Essays Assistance » creative writing

What Is Freelance Speech Writing?

Essays — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:10:54 +0000

Freelance speech writing is the champagne of freelance writing; it offers a high degree of creativity, a high-profile clientele, and the chance to have your work heard among elite people. Of course, there are downsides as well: your style is restricted to that of the speaker, and the pool of jobs is substantially smaller than many other forms of freelance writing. But on the whole, the advantages make it very attractive to pursue gigs as a freelance speech writer.

Speech writing is one of the oldest forms of communication. Much of what we consider good rhetorical practice today goes back to the Romans and Cicero. Until the previous century, long rhetorically-polished speeches were a central (and enjoyable) part of serious literature, from the hieratic diatribes of Shakespeare’s Lear to the long burlesque flights of Dickens’s heroes and grotesques. Today, speech writing is mostly confined to large formal parties, serious events, and political careers, but something of the dignity of the art’s long history still adheres to people’s ideas about roaring good speeches. Speech writing is the art of making people appear both persuasive and dignified, of turning ordinary people into sources of entertainment and wisdom. As expected, writing speeches effectively can be difficult to do well.

The key to effective speech writing–as well as the key to effective writing in general–is to know one’s audience. In speech writing, the audience is a literal one: an employee pool, a group of wedding guests, or a rural electorate. The speechwriter should, before setting even one word to paper, find out who the speech is intended for and take this into account when structuring the work.

Once you know your audience, know your speaker. As Bernard Shaw once said, it’s impossible to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear — or at least, people don’t want to believe it’s possible. If the CEO you’re writing for is known as a good ol’ boy, down-to-earth businessman, it won’t ring true if your speech contains a number of high literary allusions and elaborate rhetorical constructions. If you’re writing for a museum curator, opening with an off-color joke and referring to “the folks back home” is not necessarily the best way to go.

You not only have to know about your client’s perceived character, but about his or her actual speech rhythms. Interview your client if possible, or if not possible, try to get access to videos, tapes, or other recordings. This should give you some idea of voice, and some understanding of how best to express your ideas in the “client’s words.” If a speech doesn’t sound natural coming from the client’s mouth, the speech won’t work and you won’t develop a good reputation that leads to more assignments. So put in the time, get a good idea of the client’s voice, and use it exclusively in your work.

Framing your speech around the subject matter can be tricky, but fortunately all the prep work you’ve been doing will make it a much simpler proposition. If you know your audience, your client’s speech style, and your client’s public perception, you’ll have a decent compass for navigating your speech through possible dead areas, out of dark, depressing moments, far to the lee of excessive frivolity, and generally on an even course from the first attention-getting moment to the conclusive point. It’s difficult to know exactly how a speech will play before it’s actually delivered, but you can get a rough idea by reading your drafts to a friendly audience (spouse, friends, children), or by tape-recording yourself delivering the speech into a mirror. A good speech doesn’t have dead moments, doesn’t bore, and reaches a series of short, conclusive points to keep the audience’s attention from wandering over time. If you do plenty of revision work and get a real idea of how your speech sounds when read aloud, you can fine-tune appropriately in order to ensure a successful speech, and a satisfied customer.

Of course, getting customers in the first place can be tricky: the speechwriting market is usually fairly small and fairly exclusive, since only the very wealthy can usually afford to have professional speechwriters work for them. The Catch-22 here is that the very wealthy typically only want established, proven speechwriters, a difficult preference for novice speechwriters to deal with. You can establish yourself and build a reputation, however, by advertising heavily in local papers, club newsletters, and anywhere likely to need a speech writer at some point in time: wedding planners, local organizations, startup corporations in your area. This may not be the best-paying work, but it’s essential to building a proven reputation as a good speechwriter. Once you have some gigs under your belt, start upping your level of advertising to include corporate newsletters and trade journals, and make sure to network at every event where you’ve written a speech. Word gets around, and eventually, if you promote yourself well, it’ll get to the right people.

In any case, it’ll be some time before your speech writing is well-known enough to command high prices, and to allow you to make it the exclusive focus of your freelance writing career. Keep up some other freelance jobs, write speeches whenever you get the opportunity, and keep up the self-promotion among the right circles. If you’re talented and you’re fortunate, you can make the switch to the champagne of freelance writing, and achieve that most satisfying of jobs: you can become a successful freelance speech writer.

What Is Freelance Poker Writing?

