Today, we’re going to list foreign market resources like foreign sites and e-zines. At the same time, we’re going to discuss how we found them and how you can find many, many more.
First, here’s our magic Google search field template for finding these resources. You’ll need to fill in the template (we will provide easy examples) when using this format to search for foreign market resources using the Google search engine.
Here goes.
TEMPLATE:
“keyword” keyword site:*.TLDCC
(No, don’t type anything into google just yet!)
The keywords are designed to take us to search results with the kinds of resources we’re looking for. For example, “writing commissions”, with quotes, might take us to European sites listing writing gigs/assignments, or as they say across the pond, commissions.
“Site:” is how you tell Google what site or domain you’re searching to find this information. We use an asterisk to query for any site. Then, we add a dot and a TLDCC.
A TLDCC is a Top Level Domain Country Code. Examples include .uk. When used, you will search all the sites listed in Google that end in .uk, which means all sites in or representing the United Kingdom. You can find every TLDCC listed from A to Z at https://www.iana.org/root-whois/index.html.
So, here are our various search combinations and attempts and the resources we find by using them.
1. In the Google search field, type: “writing commissions” site:*.uk
Our first hit in the UK is https://www.journalism.co.uk/features/story3048.shtml, which is a travel writing how-to article at https://www.journalism.co.uk.
from the same site gives us links to other writer resources like www.freelance-writers.co.uk/current-projects.htm, which emails members with editors and projects in need of writers.
2. Now let’s try “freelance writers” site:*.uk
This gives us:
– a site dedicated to putting freelance writers and editors together through its search engine and links.
3. Searching for “writer forum site:*.uk” (remove quotes) found:
www.writewords.org.uk/forum/– Write Words Forums, which is part of Write Words writer community, where we also find a link to jobs and opportunities – www.writewords.org.uk/jobs/
and
https://www.dooyoo.co.uk/internet-sites/93733-aceboard-net-the-review-writers-forum/1030771/ –
the Review Writers Forum, a community and meeting place for review writers.
4. A search for “writer market site:*.uk” (remove quotes) found, among other things,
https://www.ability.org.uk/writers_resources_markets.html – Writers
Resources Markets, with markets listed A to Z.
5. And, finally, we easily found many ezines using “writers ezines” site:*.uk, which leads us to this cornucopia at https://hopefulwriter.co.uk/Directory/index.php?catname=Writers+Ezines.
We’ve searched UK sites where we know we’ll find opportunities to write in English. The same can be said for Canada (.ca) and a number of other countries and locales. Wikipedia lists those for which some form of English is the main language. The larger the country, the better they are likely to pay.
So, let’s try Canada.
1. As you will see from this example, you may have to persevere and be creative in finding the right combinations of search terms to get some real meat out of this exercise.
In this case, after two attempts, we hit gold on the third one.
canadian writers groups markets site:*.ca, with no quotes, landed two sites on the first page.
https://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/artsbranch/writing/writing_resources/index.asp – The Alberta Government’s page for “Writing Resources and Market Listings”, which lists numerous texts on just that. Go from there to https://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/artsbranch/writing/index.asp and we find
https://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/artsbranch/writing/helpful_organizations/index.asp with several helpful organizations for writers like https://www.alexandrawriters.org/ the “Alexandra Writers’ Centre”.
The same search terms also give us https://www.pwac.ca/, the Periodical Writers Association of Canada, with among other things, its own Canadian Market Guide,
https://www.pwac.ca/.
2. Canadian freelance writers markets communities site:*.ca leads us to
, “Canadian links of interest to writers”, with several useful links including https://www.albertaromancewriters.com, the Alberta Romance Writers Association and https://www.amwa-canada.ca/, the “Canada chapter of the American Medical Writers Association”.
For all these searches and more, going through the several additional pages of search results should turn up many more goodies. And, don’t forget to check other countries of interest to you. Once you become a member or constituent of one site or community, you should be able to network your way to other sites in that country with ease.
David Geer is a freelance writer who tells technology markets he’s a technology writer and scores great assignments and big bucks from continually happy editors while secretly satisfying the need to write about almost anything else, as well. Reach him at https://www.GeerCom.com.