Posts Tagged ‘Publishing’
How to Claim You Are a Rock Star When You Are Not a Rock Star
There are all kinds of people today on social media who call themselves “rock stars” who are most decidedly NOT rock stars. This can be confusing.
How does one arrive at such a position without having accomplished any of the required “rocking” or “stardom” that is typically associated with rock stars?
Don’t worry, I’m a professional writer, and I’m here to help. While I am not a rock star in either the literal or self-proclaimed sense, I have observed enough self-proclaimed rock stars to cobble together a handy little guide that will show you the can’t-fail path to self-proclaimed rock stardom:
Step 1: Choose A Non-Rock Career
Choose a career path that is most certainly not related to rock music—the more boring and technical, the better. For example, marketing, website design, or social media consulting are particularly fertile careers for non-rock stars to claim rock star status.
Step 2: Adopt a Peppy Tone
Rock stars are passionate, off the chain characters who defy bland copywriting. Jazz up your website’s about me pages and social media profiles with peppy descriptions of how awesome you are. You’re really living on the edge if you can also claim you’re a ninja while weighing over your recommended body mass index.
Step 3: Crown Yourself a Rock Star
Peppy copy alone does not make you a rock star. Rock stars are self-confident and cocky enough to call themselves “rock stars,” critics be damned. Claiming rock star status for yourself, even if you’re hardly a social media maven or a blogging guru, is about going out there and taking what’s yours.
You know you’re a rock star already, so go out there and type it into your profile now, you… you… rock star.
What Should Writers Charge for Freelance Writing?
Setting freelance writing rates is one of the most difficult parts of launching a writing business. Writers can find plenty of work if they’re willing to work for $5 per article or $8 per hour, but for those of us who are professionals doing this full time, we need to earn a living wage.
It’s tricky to figure out an ideal freelance writing rate since every client and project is quite different. One potential client had a 200 page double-spaced document that she wanted me to edit for $50—total. I didn’t take that project on.
Here are a few guidelines I follow in setting my price:
What is the nature of the freelance writing work?
Am I researching, development editing, blogging, proofreading, writing from scratch, or developing an entire plan for communication and marketing? Certain kinds of projects are more demanding, and therefore the price goes up. My lower prices are reserved for research and proofreading with development editing and communications work hit the higher range.
Who is the client?
Depending on the situation, I sometimes give clients price breaks. In the case of self-publishing authors, I’ll try to aim lower since all of the expenses are coming out of their pockets, and they can’t possibly understand how difficult and costly it will be to market their books! In the case of business clients, I may consider discounts for regular clients who consistently provide me with work.
What are the industry price guidelines for freelance writing?
Industry standards vary according to regions and segment of the writing business. The Writer’s Market guide has an extensive pricing list that puts my kind of work in the $15-$60 per hour price range depending on what it is. I try to aim somewhere in the middle to low middle of that price range, with $15 being my lowest rate for very specific projects and situations.
The number of clients who have balked at my prices are roughly equal number to those who have signed me on. I hope that enables me to focus on serving clients who truly value my services, rather than having to work at minimum wage for clients who don’t appreciate what a writer can do.
10 Lessons from a Year of Magazine Writing
A year ago I started sending magazine queries to editors on a regular basis. Just the other day I looked over some old queries from last August and September. Man, they were awful.
I should have just followed up my query with a plea to not even read them.
You could say I’ve learned something over the past year, especially since my number of accepted and published articles has significantly increased over the past three months. Here are some lessons that may help you as you query magazine editors:
- Brevity. Lead your query with two sentences—three maximum. Check a Writer’s Market for sample letters.
- Ask about theme lists before querying. If the guidelines are not listed online, e-mail about them too. Make your first contact with an editor a positive one.
- Scan the magazine and read a bit of it to get an idea of the tone and the departments. Most editors say, “Read several editions of our magazine.” Most published freelancers say, “Yeah, whatever.”
- Query often. Get so many queries out there that you practically lose track of them.
- “No” is not the same as a ban from sending future queries. Try something else.
- Feedback in a rejection letter is a good sign. Send another query within two weeks.
- Focus on practical, how-to articles in the beginning. Ask yourself, “What do readers of this magazine need to know about?” “What are the problems they’re trying to solve?”
- Don’t pitch 3,000 word feature articles right off the bat. Query short, 200-500 word pieces.
- Proof read query letters 3 times, with an hour break in between your second and third reading.