Essays — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:00:55 +0000

There are many popular casino-style games, but nothing matches the growth and popularity of poker and how poker influences society. Poker writing covers limitless topics in the gaming world; and poker writing can be a blend of journalism, feature writing, sports writing, entertainment writing, travel writing, food writing, technical writing, and so on, depending on what you choose to write.

WHAT DOES FREELANCE POKER WRITING INCLUDE?

You might think “freelance poker writing” is exactly that: writing about poker games. You might also think poker writing is about writing for one specific market: poker magazines. This might have been true years ago, but not so today. The expanding market of online and offline poker and gaming magazines is one small fragment, out of dozens of paying markets, to find freelance work. The Internet has spawned many online writing opportunities, such as blogging, writing for poker and gaming websites, self-publishing, and writing SEO articles for companies and affiliates. And “poker writing” is more than writing about the games of poker. Poker writing encompasses the influences of poker, such as entertainment, technology, psychology, law, lifestyle, money, travel, and so on. Writing about poker and gaming, along with their influences on society, is limitless.

Many successful freelance writers tap into an arsenal of online and offline media outlets to sell their work, not just to poker and gaming magazines. Their recipe for success is simple: they write varied topics related to poker and gaming that don’t just fit into a specific poker magazine, but also fit (with some reslanting) into many other non-poker magazines and media outlets (i.e. trade magazines, regional magazines, newsletters, tourism guides, newspapers, websites, blogs, ebooks, etc.) that cover varied subjects (such as gambling, gaming, professional sports, sports betting, travel, lifestyle, women’s issues, money, finance, real estate, hobbies, and so on).

WHY POKER IS ON THE MINDS OF SO MANY PEOPLE

To write about poker, you need to know why it is on the minds of so many people. Why all the excitement? What do players see in a little game of cards? Many people fall in love with playing poker because it challenges the mind; poker games are thrilling and competitive; and let’s face it, we love the winnings. The winnings in poker games, even online, can trail with many zeros. What other game can you play with a $40 entry fee and win a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or as with WSOP winners, several million? It’s what lures the crowds to the game. Once players begin to play, everyone is a legend in their own mind. The enticement and excitement of winning drives players to want to play more. Typically, players just play more and more once they discover Texas Hold’em.

Even if you aren’t playing poker for the money, you will quickly become aware of the jackpots of money that poker players play for online and offline. Many people play poker because of the great challenges of the mind. Amarillo Slim (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarillo_Slim), another legendary poker player once said, “Poker is a game of people….It’s not the hand I hold, it’s the people that I play with.” Most of the older players do play with dollar signs glinting in their eyes. On the other hand, if you read some of the articles written about Slim in the past, you’ll discover he enjoyed beating his opponents as much as anyone else.

Guru.com, CraigsList.com and Elance.com showcase job postings for many different freelance opportunities. If you have the skills to write on gambling, specifically poker, then you’ll never be short on writing gigs.

In fact, a search on a handful of job boards produced many writing opportunities, from blog posting, to writing articles on poker games and strategies.

POKER WRITING OPPORTUNITIES

If you want to write about poker and gaming, the opportunities are there. If you are educated about poker and you can write well, the opportunities will be endless. However, you have to be better than average to earn a decent income as freelance poker writer. You must know your “stuff” in this field.

Writing about poker and its players requires you to learn about the games of poker and about the players whom people want to read. For instance, Doyle Brunson and Amarillo “Slim” Preston are two old timers who many consider two of the last living legends of the game. However, Brunson pulls a crowd more so than Preston. People look for articles, books and information on Doyle Brunson because he is still an active player in Las Vegas. Furthermore, Brunson lives where poker rooms are on every corner, whereas Amarillo Slim lives in, well, you guessed it&ndashTexas!

A freelance poker writer has many opportunities. For starters, a poker writer can write from home because of the online games and tournaments. The online poker rooms (the ones offering the large satellite tournaments) are newsworthy as are many of the sit and go tournaments that offer large purses. Writers find ample topics and stories to pull from in this capacity alone. People want to read what’s going on in the online poker rooms. As a new writer, you need to write as much as you can on the subject of poker no matter where people play it.

In addition to the newsworthy opportunities online, web content is a huge marketplace for freelance writers. Writers who can write content-rich articles related to poker and gambling are in high demand.

To succeed as a poker writer, you will need to find your niche. However, you don’t necessarily have to stay within your niche market. Many writers will write on poker and cover online and offline games. They’ll cover the World Poker Tour for an offline gambling magazine one day and write an informative “How to Spot a Poker Cheat” article the next day for an online website. Poker writers like the ability to remain diverse but it pays to have a niche.

