14
Getting Published: “I’m an Author!”
It’s the same feeling we had when we published our first-ever articles, and it’s continued for the subsequent ones and even this book. In fact, by the time you read this, we will have eagerly grabbed the first copies of this book out of their boxes, gripped them tightly, giggled a little—a little more than normal for two grown men—and positively beamed at our names on the cover. Erik may have even wiped away a tear or two.
Nothing can beat that sense of accomplishment, the feeling that you’ve somehow made history. All writers who have ever published a book, magazine article, newspaper column, or letter to the editor know that joy; they’re on top of the world for days and weeks at a time.
This feeling is nothing like that you get from blogging. Don’t get us wrong; blogging is great. It’s the future of publishing and marketing. But there’s a permanence to printed words. Books are sacred, magazines are interesting, and newspapers carry a sense of tradition and gravitas (even as the print newspaper slowly dies). Blogs are just, well, blogs. You’ll forget all about your blog the first time you see your words and byline in a print publication.
As much as we both love blogs, we realize that anyone can write them. But being published in a newspaper, magazine, or book requires established knowledge and expertise. That’s why there’s a certain respectability that comes from being published. An editor thought highly enough of your work that she wanted to take the effort and spend the money to put ink on paper; a publisher trusted you enough to share your ideas with his readers.
It’s an awesome feeling.
Kyle was once asked to write an article called “Developing a Policy for Your Company and Social Media” for the Hamilton County Business Magazine, which he geared toward the non-social media community. For him, it was exciting not only to be asked—to be recognized as an authority in his chosen field—but to see his work published in a high-gloss magazine. And although that publication didn’t garner him immediate recognition, future articles on the subject did.
We’re not disparaging bloggers. In fact, we think blogging is vital to today’s business world. Erik owns a content marketing and blogging agency, and Kyle started his career teaching people how to blog, so we understand its importance. But right now, we want to look at writing beyond your blog and getting your work published in other venues.
Being published will boost your personal brand immensely. It shows that not only do you have a command of the language and the ability to form cohesive ideas, you have mastery of your topic (or at least the ability to completely BS an editor into thinking you know what you’re talking about).
In this chapter, we’re going to discuss print writing. Whether you’re talking about newspapers, magazines, trade journals, or even newsletters, writing for print is a lot different than writing for a blog.
With a blog, you are your own editor, and you can pick any topic you want. In a print publication, you have to write to others’ standards and follow their editorial calendar. In a blog, you can make your own errors and correct them, form your own ideas, and change your mind. In a print publication, everything has to be perfect, and your thoughts need to align with the overall mission and philosophies of the publication. Conversely, in a blog, you won’t get paid for writing your own articles. In print publishing, you can get paid for what you do. (It may not be much, but there are some publications that pay their writers.)
Print writing will add so much more credibility to your personal brand if you’re published in someone else’s print publication.
Why Should I Become a Published Writer?
There are very few reasons you should not try to get published. Actually, we can’t think of any. So, you know, just…do it. Just because.
@kyleplacy: I think they want a better explanation than that,
Mr. I-Write-For-a-Living.
@edeckers: Fine, whatever.
There are two main reasons to start thinking of yourself as a writer, or at least not think “I hate writing, I hate writing” every time you write anything longer than a five-word email.
First, look at any job description. They always ask for “effective oral and written communication skills.” Despite the fact that companies never say what “effective oral and written communication skills” actually are, it’s safe to assume that you’re going to be seen as “an effective written communicator” if you actually have some publishing credits to your name and maybe even a few ink stains on your fingers.
@edeckers: I meant metaphorical ink stains, not actual ink
stains.
@kyleplacy: I wish you had said that earlier. This stuff is hard
to wash off.
Second, you’re always going to need to be a skilled communicator, whether you want to build your résumé or expand your personal brand. Whether you’re writing a blog post or communicating an idea to your co-workers, you need to get your ideas across quickly, easily, effectively, and persuasively. The people who succeed in the workplace are often the people who can convey their ideas better than anyone else.
Consider becoming a published writer for these reasons:
• It builds your personal brand: Not only will more people learn who you are, but you will be seen as an expert on your published topic.
• You can share your knowledge, which helps you be seen as an expert in your field: Your articles will be read by people in your industry or in a market you want to be known in.
• You can find new sales or job opportunities: Just as we said blogging can help find new opportunities, (see Chapter 5, “Twitter: Sharing in the Conversation”), writing for print can get your ideas and name in front of someone who needs your expertise. That can turn into a sale of your product, a speaking engagement, or even a job opportunity.
• You can make some extra money: Many print publications pay their writers, whereas blogs and online publications typically don’t.
• Plenty of people still read print publications, whether newspapers, magazines, or books: Although it may seem like the whole world is going digital, print still has a large audience.