- Work from small to large. Aim for smaller magazines with less circulation and lower pay before shooting for the big guys. You have a lot to learn if you’re starting off. When you do shoot for the big guys, write on spec. It will eventually pay off, but you need to work your way up.
As with any tips in writing, these are not hard and fast rules. The rules of writing are made to be broken. However, these ten lessons are often on my mind as I send out queries to magazines. Good luck!
How to Know if Your Book Idea Works
I have had publishing hopefuls ask me whether their book ideas were good, and I have to admit it’s a tough question to answer. There are many factors to consider when setting out to publish a book.
It’s most important in my experience to summarize the book succinctly, to have a solid title in mind, and to know exactly what you need to say in order to evaluate its merit. The details of each chapter may be fuzzy, but at least the main idea, controlling metaphors, and outline should be pretty clear before evaluating whether or not a book could work.
Some sample chapters will help you sort through how substantive your ideas are and if you can carry on for an entire book. Many good book ideas work better as magazine articles.
There are several factors you’ll need to consider when evaluating whether your book idea works. I’ll give you a hint right now, it won’t be enough for the idea to be good. I’ve seen my own good ideas and the good ideas of others fail the editor test.
They need to be better than good, and that’s what I’ll discuss in my next post.
When Can You Call Yourself a “Writer”?
In speaking with many publishing hopefuls, bloggers, and other folks who dabble in writing, I often hear them question whether they can truly call themselves “a writer.”
They all write words on a page or on a computer.
Some have quite a few readers on their web sites.
And yet, they hesitate in calling themselves “writers.”
Why?
Because they haven’t published in magazines or they haven’t published books. They just think of themselves as word tinkers.
I used to think the same of myself before I published a book. At the time my only writing credit was an online magazine and a defunct humor magazine. Then someone said in an E-mail, “You’re a writer. Now you just need someone to pay you for it and some fame.”
It was a jarring comment. I’d built my identity as a writer around external sources of validation, namely money and popularity.
Here’s the thing, having published in several magazines, several books, and online over the past five years, I can just about guarantee you’ll never think you have enough money or popularity to call yourself a writer because there will always be someone with more money and more readers.
While there are good writers and writers who have a long way to go before they’re good, perhaps the matter of calling yourself a “writer” rests more with the individual. Do you personally believe you can call yourself a writer based on the work you do?
Forget money.
Forget fame.
Do you write seriously? Do you care about the words you put on the page? Is your writing an important part of who you are?
If you can answer yes to questions such as these, then you probably are a writer. Very few writers go on to make a lot of money or to become household names, so just focus on loving what you do, put your best into it, and savor every time a reader shares positive feedback about your work no matter how you publish it.
Writing is about crafting words for readers. Set goals for yourself, but never confuse legitimate writing with the side benefits of money and popularity.
What You Need to Know About Self-Publishing: Solving the Distribution Problem
One of the greatest obstacles that self-published authors will face is finding people to actually buy their books.
Think about it. No one will visit a book store and stumble upon your book. No one will find it on a publisher’s web site. No one will read about it in a catalogue. No one will want to stock in a book store because it’s self-published.
Oh, of course you can sell it online, but how will readers find it?
That is the trick. Can you assemble a realistic marketing plan that will sufficiently take into account all of the setbacks that self-publishing brings, while still connecting with readers on a scale that will ensure you sell enough copies to at least break even?
Ah, distribution is a huge problem for self-published authors. Heck, when self-publishing A Path to Publishing, I still didn’t quite grasp the amount of work ahead of me or the sheer quantity of potentials readers I needed to connect with in my niche.
Where should you start if you’re self-publishing?
For starters, check out my free online marketing guide. That gives both traditional and new ways to market your work.
However, the most important principle in selling books is to make a real connection with a potential reader and to communicate clearly why he or she may want to buy your book. Someone else may be able to do that for you by way of an endorsement or a review, but kicking it all off depends on you and you alone.
I began this series saying that “self” is the key word when it comes to “self-publishing”. If you have any hopes of selling your book, make sure you have more than Plan A and B for distributing your book. You’ll probably need to have plans that range from A to Z.
Your job is to find the communities, blogs, forums, Twitter users, Facebook users, groups, societies, and any other group of potential readers in your content niche. That is the publishing sales game in a nutshell, and it’s a tough one on your own!