For example, there are several writers on Elance.com who write web content for gaming websites but still pick up a couple of writing gigs offline in magazines and for newspaper articles. Respectively, several notorious authors and professional poker players write primarily as book authors and authorities on their game but occasionally they will snatch a writing column for an online poker website.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking the gigs you have online will allow the offline writing jobs to fall in your lap. You have to keep your options open. You will need to apply for most of the work you get, even after you become well-known within the industry. However, if you’re good, you’ll very seldom face competition for the writing jobs you want.

When you become established in your niche, clients, editors and colleagues will willingly generate referrals for you. In fact, if you are well-informed and can stand out as a leading authority on poker, you can create your own jobs if jobs don’t randomly come your way. You’ll be able to query an editor with ideas and convince the editor to publish your articles. You may be able to query a book publisher with a manuscript idea and have it accepted for publication.

In addition, the offline writing jobs on assignment are often lucrative. Most of the writing jobs on assignment will allow you to live like a high roller, or at the very least, a low roller with some great perks. Poker writers normally stay where the action takes place, which is commonly in a casino. If you’re covering a World Poker Tour event, you’ll likely stay in upgraded casino accommodations; after all, the casino knows you are writing on the event and they’ll likely want you to plug their plush rooms and their many amenities.

On assignment writing jobs will enable you to eat in marvelous dining restaurants, stay among the upper echelon of poker players in suites or upgraded rooms and enjoy hosted parties among poker players. Writing on assignment as a poker writer enables writers to stay in some of the most elegant resorts in the world while enjoying the lifestyle of the pampered poker player. And trust it when you see it in magazines and hear about it online, these professional players are pampered.

Before you obtain your first job assignment as a poker writer, you need to learn all you can about poker. Read everything there is to read. Listen to everything and anything you can on the subject. Flip on the TV set and watch some live game coverage and learn the terminology. Poker tournaments and poker coverage are constantly on TV, especially in the evenings and on weekends.

PERKS OF A FREELANCE POKER WRITER

Poker writers who travel to some of the casino destinations hosting world events such as the WSOP (.worldseriesofpoker.com) or the WPT (World Poker Tour &ndash .worldpokertour.com ) find they can enjoy a lifestyle many freelance writers dream about. Not every freelance writer can endure the schedule of these writers. However, if you are a writer who can face the unpredictable scheduling of events in the World Series of Poker, have a great personality and excellent people skills, then your chances to live a jet-set lifestyle in the world of poker is better than what many writers might think.

Life is better as a poker writer than it is in most areas of writing. You will be rubbing shoulders with people in Sin City and many other casino destinations where money is no object. Remember, money is no object to a great number of poker players. Stakes are always high. With that in mind, remember who you are and where you are. Remember to capture the story, and not the party.

You will get a free ride pass as a poker writer if you can achieve a name for yourself in the poker world. You will have the things only high rollers can get just because the right people want YOU to remember their name. Naturally, this will only happen after you become recognized as a poker authority. If you strive to achieve it, you will know what the inside of the suites at the MGM and Paris Las Vegas look like because you’ll be staying in them. You won’t walk or hail a cab in Vegas. You’ll be riding in a limo, free of charge. Best of all, when you are on a job, you will drink and eat what you want and never see a bill. Welcome to success. Revel in it and know you’ve worked hard for it.

The Gift Of Writer’s Block

Essays — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:34:44 +0000

Anyone who writes knows this scenario at one time or another: You have something to say, great ideas to express. So, you go to the page only to find your mind has gone as blank as the sheet or screen before you. Paralyzed, you write not a word. Somewhere in the synapses of your imagination, you know there lives a fully formed novel, or story, or play, or even one single poem, but you cannot magnify it enough to see the individual words. So you leave it for another day…until your vision is clearer, until inspiration strikes and reveals all 350 pages of text, all 36 lines of poetry. Until the writer’s block is gone.

Sometimes inspiration does strike from out of the blue, and words pour down like rain. Ideas synthesize, fingers fly and Voila! You’ve created a masterpiece…or at least a pretty good piece of work.

But such strikes of inspiration are not, for most of us, the norm. Writing takes commitment, and good writing takes practice.

Still, what about writer’s block?

Even when your diligent with your practice, even when you show up day after day, you’re not immune from block, from finding yourself without two words that make any sense. What then?

