Mason’s birthday was great fun…even though he had no idea what was going on! He just kept looking at all the people in the house with big eyes. He was friendly and let a couple of people hold him. Max (age 5) opened Mason’s gifts for him. That didn’t bother Max one bit! I guess we at least have photos of the party for Mason to see some day…when he knows what birthdays are. 😉
At BookLocker, we sure are tired of our competitors giving Print-on-Demand (POD) publishing a bad name! From poor quality books, to horrible customer service, to unnecessary costs in the thousands, to refusing to answer new authors’ questions about prices, enough is enough!
This Week:
A member of the online writers’ group I participate in recently posted that she’d been advised by a friend never to include a Prologue as part of the chapters she sent to prospective literary agents. I worked as an acquiring editor at a major publisher for years and know and still work with many agents, but I have never heard this rule. I cautioned her that people giving this advice may be unduly influenced by the new author’s tendency to rely on a Prologue – learning where to begin your novel can be difficult, and it’s common for new, inexperienced writers to feel nervous that readers won’t “get” their set-up, so they create Prologues that explain far more than necessary. They end up over-telling the story before it’s even begun!
This may not be the correct venue, but I wanted to reach you. I followed a “market” ad from your listings,and submitted an article to a magazine. The ad stated “payment upon publication”, and the item was published. I have yet to be paid, and wonder what to do next. I wrote two “gentle” e-mails to the editor asking about payment, and suddenly no one’s home.
If you want to write about parenting, it makes the most sense to pitch parenting magazines, right? The same logic suggests food writers target food magazines and travel writers try travel magazines. Not so, in my experience.
This Week:
In just two days, Mason will be turning one year old. We can’t believe a whole year has gone by! The days when he was in intensive care seem so very long ago, thank heavens. I wanted to give you an update on how he’s doing.
Angela, Mason and Max all have a cold. Her column will return next week.
So your click will not have been in vain, here’s an interesting tidbit sent in by author Burt Close:
Angela I was reading your column on freelance writing rates. When I saw Writer’s Digest, it reminded me of a subscription offer I received from them not too long ago. I had quit subscribing about 2 years ago when their subscriptions had raised from around $21 to $23 per year. This subscription offer was for $19. While lower than the previous rates a couple of years ago, I then noticed the word “bi-monthly.” Didn’t they used to be monthly? This got me curious. So besides checking the current guidelines, I looked at their 2002 guidelines. I was correct. In 2002 they were monthly. Now they are bi-monthly. While I’m certain part of their reason–probabIy a majority–was increasing their income, it seems to me that by being bi-monthly and only dropping the subscription cost by around $3, they wound up still not giving a little of that “income raise” to their freelance writers.
