Archives: September 2006

The Squeaking Noodle blog gives perspective on what a freelancer’s life is like in the UK. Yum, noodles.

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.

The folks at The Renegade Writer give thanks for good editors and discuss the ways to give thanks to such good editors. Do you show your appreciation to your editors after they’ve fixed up your work? How do you do so? Let the Renegade Writers know.

Reader Susan Kirkland chimed in with her thoughts on writing on spec based on this previous post:

Whether it’s writing or designing, creative product on spec is always a losing proposition because the process exposes ideas, unprotected ideas, to unethical eyes that may be watching during the process. It’s just a refined version of dangling a carrot in front of a horse. Though my interest is design, every aspect of the No-Spec movement is applicable to writers as well.
And there’s a huge no-spec website.

I’d never heard of a no-spec movement! I hope those working on the website are getting paid.*
*This was a joke that needed to be made, not a reflection of any thoughts against the no-spec movement.

The most-discussed topics on the boards today:
“I would really like to know please, how good the London School of Journalism is.”
A publisher “has been threatening me with not getting paid if I ‘bad mouth’ either himself or his magazine. Yesterday he sent an email saying he wouldn’t pay me because he found out I had told someone I hadn’t gotten paid!”
“I’m in my final year of college, and last semester a senior editor at the New Yorker spoke to one of my classes. Recently, I emailed him about the magazine’s famed fact-checking positions. The editor was warm and receptive, but I’m aware that most fact-checkers come from blue blood universities and are typically well-versed in two or more subjects and languages. The editor hasn’t asked for my resume, but he did ask when I graduate (December.) What should I do next? ”
Help me deal with a bullying TV boss!
“I’d love to hear how other freelancers manage unreasonable editors.”

This is a new How-to-Pitch guide, not one of these revamped dealies. And, good news: wide open to freelancers, this new ‘magazine for people who give a damn’ is — as it turns out — a ‘good’ place to pitch, writes Justin Tyler Clark. With content that runs the gamut, Good’s first issue offers an essay on the value of reading from radio host Michael Silverblatt, a photo essay on the U.S.-Mexican border created by both pro- and anti-immigrant activists, and a profile of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. Embracing what it proclaims as “this generation’s merger of capitalism and idealism,” Good aims to provoke thought across the political spectrum, a process that begins when readers subscribe: All fees go to any of 12 non-profit organizations the reader chooses. Most departments are open to freelancers, except story ideas that rely on the words ‘eco,’ ‘green,’ or ‘charity,’ evidently — Good would rather have your analysis than your catchphrases. All pitches should go the magazine’s general e-mail address, and will be read by everyone on Good’s small staff–but use common sense and be concise. Read more here.

Today I speak with a young Chicago literary legend-in-the making. He is the author of the books Hairstyles of the Damned, Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender as Hellfire. He was the winner of the 2003 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago. He has a new book out, called The Boy Detective Fails, published by Akashic Books, who calls him “the hottest indie author in America.” He also asked me to mention for my Chicago readers that October 19, he will be doing a reading at the Book Cellar, so mark your calendars.
You’ve had good experiences with a smaller press. How do you advise writers discern whether a small press will do right by them?
I think whether you work with a small or corporate press, the important thing is to have realistic expectations, in terms of sales, promotion, and the work you have to do as an author promoting your novel. Most novels, put out by small or corporate presses, don’t really sell that well, usually a thousand copies or so. Working with a small press, you have to be willing to book reading tours, plan events, make contacts with other small press authors, and find new ways of getting word about your new work out there. For me, it comes down to wanting to be in control of the process. As an author on a corporate press, you have a lot less control over the finished product. I figure if I spend a couple years writing something, I want to be able to decide what the cover looks like and how it’s going to be presented.

Read more

The Paperback Writer loves Writers Journal Magazine but wants to know more about what you look for in writerly publications. Hurry up and you can win a prize by weighing in:

In comments to this post, tell me what you’d most like to read in a working writer’s magazine by midnight EST on Thursday, September 28th (Note: I’m going to invite the editors of Writer’s Journal magazine to stop by here, so let them know what you’d really like to see.) I’ll draw one name at random from everyone who participates and send the winner the Sep/Oct ’06 issue of Writer’s Journal, the latest issues of Poets & Writers, Romantic Times, and Writer’s Digest magazines (for comparison) and some other writing-inspirational surprises. Giveaway open to everyone on the planet, even if you’ve won something here at PBW in the past.

Submit here!

If you have a passion for hip-hop, you’re not just limited to writing features, interviews and reviews:

Hip-hop lit-also called urban fiction, street lit and ghetto lit-has been met with a fair amount of criticism. Some say these books glorify drug dealing, gang violence and prostitution. Others point out that many of the books are in dire need of good editors; urban vernacular aside, the books are often riddled with grammar issues ranging from poor syntax to missing end punctuation and quotation marks.
But despite the criticism, hip-hop lit is a moving force in the industry. Once sold on the streets and at independent booksellers, these books now can be found in Wal-Mart and major bookstore chains such as Borders and Barnes & Noble. Large publishing houses such as Simon & Schuster, Random House and St. Martin’s Press also are taking notice by signing up hip-hop authors for various imprints and divisions. And recently, rap artist 50 Cent joined with Pocket/MTV Books to produce a new line of street lit called G-Unit Books. Hip-hop authors Nikki Turner, K. Elliot and Noire are slated to write the first trade paperbacks.

More here at WritersDigest.

When it comes to pitching articles, I have a chicken-and-egg question. What comes first, an idea you love with a timely element, or something timely that you try to make unique? Whichever method works better, I wanted to know how writers can make their pitches as timely–and unique as possible. I posed the question on Ask Metafilter. Here’s some of the input:

Constructing a new and pointed idea around things just unfolding isn’t quite as simple as padding whatever you have lying around with x major headline. Padding previous works with little bits of news reeks of “creative packaging” and it’s usually so obvious! Occasionally there are times when a news story pops up and you make a connection, it’s another step removed in proving your thesis or whatever, and in that case a rewrite isn’t so corny.
A quick-and-dirty hypothetical: Let’s say you’ve been working on a piece on MP3 players for several months, doing lots of deep research, trying to get someone to pick it up. If you were pitching it last week, you might make the announcement of the Zune’s sharing feature your primary focus. If you were pitching the story back in March, your primary focus might have been volume levels and the potential for hearing damage. Or something like that. In either case, you’ll need to expand the article (with new interviews and facts) to include the timely element.
Predict the future. Then start working. By the time you’re almost done, it’ll be perfectly timely. I’m only being partially sarcastic. Being up on issues in a particular area *does* give you an idea of what’s coming ’round the bend. Play into a bit of confirmation bias and voila!

Do you have tips and tricks for finding the most current angle–or even a future angle–on a story idea which would make it irresistable to an editor? Please share and email it to claire AT mediabistro.com

Have you ever applied for a job online and got the feeling that you pretty much just tossed your resume to the wind? Well, you kinda did. The Chicago Tribune has a sort of depressing story on how if you’re applying for a job via a site or email, you might just be SOL even if you’re completely qualified–unless you know someone.