First, shift your perspective on what writer’s block is. It’s easy to panic, to believe it means you’ll never write again, that you have no real talent or that you have nothing worthwhile to say. But none of these is near the truth.

Writer’s block is not the lack of skill or worthiness as a writer…it is, instead, a signifier revealing one of two things:

• There is a truth you are not yet ready to tell

• There is something more that needs to be learned or experienced before the ideas can be fully crystallized

When you write you cannot help but come up against and touch upon your own inner sore spots and the edges of your comfort zones. To write deeply you must delve inside of and push against these, stretching, questioning and seeing more and more clearly. The truths you tell yourself are the markers that guide you through. When you come to a place you are not yet ready to go, to words you are not yet ready to say or to something that is not yet in focus…you get stuck. Willingness to face the wall, to approach it with patience, compassion, trust and honesty, is the way through it. There is no way around it. Your blocks are gifts that push you to grow, to break through the hard places to reach fertile ground.

Let me share an example to explain. When I was writing my novel, I found myself going in circles around a primary relationship in the story…one between the main character and her mentor/teacher. I would talk about the teacher, but I couldn’t dive into the center of her role in the novel, most specifically I couldn’t find ANY words to put in her mouth. As long as she didn’t speak, I was okay. But that was a problem. There came a point when I could no longer keep her mute. She had to speak. But every time I tried, I ended up sitting in front of the screen, hands poised and my insides twisting in frustration.

Finally, I decided to get up and move. I went for a walk, and as my limbs fell into rhythm my mind fell into the story. The dialogue played out in my head. Away from the computer, I could have a conversation with the characters; I could get inside them and hear what they wanted to say.

On that walk it occurred to me that I had been unable to claim the voice of the mentor before then because I had not been able to claim her within my own being. Whenever the story demanded she speak, I would feel the panic of putting on paper what was being shared as wisdom. Who was I to say such things? Who was I to be the voice of wisdom? But just realizing what was “blocking” me, what I needed to learn, freed me. And along the way I opened doorways to my own growth.

When feeling “blocked” take a walk. Let your body move and your mind ease and flow. Ask yourself what you might fear in the work you are doing…what truth you are not yet ready to claim or tell. And know that we cannot always control the readiness of things. Time teaches us and directs our understanding, and our understanding directs the depth and breadth of our writing. Be patient with yourself. And keep writing.

What Is Freelance Travel Writing?

Essays — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:41:38 +0000

Becoming a successful travel writer involves some imagination, some legwork, and a powerful eye for detail to transform the rich experience of a place into a clear, exciting article. If you can do all of that, and if you’re willing to put time into marketing your work, you can join the ranks of successful freelance travel writers.

The key to successful travel writing is putting yourself into the mind of the prospective traveler. When a traveler arrives at a new destination, what is he or she in the mood for? A bite to eat? A place to sleep? A sense of local color and history? A pleasant neighborhood to tour? And how important is familiarity? Do travelers want to feel like they’re “at home” even when abroad, with all the necessities and comforts they rely on readily available (and with very little language barrier)? Or do travelers want to feel excited and challenged out of everyday things, to accept the difficulties of living, as much as possible, like a native?

Since you don’t know what kinds of travelers are going to use your articles as references, you’ll want to cater to as many of these needs as possible when you gather your information. Depending on where you intend to sell your article, you might focus on certain traveler needs more than others. Many travel agents want to downplay the unfamiliarity of a place to present a more “tourist-friendly” image; while some adventure travel-oriented magazines prefer you ignore all references to American-based chain stores within a five-mile radius of the destination. The general rule in travel writing is to reverse the old clich

Not A Term Paper Mill!

Essays — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:16:21 +0000

I have seen jobs posted for help with term papers. What I mean by “help” is a little more than editing a student’s term paper. Specifically, there are college students who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to have someone else write a paper for them. This practice is nothing new, but it is much more prevalent than many folks realize.

Truthfully, I could probably make a good sum of money writing term papers for the rich kids out there. In college, I usually garnered an “A” or “A-” on my papers. Yes, I did quite well and that was due to my paying attention to what the professor wanted written and being thorough with my research. Once my research was completed, I worked very hard to produce a “jam up” paper. It was exhausting work, but personally rewarding!

So, my policy is this: write the paper yourself. Learn how to do it the right way and show some integrity and fortitude. You will be a better person for it, too, and prove to yourself that you can overcome a challenge.

