The hot topics people are talking up over on the bulletin boards:
This is a good one: What laptops do folks like the most?
How much professional info to share with an editor? All or just some?
Big job at a small mag or small gig at a big one?
Who will pay me to cover a local film festival?
Do you help others or is that for suckers?
And for fun, have you encountered banned words?
Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion's Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook's Morin Oluwole, and bitly's Tim Devane. Register now.
Want to join the Mile High Journalists Club? No, it’s not a club for journalists who ‘get busy’ on planes. It’s much less exciting than that. Anyway, if you’re interested in writing for in-flight magazines, not only do you have the MB How to Pitch guide, but Writers Weekly also has a few publication profiles as well.
Professional trade show presenter Heidi Miller discusses from her perspective the importance of getting to know journalists before pitching them and has a few good ideas. A lesson we can all utilize.
Especially Elizabeth Spiers:
Housebound in the Florida panhandle thanks to Katrina, I unintentionally subjected myself to several days of hurricane-related TV news coverage from Sunday until yesterday when the newsertainment complex was (and still is) out in full force. While flipping between news networks, I came across a CNN report from a New Orleans affiliate wherein a reporter, crouched behind what appeared to be some sort of building, announced to the camera that he was going in for a closer look at the wind and rain and practically crawled to a mailbox on the street several yards away. The correspondent (IDed as Brian Andrews on mb’s own TVNewser) struggled to keep his balance and his footing as he huddled behind the mailbox and reported that weather conditions were, well, windy and rainy-a fact that was readily apparent before Andrews nearly got blown away trying to make it to the mailbox. The camera stayed in pretty much the same place, so the only difference to the viewer between Andrews dangerously exposed to the elements with only the US Postal Service to protect him and Andrews under the noticeably safer cover of the building was, perhaps, the level of viewer concern for Andrews’ safety.
When you’re good, you’re good. But you’re not great, as you could be. Sometimes, once you’re pretty sure that you can get paid to turn a phrase, the craftsmanship can fall away in lieu of speediness, timeliness, attitude. (The author says “The list also could be called, “10 COMMON PROBLEMS THAT DISMISS YOU AS AN AMATEUR,” because these mistakes are obvious to literary agents and editors, who may start wording their decline letter by page 5. What a tragedy that would be,” but I still think that sometimes the most experienced of us forget the fundamentals.) Don’t worry, it happens to all of us. Here is a very good list of bland writing mistakes that good writers often make: print it out and put it on your bulletin board. The next time you’re about to submit something, check the list and make sure you’re not committing any of these crimes. One of the best ones:
LISTS
“She was entranced by the roses, hyacinths, impatiens, mums, carnations, pansies, irises, peonies, hollyhocks, daylillies, morning glories, larkspur…” Well, she may be entranced, but our eyes are glazing over.
If you’re going to describe a number of items, jack up the visuals. Lay out the the scene as the eye sees it, with emphasis and emotion in unlikely places. When you list the items as though we’re checking them off with a clipboard, the internal eye will shut.
It doesn’t matter what you list – nouns, adjectives, verbs – the result is always static. “He drove, he sighed, he swallowed, he yawned in impatience.” So do we. Dunk the whole thing. Rethink and rewrite. If you’ve got many ingredients and we aren’t transported, you’ve got a list.
What course did you take?Media Bistro Boot Camp for Journalists with JoBeth McDaniel in April 2003
Output:An essay I wrote for class was published in The Seattle Times. It will also appear in an anthology called Stories to Live By, which is due out later this month.
How did you find the class?I found it online at mediabistro.com
What did you learn from it?
I learned how to craft a great pitch letter. And as a great bonus, I connected with other writers in Atlanta, and we’ve stayed in touch.
What did you glean from the class that specifically helped you with your article?The class workshoped the essay I wrote, so that definitely helped me with the story. Their encouragement gave me the push I needed to get it out the door. JoBeth specifically recommended I send the piece to Travelers’ Tales, the company that’s publishing it in their anthology.
Things that may be of use to you, just like some pretty pretty plugs:
Via Lifehacker:
Especially good for bloggers who like to take pictures of typos on web pages before they are corrected, Snippy lets you copy just part of your screen, instead of grabbing the entire thing.
Download the newest versiof of software and realize that you liked the older one better? No sweat.
From the Journalist’s Toolbox:
They’ve got an entire weather page, plus link to hurricane resources for all your Katrina needs.
Want to buy/sell home office furniture? Go to SwapThing.
If you liked last week’s post on media writing, maybe you need to join the media bloggers association. No, I didn’t know that that existed until just this minute, either.
Via our bookish sister GalleyCat, independent publicist Susan Schwartzman has started blogging – “probably the first in her profession to do so.” It’s nice to know that writers aren’t the only ones who worry about their reviews:
Last week, my delight in seeing a google-alert in my in-box when I returned from a three-day getaway, was quickly soured after I read the trend story in The Washington Post that featured two of the books I was promoting.
One book received a glowing review, while the other was slammed. I felt like the parent of the twin Olympic star gymnasts when one twin won a medal and the other didn’t.
But what was worse is that the reviewer didn’t even get the setting right of the book she panned. It makes one wonder if she even read the book.
You might feel comfortable enough to call yourself a writer, but that might also mean that you’re subject to what C.J. Cherryh calls “writerisms: overused and misused language. In more direct words: find ‘em, root ‘em out, and look at your prose without the underbrush.”
Rachel Kramer Bussel chats with Jason Pinter over at Warner Books:
Mediabistro: What are the qualities in a manuscript that immediately grab you and make you keep reading/want to work on a particular book?
Pinter: With non-fiction, the concept is what sucks me in first, and then the execution of that concept is what seals the deal. As opposed to fiction, I can generally tell from a one-line pitch whether I’ll be interested in a non-fiction query. We’re often pitched business authors with impressive credentials, but whose notion of a fresh concept is Who Moved My Cheez-Its. Not every book is going to change the world, but I’d much rather publish a book we can tout as “The first of its kind” than “In the tradition of…” Whether it’s a thriller, parody, sports biography, or business parable, say something new, and say it well. If I can legitimately say a proposal makes me look at something in a fresh way, or a novel is just too good to put down, that makes me want to get other people excited too.
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