PERSONAL BRANDING CASE STUDY: JACKIE BLEDSOE
Jackie Bledsoe is a noted author and speaker about family and marriage issues. But he wasn’t always that. In fact, when we first met him, this was the furthest thing from his mind.
We first met Jackie at our 2010 launch of Branding Yourself. It was in December, and Jackie was there with his wife Stephana. They had stuck around to the end to meet us, and we found out later that they were out for Jackie’s birthday celebration. The thing he wanted to do for his birthday was come to our book launch.
Jackie had recently lost his job, and his family was homeless, living in some friends’ home, using his hotel points, and eventually in a week-by-week furnished apartment. He had tried starting an online business, which he said had failed miserably.
“I spent more time planning and getting the business started than I actually spent in business,” said Jackie.
“One person who I looked up to in the online space actually told me, ‘You’re a nobody.’ He didn’t mean to be negative, but he meant that I knew nobody, and nobody knew me.”
That’s when he came to our book launch. Jackie and Erik began to spend time together, and Erik began mentoring Jackie in his brand new writing career. He was doing so well, Erik even hired Jackie to do some freelance writing for his business.
“Getting paid to write wasn’t something I knew existed, really,” said Jackie. “But that first freelance writing opportunity, coupled with my blog, opened the door to other freelance writing opportunities.”
Before he knew it, Jackie was freelancing for some of the web’s largest blogs and websites, and he was getting paid for it—AllProDad.com, Disney’s Babble.com, USAFootball.com, GoodMenProject.com, CoachUp.com, and BlackandMarriedWithKids.com. He’s been interviewed on NBC, CBN, Moody Radio, Huffington Post Live, and Yahoo about his different writing projects.
He was writing constantly, creating an average of 50 new blog posts and articles every month. He was eventually able to replace the income from his previous job, and his family was living in a new house. He did it by following his “three basic steps: 1) Start a blog; 2) build a following; 3) write a book.”
His writing led to other opportunities as well, such as creating a series of articles that turned into a book, The 7 Rings of Marriage. That turned into a publishing deal in 2015 with LifeWay Publishing, a Christian publishing company, as well as an 8-part DVD-based Bible study and book, all published in 2016.
This has all turned into new opportunities for Jackie and Stephana as well.
“My blog, my book, and my online platform opened the door for regular speaking opportunities for both of us,” said Jackie. “I currently receive requests to speak on a monthly basis.”
The two travel the country monthly (something they’d always wanted to do, but never could), teaching classes and seminars for various church groups. They’re also organizing additional online events.
What’s funny about this all is that Jackie never envisioned himself as a writer. He said that his least favorite school subjects were writing and speaking. But writing became a way of expressing himself and dealing with what he calls some of the toughest times of his life.
“Expressing my thoughts and my feelings in my writing helped me to deal with the failure and grow from it, while also helping other men who had similar experiences,” said Jackie.
“I’ve gone from being broke to having a blog, to writing a book, and to running a business in which we create digital products such as online courses, webinars, membership sites, and online events to help married couples grow together.”
But Jackie said the coolest thing about it was when his three kids learned that “daddy is a writer. Soon after that, they all began writing their own stories. My kids have written short stories, books, and comic book series.”
When we asked him for one piece of advice for you, the reader, he said, “Do what I did when I started. Read Branding Yourself. I would have been totally lost if I had not read it. I still practice much of what I learned today.”
Give us a minute, we’re a little misty-eyed.
Finding Publishing Opportunities
While this book is primarily about social media and blogging, a writer can be (should be) more widely published than just his or her own blog. There are a lot of opportunities for people to be published, with literally thousands upon thousands of print publications. You can get your foot in the publishing door in several ways, starting with writing a query letter. You also need to know what rights you should offer (or will be offered to you) and how to get paid.
It’s much harder to be a print writer than a blogger because you’re trying to meet others’ standards, follow their editorial calendar and writing style, and fulfill their readers’ wants and needs.
Understand that getting published is competitive and difficult. A magazine typically publishes 12 times a year and accepts only a set number of articles from freelancers. A newspaper can publish anywhere from once a week to every day, and again, it has limited space. So although our advice may sound like “Write a story; submit it; collect $200,” it’s not that easy. You’re competing with other writers who also want to see their name in print.
Our goal with this chapter is to show you the basics of where to publish, how to submit ideas or articles for publication, what you can expect, and tie it all back to your personal brand. All kinds of websites, books, and magazines exist about the writing life that discuss these topics further.
Get the book Writer’s Market, published by Writer’s Digest magazine. This is the writer’s bible for learning about publication rights, how to write a cover and pitch letter, what rates to charge, and best of all, contact and submission information for nearly every publishing house and periodical in the United States and Canada. If you’re looking for the best place to submit an article, you need the latest copy of this book.