How about you? Do you accept every project that comes along or do you have certain standards in place? How you answer these questions speaks volumes about you as a writer and as a person.

Enhance Your Creative Writing Abilities

Essays — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:52:28 +0000

Creative writing is considered to be one of the most perplexing forms of articulating thoughts and ideas on paper. It turns out to be a hard nut to crack because it requires the ability to think freely, giving thoughts a modicum of leeway, and express ideas and experienced feelings sincerely and openly.

That’s why putting wind in the sails with creative writing is not within every writer’s grasp. It means that a person, who succeeded in process writing approach that is all about planning, revising, re-arranging, and deleting text, re-reading, and producing multiple drafts before producing finished documents, will have the same good results in creative writing.

Surely, it doesn’t imply that creative writing process doesn’t need proper planning and preparation, it means that creative writing permits the author to deviate from the specific writing styles and not to be consistent with all the standards of this style. In a word, creative writing gives the author leeway in terms of presentation and development of a piece of writing.

Since creative writing is not simply a matter of sitting down, putting pen to paper, following smart instructions of emeritus pundits, commence at the beginning and write through to the end. Creative approach treats all writing as a creative act that requires time, positive feedback, and inspiration to be done well. People who engage in creative writing do not merely think freely; they view the world from free-thinking perspective.

Without a doubt, creative writing is not only about inspiration and gift of the writer, and it is far from coming easy to the writer, it also needs a lot of elbow grease in order to produce a piece of writing worth the attention of the readers.

The key to success in creative writing lies in the author’s ability to be frank with his readers and honest with himself. Don’t be afraid to step aside from the established standards of the particular writing style, and open the door of your brain to the new ideas that cross the threshold of your imagination and knock around your mind.

Remember that process and explorations are the keystones in creative writing, rather than the finished product. Let yourself release your inner genius and vent on paper the most bizarre ideas that amassed in your mind. The source of ideas for your creative writing can be various kinds of resources of creativity such as oral tradition, dreams, childhood memories, sense perceptions and intuition.

Katrina Crosbie, a tutor of creative writing in Edinburgh University’s Open Studies programme, asserts that getting in touch with subconscious mind is the key to original and creative writing. She also claims that every writer can harness three simple techniques to enhance his creative writing abilities, they are mental focusing techniques, harnessing the power of your dreams and journal writing. Harnessing these techniques takes hard work; so, if you are ready, roll up your sleeves and follow these simple strategies.

I. Mental focusing techniques

Mental focusing techniques involve focusing on the positive outcome. It implies that you should concentrate and regulate your mental activity in order to enter a quiet state of your mind. The key point in mental focusing is to get rid of all the stray thoughts and replace it with one thought; this process should gradually induce a calm sensation. The procedure is very simple, you make yourself comfortable in a cozy armchair, and in all possible ways try to awake creativity inside of you.

You should say something like “I’m getting in touch with my creativity source”, and imagine physically how the stream of creativity comes into your mind. Remember the sensation of clear, cool water on your face, or a stream of fresh breeze, which is blowing in your face. Then imagine yourself sitting at your word processor, typing fluently, and writing avidly. After several minutes open your eyes and commence writing.

II. Harness the power of your dreams

Dreams have tremendous power. The subconscious memory can be the direct cause of the certain dreams. “When the mind is centered on certain things, the sleeper goes over his life again and again in phantom fashion. He lives over the experiences of his daily life.”

Overall, your daydreams can be important, just write them down after waking up in the morning. Perhaps, later on, re-reading the notes of your dreams will prompt you some interesting ideas for your creative works.”These can be triggers for an especially imaginative piece of work. American writer Joyce Carol Oates has said that her novel Bellefleur was inspired by a dream of a walled garden which haunted her for years ’till she felt she had to write about it.”

III. Keep the writing journal

This technique of enhancing your creativity is very simple and at the same time highly productive. Buy yourself a notebook, so that you can always have it at hand and write some brief narratives in it on a daily basis.

Don’t focus on the style, mistakes, and, in general, in the way you write. Just write down the first things that occur in your mind, even if you think that this is junk. The main idea is to keep your hand moving and to feel a growing sense of inspiration and confidence. In the course of time, you will become a practiced hand in writing. Surely, you’ll find your journal notes a rich source of inspiration and ideas.

If you really want to enhance you creative writing abilities, give a try to these simple techniques, and bring your craft as a writer into play!

Should I Self-publish Or Pitch My Book To A Publisher?

