We were recently approached by a firm wanting us to post a “job ad” for them. The ad involved hiring writers to email pre-written articles. These “articles” were promotional and the emails would be unsolicited, meaning the writers were being hired to spam others.
This Week:
When our family relocated from Tennessee to Vermont, I was confident I could keep landing assignments from my southern editors. I wasn’t so sure, however, if I could successfully continue teaching creative writing to homeschoolers-something I had been enjoying for five years. By asking myself the 5 W’s and the H, I found answers that not only satisfied my itch to teach, but also met a legitimate need in my new community.
A few years ago, while on a committee at my parish, I gave a talk that detailed my spiritual journey. A friend found the talk intriguing and repeatedly pestered me to get it published. “Uh-huh,” I thought, “as if it’s that easy…” But when I spoke with my spiritual director he also encouraged me to seek publication. Eventually, I sent my story off, assuming nothing would come of it. Although I’d always thought of myself as a writer, I’d long before given up thoughts of writing professionally.
Ali’s basketball team made it all the way to the finals on Saturday…but they didn’t win. It was a real nail biter and Ali was very happy to win 2nd place in the league. Zach’s team made it to the semi-finals. Needless to say…we spent the entire weekend at the YMCA!
After I ran last week’s article, Don’t Argue With Editors After Rejection, I received an irate email from a woman whose article was recently rejected. (Contrary to our guidelines, she’d submitted an unsolicited piece without querying first.) She called my writing “a sham of an article.”
This Week:
Award-winning novelist Jeffrey Marks is the newest instructor at WritersWeekly University. His class, Intent To Sell – Marketing Genre Fiction Works In Today’s Marketplace, helps first-time novelists create the materials they need to start marketing their works. In today’s article, Jeffrey details his introduction to marketing genre fiction.
I have a question for Ask the Expert. For the past six months or so I have done a few book reviews for a particular website. I understood when I signed on that there was no monetary compensation. I now realize that this is more time consuming and harder than I expected.
I assume the company running the website must get some compensation for their work. How do these types of businesses work? Do you think I am being taken advantage of doing reviews for free?
Leafing through Jane Magazine at my local Barnes & Noble one afternoon, I came across a column entitled, It Happened to Me. It’s a column in which readers are given the opportunity to submit a true story, approximately a thousand words in length, and, if printed, are paid $1000. (However, according to the magazine’s website, https://www.janemag.com, writers are encouraged to “do it for the love.”)