Local Newspapers
You can write any number of articles for local newspaper, whether it’s a guest editorial, an op-ed piece, a weekly column, or even a freelance news article. If you live in a big city or your paper is owned by a media conglomerate, you may have a tougher time getting a piece in there. But smaller towns and weekly newspapers are always looking for well-written content. If you have a business-to-consumer (B2C) business, for example, apply to publish how-to and advice columns in your local newspaper.
Let’s say you run a personal finance business in a city of 30,000 people. You can spend a lot of money on Yellow Pages ads, newspaper ads, etc. and spend a lot of time going to networking events. Or, you can write a personal finance column in the paper, giving general (not specific) advice on saving money, investing in stocks and bonds, paying taxes, and so on. The upside is that the newspaper will get some well-written, informed content, and you’ll be seen as more of an expert by your potential clients (people in your city) because you’re in the paper.
Of course, these are like a normal job, just like any freelancing work. You have to apply for them or contact the editor. Send a query letter to the editor of your local paper, or if your city has a large newspaper, submit the letter to the editor who manages your chosen section. Pitch the idea of the column to the editor, and include a couple of sample columns you have written. Make sure you understand the paper’s style and tone.
If you have an idea for a single article, pitch it to the editor first, especially if you’re not an established freelance writer. Then you’ll know whether to devote the time and energy to writing the article, rather than hoping your hard work gets accepted. (This is why a lot of writers get into blogging in the first place. They publish the work that didn’t get accepted for print, but they still want it to be read.)
If you aren’t having much luck with one newspaper, look for others in your area, both smaller and larger. What about the next city or town over? How about weekly newspapers? Or smaller dailies? After you start building a reputation as a decent newspaper writer in other cities, your local newspaper is more likely to consider working with you.
Business Newspapers
In addition to dailies, some regions have dedicated business newspapers, which is great for people in business-to-business…uh, businesses. These are filled with news for the various businesspeople and industries in the city they serve. Articles analyze the economic progress of the city, real estate, business growth, and development. They discuss who’s joining what company, which companies are merging or expanding, and the political issues that affect local businesses. Often, the papers include how-to articles, trend analyses, and introductions to new technology, which are ideal for emerging writers who are knowledgeable about their field.
If you work in a B2B business, you want to get your information in front of the executives who read these publications. Getting published in a business paper is a great step toward becoming an established writer.
Our friend, Bruce Hetrick, owns Powerful Appeals Inc. and is a professor of public relations at the Indiana University School of Journalism. In a rare bridging of the PR/journalism chasm, Bruce also doubled as a columnist for the Indianapolis Business Journal, the local business newspaper, for many years. But rather than writing only about PR/marketing or even client-category subject matter, Bruce tackled bigger issues, from the environmental benefits of living downtown instead of the suburbs, to how BP mishandled its crisis communication during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the importance of nonsmoking initiatives in the state, and even lessons he learned driving his sons to college one fall.
By publishing his column twice a month, Bruce has earned a citywide reputation for being a business thought leader. He is often asked to serve on nonprofit boards, to pilot nonsmoking initiatives, and to participate in citywide corporate events.
The biggest benefit? Some of Bruce’s past and current clients are the biggest in the community, all of whom trust him because he writes thoughtful commentary in the city’s most respected business news publication.
(Let’s circle back to our opening section for a second to make this point: Did Bruce do anything special to earn these business leaders’ trust? Did he change his ideas or behave differently to earn it? No, he kept doing what he was doing, but he had a printed platform in which to share his ideas.)
Finding a column- or article-writing opportunity in business papers works just like it does in dailies. Read the publication to get a sense of the tone and style, send a query letter pitching your idea, and include some spec samples.
Specialty Magazines and Newspapers
A step down from the journals, in terms of rigor and formality, are industry trade newspapers and magazines.
When Erik worked in the poultry industry, he used to receive stacks of magazines and specialty newspapers each month about production, processing, equipment, overseas issues, and regional issues in that industry. There were magazines from Illinois and Arkansas, England and The Netherlands. Several of these trade magazines published content from people in the field, including companies that sold poultry production products because they were the experts.
The only caveat was that the articles couldn’t be commercial—writers couldn’t promote their own products or services. Sure, the articles could answer questions about problems that only their products could solve, but they had to be advisory or educational in nature, not commercial. So Erik wrote a couple of articles about problems that his product just happened to solve. From that, he generated some sales and trade show recognition from them. (“Hey, weren’t you in that poultry magazine?”)
Subscribe to your industry’s trade journals (many are free), even if they seem tangential to the work you do. Figure out if you can contribute articles. Some of these journals or magazines hire their writers, while others accept contributor articles (that is, articles from other readers). Because they’re usually on the lookout for content, they’ll consider just about anything if it’s well written and on topic. But there are rigorous standards and editorial guidelines you have to follow.