Essays — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 23:41:29 +0000

You’ve spent many nights working on your book. You’ve rewritten it, edited it, and you used a professional proofreader to proof it. Your book is done &ndash finally — and you’re ready to send your precious manuscript off to a publisher, thinking that writing it was the hardest part.

In reality, getting your blood, sweat and tears published may be the hardest part of the whole process. You’ll need to decide if your book requires a publisher, or if you’d rather self-publish your book. Both venues have pros and cons, some of which I discuss below.

To work with a book publisher, you’ll need to send out query letters and/or a book proposal. This is a letter or a few pages briefly describing your text, why your book is unique, characteristics of your target market, and how you can help market your book. Most publishers don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, so you’ll need to convince them to read yours, or find a literary agent to represent you. If a book publisher requests that you forward your entire manuscript, you have one foot in the door. Be prepared to send more than one query and don’t expect a response next week. An excellent software program to help format your manuscript and create a book proposal is called Wizards For Word at .wizardsforword.com

Publishers look for three things: platform, hook, and execution. This means a writer should have a built-in audience (ideally, a national platform such as a radio or TV show or a column in a major publication), an interesting hook, and strong writing skills.

The problem if you’re an unagented author is that most publishers won’t take your call or read your proposal. Then even if they do, you’ll have a tough time creating a bidding war or running an auction to get the best offer, and you also won’t have leverage negotiating the important deal points, such as ancillary rights and royalties.

There are writer’s guides that serve as excellent resources to find publishers and literary agents who specialize in your particular genre. These guides list the percentage of new authors published as well as the percentage of sales they pay. You may find pay rates ranging from 5-10% of sales. Some pay on wholesale sales and others on the retail amount. Do the math. Perhaps your book will retail for $14.95 and the publisher will pay 6% on retail. This means you will earn 90 cents per book sold. Of course don’t forget that the publisher is doing all the printing, distributing, and marketing of your text.

Another route you may want to consider is self-publishing. Self-publishing requires you to print, distribute and market your book using your money, but you will also retain all profits. There are book printing companies as well as companies that specialize in assisting self-publishers through every step along the way.

Many authors debate which method is better, using a publishing company or self publishing your own book. You know your situation and you know what will work best for you. You’ll want to consider how much time or money you have to invest in the project. That should give you an idea which route to take. Using a publisher takes less time on your part, but you’ll forfeit some of the royalties by using this method. If you self publish, you’ll have to pay “up front costs” and do the initial legwork to begin generating sales for your book. Either way, publishing is your call. With persistence and hard work you can get your book in the marketplace.

Publishing Options For Freelance Book Authors

Essays — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:40:46 +0000

It is difficult to break into the publishing industry as a new author, and even more difficult to get an acceptance letter from an editor at a large publishing house. As an author you will work hard to finish your book, and work even harder to find the right book publisher. The good news is you can tap into several types of publishers to publish your book. Here is a look at some common types of book publishing.

GROUP PUBLISHING: Group publishing is the process by which a large company publishes your work in the name of a larger company. For example, large publishing companies often operate smaller publishing companies. The larger publishing company serves as an umbrella over the smaller group publishing companies. Sometimes these companies operate several smaller companies and book imprints that produce different genres of writing and books. Sometimes this is referred to trade publishing. For example, a large publishing group may produce best-selling adult novels, but may also operate under a smaller name to produce certain non-fiction books, cookbooks, children’s books, or niche titles. Group publishing is a popular way to publish a book.

EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING: Educational publishing shares some likeness to trade publishing. These companies deal specifically with educational material. They may deal with only college textbooks, or they might deal with textbooks and materials for grades K-12. Besides textbooks, these companies might also produce other forms of educational material, which include posters, workbooks, CD-ROMS, software, testing material and maps. There are several big name educational publishing companies.

UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING: Better known as the “University Press,” this type of publishing is different from group publishing and it is not the same as scholarly publishing. These types of companies are usually non-profit. Universities, colleges and sometimes museums or other organizations operate these publishing imprints. These publishers usually publish books by scholars and other specialists. Besides distributing their books to bookstores, they also make their book titles available within the university system. Sometimes larger trade publishers publish these types of books.

INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING: Independent publishers are often the best way to publish your book with established distribution channels. Independent publishers are generally small, privately-owned companies. Many times, these companies only publish a handful of books each year and they specialize in certain subjects. They have the freedom to publish just about anything they wish.