Win a Free E-book Version of A Path to Publishing
Marketing expert and blogger Paul Steinbrueck is giving away three copies of A Path to Publishing. Check out his review and his special offer to readers. He has opened up the comments to reader questions about publishing and will include them when he interviews me this week.
If you drop by his blog, be sure to stick around and to have a look at some of the great posts he has been sharing on marketing, writing, and blogging.
What You Need to Know About Self-Publishing: Seek Opinions
In conjunction with the release of my self-published book A Path to Publishing: What I Learned by Publishing a 
Nonfiction Book, I’m offering this series of posts on what you need to know about self-publishing.
When working on a self-published book you may have put together a passable first draft, and even managed to spruce up a pretty decent second draft. However, chances are your argument or story will have some significant holes in it, to say nothing of some sections that readers will find confusing.
While working on my third draft of A Path to Publishing I couldn’t think of any significant changes to make, so I sent it off to several friends and colleagues to read it. Sure enough, one reader found the same glaring flaw in two of the book’s chapters.
She very gently suggested that those two sections needed significant revision. She was absolutely right. I had a few doubts at first about those sections, but I had decided they worked fine. Thankfully she pointed out some other reasons why needed to be not only rewritten but largely deleted.
And that brings us to the challenge of editing your own book. You always need perspectives other than your own to make sure your book flows and makes sense. No matter how talented you may be as a writer or an editor, you can’t catch all of your own mistakes.
Depending on your relationship with your friends and family, you may ask them for help. However, remember that a good editor will not worry about hurting your feelings. A good editor needs to feel comfortable pointing out all of your book’s flaws. Will your friends and family be able to do that?
My friends through social media and blogging have been a tremendous help in reading drafts of my books, while several key friends and family members have helped at times as well. However, I think it’s important to choose your readers carefully and to give them deadlines that can be flexible if need be.
In addition, keep in mind that these friends may publish their own books some day. Guess who they’re going to e-mail before anyone else for help…
What You Need to Know About Self-Publishing: Get Known First
In conjunction with the release of my self-published book A Path to Publishing: What I Learned by Publishing a Nonfiction Book, I’m offering this series of posts on what you need to know about self-publishing.
When you’re self-publishing all of the work falls on you, the author. No matter how much published authors complain about the lack of marketing support provided by their publishers, which can be spotty at times, the worst publicist will do more than upload a file to a web site, which is all you’re doing when self-publishing.
The Basic Ways Publishers Market
Publishers have established lists of contacts who receive their catalogues, e-mail newsletters, and browse their web sites. They represent authors at book stores and can send releases out to major press services—something that can be quite costly to do on your own.
The staff at publishers generally have social media accounts and blogs, and they may even generate some buzz for your book through these tools. At the very least these publishing professionals will tell potential readers about your book. You’ll at least have a few warm bodies with a measure of interest in selling your book.
Any way you slice it, the least that a publisher provides still puts their authors way ahead of the self-published ones.
What Self-Published Authors Need to Do
While it’s important to seek out some reputable endorsers and reviewers who have a large group of readers, I don’t think self-published authors realize the number of readers they need to pull off a self-published book that sells more than 25-50 copies. Simply put, self-published authors need a massive number of connections with potential readers.
The “potential reader” part of this is crucial. Authors may have lots of “connections” through social media, their blogs, or more traditional means, but many of these connections may not view their books as something they’ll want to purchase.
I’ve done quite a bit of networking, but I have been reading Crush It! by social media expert and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, and he’s been blowing my mind. I usually drop by some blogs to leave comments and contribute to writing forums, but he advocates a scale of networking that few would ever consider.
I sure didn’t!
I could try to describe it to you, but to be honest, I’d be doing you a disservice because I can’t do his methods justice. Crush It! is available at a pretty low price as a Video Book, which I highly recommend, though it’s also available in print. You may not do everything Vaynerchuk suggests, but I think he’ll give self-published authors the reality check they need about how involved the marketing process will be for their books.
An author who is new to the publishing process will underestimate the amount of work necessary for marketing. Count on it. As a published author I still underestimate the amount of work I need to do. Before you invest heavily into a book, begin marketing yourself and making connections today. It’s a worthwhile investment you won’t regret.
Next Steps
- Check out the free online marketing guide at www.pathtopublishing.com.
- Pick up Get Known Before the Deal, a must-read for authors new to marketing their work.
- View a sample of Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk at vook.com.
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