Our development editor for this book, Leslie O’Neill, often writes trade journal articles, and she told us, “Nothing that gets submitted will be published as is. There is always a review process, which can suck, and even contributed articles must adhere to editorial standards. They will be edited mercilessly. It won’t feel good. It will hurt their egos. They will feel like bad people and terrible writers; they’re not.”
If you work in an industry closely allied with other industries, your content might fit in their publications, and if you want to give it a try, Table 14.1 has some allied industry suggestions to get your mind thinking in that direction.
Table 14.1 Article Ideas for Crossing into Allied Industries
Your Industry |
Allied Industries |
Article Ideas |
Direct mail |
Nonprofits, magazines, banking, restaurants |
How to reduce direct mail costs; how to personalize variable data; how to increase holiday donations |
Business banking |
Small businesses |
How to apply for credit lines; how to use alternative data sources for lending decisions; explanation of the tax implications of business credit |
Recycling |
Construction, city governments |
Challenges facing city recycling programs; how to implement construction recycling programs |
Personal insurance |
Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and farmers |
Explanation of the importance of insurance for entrepreneurs; how to help farmers cut insurance costs |
By crossing over into these allied industries, you accomplish two things:
1. You find a new niche audience who may need your product or service: By establishing yourself as the expert in your field as it relates to their field (as opposed to trying to be an expert in their field), you become much more useful and trusted.
2. You stop preaching to the choir: It’s a common desire to want to be seen as the expert among experts in your own field. We do it, too. Some of the content we create is designed to outdo other social media experts and professionals, so we can show off and prove how awesome we are…
@edeckers: But I *am* better than you.
@kyleplacy: Older doesn't always mean better.
…or to see if we can write about a topic first and get everyone else to jump on the bandwagon.
However, we’re not going to be hired by other social media consultants. And you’re never going to get work from other direct mail firms, business bankers, recycling plants, or insurance agents. (Well, almost never. See Chapter 12 on networking.) So, don’t worry so much about trying to impress them, except at national conferences.
Hobby Publications
Small hobby publications, such as magazines about crafting, cooking, and collecting, are a good place to pursue writing about your personal passion or hobby—and there is one for even the most esoteric personal interest. They let you practice writing for publication, you can learn more about your particular passion, and, if nothing else, they give you another notch on your writing belt.
Some hobby publications are less stringent than other types of publications. That’s not to say they’re lax and willing to accept any schlock you throw at them, but they’re a little more willing to accept contributions from new writers. They’re a great way to build your writing portfolio as you go for bigger and better-paying writing gigs. However, some premier hobby magazines publish articles from the leading practitioners, so you’re going to have a tougher time breaking into those.
Submitting to hobby publications is just like submitting to other publications: Submit a query letter and pitch an idea. If you’re blogging already, be sure to tell the editor about your blog. Although this is a good strategy for any writing you’re doing (except maybe for the scientific journals), it may be more helpful for hobby publications because you’re already demonstrating your expertise and authority in that field.
Major Mainstream Magazines
This is the pinnacle of magazine publishing. If you can make it in general interest magazines—Time, Newsweek, Better Homes & Gardens, Sports Illustrated, BusinessWeek, Wired—that’s really saying something. The articles in these magazines are of the highest caliber, the writers are the best in their field, and the pay is some of the highest in the industry.
But the competition is intense, and some of these publications don’t even accept freelance submissions; check out the writers’ guidelines before you pitch anything. You also want to make sure you have some serious writing skills and publishing credits in other publications before you submit to the major magazines.
One way to get your foot in the door here: Some of the big business magazines, such as Entrepreneur, Inc. and Forbes, accept blog articles from outside contributors. We know several writers who contribute these blog articles and have seen some incredible opportunities as a result. Of course, you’re doing this for free, and there are dozens of new articles appearing each week, so it’s hard to stand out. But if you write the right article at the right time, it could be a career changer for you.
Go Horizontal Instead of Vertical
Still other publications are geared toward people who work in a particular segment that can be covered horizontally, rather than vertically. For example, there are trade magazines for people in the retail industry, such as lumber yards, grocery stores, electronics stores, and liquor stores. There are trade magazines for people in all levels of IT, people in different facets of marketing, and people in different positions in the restaurant industry. An article such as “How to Save Money on Credit Card Processing” would work for any magazine in the retail industry. “Direct Mail Still Improves ROI” could fit in any marketing trade magazine.
A “vertical” refers to a particular industry or market, like a “publishing vertical” or “automotive vertical.” If you sold software used only by book publishers, you would sell to the “publishing vertical.” Going “horizontally” means you have a product or expertise that spans all verticals, like marketing or accounting.
The nice thing about these types of magazines is that you can easily tailor one article to each niche and have it run several times without being read by the same people. Your article about lowering credit card fees for restaurants can be recycled as an article about lowering credit card fees for lumber yards, grocery stores, and liquor stores. This is also a favorite trick of freelance writers: Build one story from scratch, rewrite it for a different publication (use the same ideas, but different language and structure), and generate some additional revenue out of it. We discuss ownership rights later, so be sure you haven’t signed over all rights to an article. Read the magazine’s contract for mention of intellectual property rights and republication rights.
