You can find details and forms for signing up on the OWFI website (www.OWFI.org). But hurry, space is limited to the first 400 who sign up and we are already half full. See you there! You can follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChickenWriter and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1041077107 How to Promote Your Book Get new ideas to promote your book at promotebooks.blogspot.com. Please visit and leave a comment or two. Check out the article database. Our inventory of over 500 past articles from WFD is available to search and read. Find just the right information you need to make a few more bucks this 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 - $1 SHIPPING on selected books! ($2.95 value)
Dan
Case, editor Not a Poet by Kathleen Ewing I am not a poet. I know that now. But, at the age of 20 and full of lofty ideals, I managed to string together some words that sounded remarkably astute when read aloud. It was a humorous piece about my mother. Next I stumbled around at the library searching for a place to sell my magnificent poem. I assumed, of course, that anyone would like my poem immediately, recognize my genius and pay me handsomely for the honor of publishing it. I settled upon the first market I saw when I opened a magazine directory, an obscure religious magazine. And I sent my poem pretty much the way it came off the typewriter, with the typos whited out and typed over. I kept the carbon copy. After six weeks with no word, I decided I must stink as a poet, so I’d better start working along another line. I chose fiction because it was easier than driving fifteen miles one way to the library to do the research for magazine articles. I was another six weeks into an ultimately forgettable novel when a check arrived in the mail for my poem. Ten dollars! Someone had actually paid me ten dollars to write a poem. Perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to me at that stage, the sale misled me to believe poetry would be profitable for me. Now I faced a dilemma. Finish my novel or return to poetry. During my struggle with the decision, I found a tattered copy of Writer’s Digest magazine at the library. A quote popped out at me in bold type: “Unless you are Robert Frost, you are not likely to make anything resembling a comfortable living writing poetry.” That cinched it. I put my writing career on hold to spend the summer training and competing with Quarter horses in barrel racing competition. In the fall that year, bruised, suntanned and eager to begin my writing career, I decided to check in to see when my poem would publish. A week later, I received my letter in returned mail. The magazine had folded. No forwarding address. My first sale as a writer would never see daylight. Worse yet, someone out there owned the rights to my poem. I couldn’t offer it to another publisher without tracking down the original purchaser, which I never did. What I did do was visit the newsstand to buy the two magazines for writers I found there. Writer’s Digest and The Writer. I subscribed. I read everything in each issue, including all the advertising. I bought a couple books advertised there—one on formatting manuscripts and another on how to actually write them. I learned the multitude of things I should have done in my fledgling attempt as a writer. Study the markets. Prepare the manuscript. Query. Send simultaneous submissions. Offer first rights. Negotiate a better price. Get a contract. Write what you know. The amount of information was both exhilarating and dizzying. By the end of that autumn, I had changed my career focus. I wrote—and sold first rights to—an article on how to teach Quarter horses to barrel race. For way more than ten dollars, I might add. My poem remains in limbo. My novel currently resides in a landfill in Northwestern Ohio. I write feature articles for magazines. Not a poet. Not a novelist. I know that now. © 2010 by Kathleen Ewing Kathleen Ewing is an award-winning freelance writer headquartered in Central Arizona's high country, her headquarters for hiking, trail riding, four-wheeling and target shooting. Among her credits are feature articles in Art Calendar Magazine, American Falconry, TrailBlazer and Hobby Farms Magazine. You can visit her site at www.nothingbinding.com/writer/kathleen-ewing.html 12 Paying Markets Updated or added in our database since April 13, 2010 High - Over $500
Medium - $125 - $500
Low - Less than $125
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