SOFTWARE and other MEDIA: You might consider software and other types of media as a publishing option. Think about the many e-books, CD-ROMs and digital downloads, many published by large and small publishing companies. These types of publishing companies are often associated with larger trade publishers. In fact, many large publishing companies have their own in-house media publisher to spawn the traditional paperback book into other types of media. Digital and alternate media is a huge, profitable business, and these publishers are just as important and lucrative as the large trade publishers.

As you can see, you can tap into various publishers who might consider publishing your book. If you are unlucky with a large trade publisher or group publisher, then don’t give up. Keep looking at the different types of publishing companies until you find one that wants to work with you and your book.

What Is Freelance Journalism?

Essays — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:49:03 +0000

Freelance journalism is one of the more hectic forms of freelance writing. If you want to become a successful freelance journalist, you’ll need to be comfortable with spending much time hunting down stories, traveling from place to place, and writing under short deadlines. If you enjoy all of that, and if you’re interested in some of the best opportunities for personal creativity, then freelance journalism may be for you.

When we talk about freelance journalism, we need to distinguish between two types: newspaper journalism and magazine journalism. As a rule, newspaper journalism involves a much narrower range of subject matter than magazine journalism, significantly shorter articles, and a greater focus on form. Typical newspaper articles follow a hierarchical format: the most pertinent information first, the least pertinent last. For example, an article about a local parade would start with “The X Parade will travel down Main Street at 10:00 Saturday in support of Y,” while it might end with “Onlookers are advised to bring umbrellas.”

Additionally, writing as a newspaper journalist means that you need the ability to find out about the news. Often, a journalist’s day looks like this: the editor assigns the journalist an article topic at 6 AM. By 8 AM, the journalist is making phone calls to various parties related to the topic. For a story on rising gas prices, this may include CEOs of oil companies, local gas station owners, car owners (interviewed on the street or at gas stations), car manufacturers, and local policymakers. Journalists usually interview anyone with a meaningful connection to the topic, and who can provide some good, succinct quotes and information.

Information-gathering goes on for most of the day, usually ending around evening. The journalist then works on the article, fact-checking where appropriate, before submitting it for publication sometime that night, with the deadline depending on the individual paper. Then the journalist is able to go to sleep–until 6 AM rolls around again, and the next article topic comes in.

More leeway is available with the larger “feature” articles. These appear in film sections, lifestyle sections, health sections or other less breaking-news-focused parts of the daily paper. Often newspapers publish these sections weekly, rather than daily, to save on printing costs.

For example, the film section may only appear on Fridays, the food section on Tuesdays, etc. The upshot of this is the freelance journalist has more time to research and to work on an excellent, well-rounded article. Using the same research methods (calling everyone connected to the topic, scheduling interviews, synthesizing succinct points from a large information pool), a feature writer constructs a more in-depth look at a given topic than a news writer can achieve in a short column of text.

Additionally, there’s occasionally more freedom in the choice of subject matter. Perhaps you know about an excellent local band in need of a profile? Maybe you volunteer in a community organization that does interesting work and deserves a write-up? How about writing an article on the health benefits of soybeans? A newspaper’s “features” section can be an excellent venue and a personal one, which can be rare in freelance writing. Additionally, feature articles don’t depend heavily on the hierarchical “news” format, making your job much easier (or harder, if you find it difficult to structure an article without set guidelines.)

Magazine journalism is similar to the “feature” style of newspaper journalism, albeit with much more generous word limits (and often more generous pay rates.) The downside is that a magazine may not have as many opportunities for publishing your work. The broader subject matter of a magazine may also result in topics that require more legwork and potential travel expenses (hopefully paid for by the magazine) than just a profile of a local policymaker. To be an effective magazine writer, you’ll need to look much harder for article ideas, but the payoff can be well worth it.

How do you scout out freelance journalism jobs? For newspapers, have some sample articles written, a good working knowledge of style guides (especially Associated Press style), and a willingness to work on whatever is available until the editor or publisher promotes you to working on more enjoyable assignments. For magazines, it’s best to research your articles and write them in advance; afterwards you can send query letters to the appropriate editors in hopes of becoming published. In either case, submission information is printed on the staff page of magazines and newspapers. You can also find submission information online at the publications’ web sites.