Tip
Many magazine editors hate simultaneous submissions. They don’t want you to publish identical articles in different magazines. They don’t even want you to submit the same article to different magazines. Also keep in mind that some magazines don’t like reprints, although most will accept them. Check out the “Publication Rights” section later in this chapter to see what kinds of conditions you can and should sell your articles under.
Build Your Personal Brand with Your Writing
One problem associated with writing B2B articles is you can sometimes be overshadowed by your own employer. Your company gets all the credit for your work, your expertise, and your knowledge while you get the byline.
Getting the byline is important, but sometimes you may end up giving away the credit that should build your brand. We’ve talked to people who have written extensively for trade publications, but they later realized they have not reaped any of the benefit. Sure, they get an item to put on their résumé, an article to include in their personnel file, or a story that led to more writing opportunities. But when it came to building their personal brand, they missed out on a significant opportunity.
Our friend and owner of DK New Media, Doug Karr, who we’ve mentioned in other chapters, said that when he worked for a newspaper publisher as a database marketer, he wrote extensively for trade publications about database marketing in the newspaper industry. The problem was, said Doug, he always wrote about the great things his employer was doing, even though he was the one doing all the work. He wrote the articles about the company’s efforts, without alluding to any of the work he had done.
Doug said that when the time came for a job search and he wanted to tell people about all the great stuff he had been doing, all of his articles—his “proof”—showed that it was a company effort. He found that although other people in his industry knew about the database marketing his old employer had been doing, no one realized that he had been the one actually doing it. As such, he didn’t get the benefit by taking more ownership of what he had written, and he may have missed out on several job opportunities because no one in the industry knew his accomplishments like he had hoped. He now thinks he would’ve made it clear in the articles that the efforts described were actually his work, if he had known how his contribution would be overlooked.
This may be a tough line to walk—how do you talk about “my” efforts versus “my team’s” efforts without sounding like a glory hound? Still, you need to take some ownership of your knowledge and experience in your articles, whether you’re writing the article in first person, using personal anecdotes, or even including your title in the byline. Remember, this isn’t just about adding a single line to your résumé; it’s about building your personal brand within your field.
If the magazine publishes a bio section, you will get a chance to talk about your accomplishments. You can at least take credit there by saying you led the efforts, worked on the project, or managed the team that did everything you described in the article.
Continue to promote accomplishments like this to your network. Tweet messages and post Facebook updates like “So excited to see my latest article in ‘Marble Collectors Digest’ yesterday!” with a link to the online article. Then, assuming your network includes a bunch of marble collectors, others will see the article and associate you with it.
Promoting your published articles this way, especially if you can link to an online version, is no different from promoting your blog posts and other accomplishments (see Chapter 3, “Blogging: Telling Your Story”). Treat them the same way, but point out they’re also available in print. As long as the people in your network see them, you can get more benefit than if you limit your publication accomplishments to just your résumé.
Finally, don’t forget to publish your Twitter handle or your main website in your bio. Make sure you write a tight bio on your website, in your Twitter profile, and in your article.
Publication Rights
We need to discuss publication rights briefly here, although you’ll want to do further research. You may be offered several basic types of rights:
• First North American serial rights (FNASR): These allow a publication in North America to publish your piece for the first time. These rights tell the publisher that you’ve never published this piece anywhere else. The publisher cannot reprint in another publication or outside of North America. Often (but not always), FNASR now includes electronic rights.
• First rights: These say a publication has first use of the piece, but isn’t limited to print. Electronic publications use first rights, and they’re usually global since it can be accessed from anywhere.
• Second rights or reprint rights: Second rights are those you can give to any other publisher after you have sold FNASRs, but you can publish the piece simultaneously.
• One-time rights: These let a publication use your work once, but not first and sometimes simultaneously. They’re similar to second rights. They’re also called ONASR (one-time North American serial rights.)
• Electronic rights: Many writers try to avoid electronic rights because this makes no distinction among the media where your work is published (database, website, blog, and article site). Sometimes the article becomes exclusive to the publisher, so you can never republish it anywhere else.
• All rights: This means a publisher buys every instance where your piece could be published—electronic, print, you name it. Writers should avoid these rights whenever possible, but if you can’t escape it, figure out how much you realistically could get paid for the piece over several years, and charge that much.
In general, publishers have their own contracts they require writers to sign before they accept your material, and many magazines do not negotiate on the publication rights they give the writers. They also have set fees they will pay, and they’re often not open to negotiation. So when a publisher accepts a piece for publication, you need to consider whether you’re willing to live with their terms and their pay rate, especially when being asked for electronic rights or all rights.
Create Your Own Articles’ Niche
In Chapter 3, we talked about creating a narrow writing niche so you could be known for, and an expert in, that particular topic.
Note
Remember, a general topic might be cooking, a narrow topic might be Italian cooking, but a niche is something like “gluten-free Italian cooking.”
When you blog, you can just write whatever you want, and your readers will follow you and love you. But the readers of a print publication want all kinds of things and might abandon a publication if they’re not getting what they want. Also, bloggers have a personality and voice that readers respond to. All print publications have their own voice, and don’t want their writers to deviate from their standard. When choosing where to submit articles, consider if your voice fits with the magazine’s voice.
The point we’re trying to make is that it’s not always necessary, or even a good idea, to focus on a single niche all the time. If you’re that gluten-free Italian cooking writer, you’re going to find few opportunities to write about gluten-free Italian cooking for print publications.
Despite all of the industry health magazines, local parenting newspapers, and even national cooking magazines that may allow you to reprint your articles, there are only so many publications that are looking for your particular niche.
In this case, it may be more important to widen your niche a little bit. Don’t focus so narrowly on a single type or country of origin of food. Rather, stick with gluten-free cooking, and you can talk about a variety of topics. For example, you could publish these articles in different newspapers or general interest magazines to fit the editorial calendar, or even the same publication:
• Gluten-free cooking for new Celiac sufferers (general)
• Gluten-free cookies for the holidays (holiday season)
• Gluten-free tailgating ideas (football season)
• Gluten-free romantic dinner ideas (Valentine’s Day)
• Gluten-free cookout ideas (summer)
Without once talking about Italian food, we came up with five ideas for different publications without over-limiting ourselves.
The additional benefit of doing this is that you’re establishing a more impressive reputation as a gluten-free writer, not just a gluten-free Italian cooking writer. If you ever pursue speaking opportunities, book opportunities, or the chance to appear on the various news and cooking shows, you’ll be the “gluten-free writer who loves Italian cooking.”
Getting Started
Being published is just like getting a job. (Skip ahead to Chapter 15, “Personal Branding: Using What You’ve Learned to Land Your Dream Job,” if you don’t believe us.) You have to find a possible opening, send in your résumé (your query letter), have an interview (your completion of the writing project), and be paid. (And in some cases, you may actually be asked to send in a real résumé and do a real interview.) Follow these basic steps to start getting published:
• Do research first: After you figure out which kinds of publications to write for, don’t just submit an article. Maybe they don’t publish that particular topic, or they just published a similar one last month. Get back issues of the publication to see what kinds of stories they publish and whether anyone has written about yours before.
• Get the writers’ guidelines: Each magazine has writers’ guidelines, usually online. When you get the guidelines, follow them exactly! If they say to submit a query letter but no article, then submit a query letter without an article. Deviating from the guidelines will mean a certain literary death.
Editors can be cranky and finicky…
@edeckers: Not ours, of course.
@kyleplacy: Absolutely, not ours.
…and if editors see you deviating from their guidelines, they’ll toss your submission into the trash can without the slightest twinge of remorse. Editors are often asked what their biggest pet peeve is. Almost all of them say getting queries and articles that don’t follow the writers’ guidelines.
@edeckers: It's death, I tell you! Death!
@kyleplacy: Settle down.
• Write a solid query letter: This is the “résumé” we referred to earlier. There are certain pieces of information you need to include in a query letter.
Include a cover letter with an article submission. A query letter, on the other hand, asks if you can write or submit an article.
Include a paragraph about the article you plan to write and what it will be about. Next, cite your experience as an expert on the topic. Third, cite your experience as a writer on this topic. (This is where personal branding comes in handy.)
Several websites, magazine articles, and books discuss the best way to write a query letter. Refer to them for the particulars of the language and information to include or exclude.
• Do the work you’re supposed to: This is your “interview.” Not only does the editor want to see if you can write, she wants to see if you can follow instructions. If you write a good article, you’ll get the byline and the paycheck. If you don’t follow instructions, your story may not even get published, and you won’t get paid. Which brings us to our next point…
• Invoice immediately: You’re a professional now, so act like one. Don’t wait for a publisher to pay you; send an invoice. Send it with the work if you can. Although some magazines already have a well-established system in place, don’t wait for them to show you whether they do or don’t.
If you are not paid within 30 days, send another invoice. If the magazine fails to pay, don’t accept any more work from that magazine until you see your money. Treasure the relationships you have with the ones that pay immediately and drop the ones that don’t.
• Once you establish your reliability, you may be able to pitch other ideas to the editor: It’s important to feel out the editor first, though. Make a couple of basic suggestions for new ideas via query email. See if the editor is receptive to them. If she is, and you can continue to provide solid ideas and follow the editorial calendar, you become a valuable, reliable resource.