The career of a journalist isn’t for everyone. Whereas many freelance writing projects are about a predictable routine of research and writing, the variety and novelty of writing news and feature articles eschews all routine in favor of a constant flurry of ad hoc interviews, phone calls and general information-gathering. But to some people, this is far from a drawback. If you’re one of those people, start developing your portfolio now, get in touch with some editors (either by appointment or by query), and prepare yourself for a successful career in freelance journalism.

What Is Freelance Seo Writing?

Essays — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:58:13 +0000

SEO writing is one of the newer forms of freelance writing spawned by the Internet Age, and as such, SEO writing is an excellent way — if at times a frustrating way — for budding writers to cut their teeth in the freelance writing scene. SEO writing takes a fair amount of imagination and some engineering grit, but if you like puzzles, then freelancing as an SEO writer will interest you.

SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization,” has its roots in the early days of the Internet. Once early Internet marketers realized they could manipulate search engine rankings with meaningless content and keywords, a whirlwind of keyword-stuffed web pages swept across the Internet, all designed to push their content — and the products they sold — to the top of search engine lists. This sharply increased user traffic and potential profits. It wasn’t uncommon to see web pages with only a few short paragraphs of copy with large, seemingly-blank areas of space. However, if you highlighted these blank areas of space with a cursor, it would reveal massive strings of invisible keywords. SEO writers used to embed invisible keywords in text to rank the webpage higher in search engines for nearly any remotely-relevant search term.

Fortunately for good web design, search engine programmers became aware of this flaw, and they refined their search engines to ignore such obvious “keyword stuffing.” This major change has made search engines rank web pages more relevant of the actual content and not the stuffed keywords. Content providers responded to this by developing SEO writing, which ideally gets the same results as open keyword-stuffing, but provides a better-designed, better-written page as well. It’s a “best of both worlds” compromise: content providers willing to invest in SEO writing get to keep their high search engine rankings and readers get more smoothly integrated and keyword-dense text.

There are bad SEO writers and good SEO writers. Bad SEO writers aren’t aware of exactly how search engines work, and will try stuffing text with ten or twenty commonly-used search terms (”sex,” “money,” and the like) ten or twenty times apiece, without caring whether the actual text reads well. These days search engines are sophisticated enough to ignore these kinds of transparent keyword-stuffing efforts, a defense which only good SEO practice can get around.

A skilled SEO writer:

- Uses only one or two search terms per page;

- Uses unique, natural-language search terms;

- Integrates search terms smoothly with text;

The difference between a good and bad SEO writer are in the results. Good SEO writers can provide actual results in the search rankings. Their SEO writing talents keep the client’s web pages on the first page of search engine results and create additional revenue for the client. Bad SEO writers don’t keep client pages in the first page of search engine results; they create nearly unreadable, transparently phony text, and don’t get paid well at all. If you want to succeed as a freelance SEO writer, you first need to learn to be a good one.

Writing integrated text is often the most difficult part of good SEO writing. The rule is you should use each search term once or twice in a 250-word block of copy. This is fine if your search term is something like “bond portfolio,” but what do you do if your search term is more like “high-yield gold investment bond package bonds”? This is where the “puzzle” aspect of SEO writing comes in: no matter how cumbersome your search term, you need to find a way to make it sound natural.

Skilled SEO writers employ some tricks for awkward keyword phrases, such as the following:

- Enclosing the search term in quotes (making it seem like a precise technical term, rather than just clunky phrase); and

- Defining the term at the opening of the article and using it further on, or drawing comparisons between two SEO terms (requiring you to refer to both frequently).

There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules to integrate keywords effectively; every keyword set is different and every article has different needs. But with imagination, you can get your prose to read naturally while still being SEO-worthy. Just remember the other principal rule: don’t overstuff keywords in text, but rather space your keywords adequately throughout the text.

Who offers SEO writing jobs? Virtually any company with enough money and enough willingness to maintain a high web presence. Be careful of the keyword lists you take on. Generally speaking, if the client has a long keyword list and he needs many keywords in his text, then most search engines will rank his webpage low and you may not be able to achieve the results he wants. To establish yourself as a freelance SEO writer (and to get some much needed practice in SEO writing), you’ll probably need to take some of these jobs at some point. Take a look on freelance writing message boards, in classified ads, and make inquiries at local businesses who either have a web presence, or who you think are ready to develop one. Chances are excellent that companies with new websites can use a skilled SEO writer.

Keep at it, learn the tricks, and remember that SEO writing is a very in-demand skill. Once you build a reputation for yourself, you can command both higher prices and higher-profile (yet easier) assignments regularly.

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