• Continue to network with the editor and staff: Don’t be a pest, but don’t be a stranger either. Keep in touch with these people via LinkedIn and Twitter, if they use them. When they leave for another publication (or corporate communications job), keep in touch. If they loved you for their old publication, they’ll love you for their new one, too. At the same time, you’ll need to start over with the new editor at square one. Although your old editor thought you were a valuable resource, the new editor has his or her own vision, and you may not fit it. Don’t take it personally if you don’t.
Getting Paid
Writers are paid. They write for money, not for exposure, for contributor copies, or for the promise of more money at a later date. And despite what sites like ClientsFromHell.net (see Figure 14.1) may make you think, most editors are a good and fair bunch of people who want to see their writers fairly compensated.
@kyleplacy: Absolutely. So good they're fattening! And very
fair!
@edeckers: And good looking, too. In fact, the best looking
of any editor there ever was.
@YourDamnEditor: Guys, forget it. You already signed the contract.
Figure 14.1 People who offer you a chance to write for exposure sometimes have more grandiose expectations of what you’re going to get.
Note
Contributor copies are free copies of the magazine your article is published in, presumably so you can give them to all your friends and family.
However, there are two things you need to know about writing professionally. First, writing for print is a tough way to make a living. The pay is not lucrative, and you’re going to work harder doing this than you would with a regular 9-to-5 day job. However, from a personal branding standpoint, writing professionally is worth the time and effort.
Second, you’re not going to make much money in the beginning. You’re going to have to establish yourself and prove that you’re a great writer and that you can turn out high-quality material on the deadlines.
Paying Your Dues
You have to pay your dues for a while. That’s a given. It may suck, and you may think you’re above it, but you’re going to have to put up with it. However, depending on how good you are—don’t make this assessment yourself; ask one of your brutally honest friends—your dues-paying period can be shorter or longer.
There are a few reasons why all new writers have to pay dues:
• Every writer and editor before you did it: They didn’t get to exact revenge on those older writers and editors, so they have to take it out on the newbies. That’s you.
• No one knows you: They don’t know if you suck or if you’re awesome. You need to prove your worth by being easy to work with, turning your work in on time, giving editors exactly what they want, and being a good writer.
• You’ll be paid what you’re worth: As you prove that you’re better than the others, you’ll get more money. As you prove that you’re more reliable than the others, you’ll get even more money. And as you prove that you’re better at this and know more about the subject matter than anyone else, you’ll get even more money than that. (Of course, most publications have a set rate, and the only way you’ll get more money is if you write for them more often. They generally don’t increase their rates for just one writer.)
This is personal branding in a nutshell. You need to prove that you’re as awesome as you—and we—think you are. The only way to do that is by doing what it takes to succeed in this or any other business. Do that, and you’ll start reaping your rewards.
The Myth of Exposure
Having said all that, you will reach the point where you should not only ask for money, but expect it. You will reach the point where you should be writing only for money. You’ve proven yourself and made a name for yourself, so money should be the only form of payment you receive.
This means you should turn down those who say they’ll give you exposure instead of money.1
They say, “We can’t pay you, but you’ll get great exposure,” or “You’ll get a great article for your portfolio.”
Turn these people down. If you’re getting paid decent money for your articles, you are beyond the need for the benefits that exposure offers. If you’re getting top dollar for your articles, you’ve probably stopped clipping articles for your portfolio months ago.
Erik has had exchanges like this with editors of small publications before, and they all usually end the same way:
Erik: How much do you pay for publication?
Editor: Well, we give you five free copies of our magazine.
Erik: And…?
Editor: Uh, and you get some great exposure for your writing.
Erik: Sorry, my supermarket doesn't let me pay for groceries
with exposure.
Editor: But more people will hear about you, and you can secure
paying gigs in the future.
Erik: Or I could secure paying gigs right now.
We don’t advocate writing for exposure after you have several published articles under your belt. Exposure is fine and all, but it doesn’t pay the rent, and you can’t eat it. We’ve been offered exposure by magazines with print runs that are measured in the hundreds. We have to wonder just how good that exposure could actually be. (Most of them fold a few months later—they’re not paying you because they don’t have the money to.)
Having said this, we mentioned earlier the large business publications that allow people to contribute blog articles for their online publication. It’s quite a boost to your brand if you can say “I’m a blogger for Forbes.”
The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing for Publication
There are a few do’s and don’ts to writing for publication, just like for anything you want to pursue. These are rules handed down from writer to writer, article to article, book to book, website to website.
@edeckers: There, I worked in something about digital publish-
ing. Happy?
@kyleplacy: Deliriously.
We have found that while most professionals are sticklers about the rules in their industry, publishers and editors are adamant about these. Ignore these rules at your peril:
• Do read the writers’ guidelines: That’s the best indication as to what the magazine or newspaper will accept from writers. These publications know what they need from their writers to please their readers and support their editorial mission.
• Do proofread everything: This is especially important when you’re submitting your first query letter. Remember, you’re submitting a story idea to a professional wordsmith. Editors take language and spelling seriously and will not look favorably upon a submission with even a single misspelling. That’s not to say they’ll toss the article they agreed to purchase for a single typo, but even so, avoid them.
• Do read your submitted pieces out loud, including your initial query letter: This will help you spot any errors or double words, like “the the.”
• Do meet all deadlines: Nothing makes an editor go crazy like a writer who can’t meet his deadlines. If you have a problem with time management and can’t even meet the simplest deadlines at work, you may want to reconsider whether you should go into writing. At the very least, find a time management system and get better about meeting deadlines.
• Don’t get creative, wacky, or funny with your submissions, because it won’t make you stand out in a positive way: Just print your letters and your articles on plain white paper. There are websites that detail horror story after horror story of weird submissions to publishers and editors. Many publications have begun using Submittable.com, so get used to that and don’t try to deviate from it to stand out.
• Don’t get married to your words: Don’t think of them as your babies. Don’t refuse to be edited. Even the best writers in the world are edited. If anything, an editor makes your writing better.
• Don’t plagiarize: We shouldn’t have to say this, but you would be surprised at the number of people who lift entire articles from other sources, thinking they won’t get caught.
@kyleplacy: It was the best of times, it was the worst
of times.
@edeckers: No! That's been done before.
Over the years, Erik has caught three newspaper professionals—an assistant editor, a columnist, and a publisher/owner; two from Canada, one from the U.S.—who lifted several of his newspaper humor columns. He caught the first one by doing a basic Google search on a unique phrase in that particular column, and this was before Google and search engines were so extensively used. Erik told the guy’s publisher about it, and then pleaded for leniency on behalf of the offending writer. The offending editor wasn’t fired, but he lost his newspaper column and was suspended without pay for two months.
While we were working on the second edition of this book, Erik learned he was plagiarized twice, once by a newspaper editor in Minnesota and once by a publisher in Canada, both of whom had made a long-running habit of stealing from other humor writers. Both men resigned in disgrace after the stories of their serial theft made national and journalism industry news. So, in terms of stealing Erik’s stuff, Canada leads the U.S., 2–1, but we’re hoping the U.S. can make a comeback before the next edition.
@edeckers: Actually, no we don't. That was an awful
experience.
@kyleplacy: Seriously. Haven't you people ever heard of
Google?
• Don’t stray from the writers’ guidelines: We know we already said it, but we can’t say it enough. Nothing will get your article thrown in the trash faster than straying from the writers’ guidelines.
How Can Our Heroes Turn to Writing for Publication?
• Allen (influencer) spent 14 years working for a marketing agency and is considered a veteran of the industry. He has a good idea of what works and what doesn’t and could write articles for various marketing magazines, which are usually read by other marketers. Another possibility is to publish basic how-to articles for small-business magazines and Chamber of Commerce publications—things that the do-it-yourself marketer would benefit from. These may also help Allen catch the eye of agency owners and business owners.
• Beth (climber) has a plan to become the chief marketing officer of an insurance company. One way to prove that she knows her stuff is to publish marketing articles—especially case studies of her company’s own marketing efforts—for trade publications.
Beth will actually get two things out of this. First, she can bolster her reputation among other marketers, some of whom may want to recruit her as she climbs her way to the CMO job. Second, she can be noticed by other C-level executives in her company who hire their new CMO. Her case studies will let her show off her past work in a public setting. If she uses these articles and her social networks, she can get her name in front of those C-level executives on an ongoing basis.
• Carla (neophyte) is a former pharmaceutical sales rep who is out of work but trying to find a fundraising or program director position at a nonprofit. Publishing in trade journals may not help her much, but she should still consider it. Blogging may be a better and more effective outlet for showing how well she understands the nonprofit field. However, she could write career advice pieces aimed at college students who want to go into sales, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. She can also write sales advice columns for business magazines.
• Darrin (free agent) is an IT professional who leaves his job every two or three years in pursuit of more money. Darrin has a few industry options, like publications geared toward chief information officers and IT networking professionals. These tend to be more newsy than how-to focused and often rely on reviews of products. So, Darrin can create the “product reviewer” as part of his personal brand by reviewing new products and services.
This will do two things: 1) set him up as someone who is always forward-looking and willing to try new ideas and products, and 2) plug him into beta releases of software and hardware. He’ll know what’s coming down the pike months before the general IT community will. So when he’s not writing reviews for print, he can write them for his blog and get a boost to this part of his brand. The upshot is that for less than double the amount of effort, he gets twice the benefit.
1. Okay, there may be a few times you don’t want to turn them down, like when the people asking are your friends, or it’s a startup publication that you want to see do well, or it’s a nonprofit you support. Or The New York Times. At the least you should get lunch out of it. Just remind them that you’re beyond exposure, so you can feel like a big shot.