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This month there’s a double helping of expert advice, Ten Top Tips to help you generate new ideas, inspiring success stories and useful websites.
EXPERT ADVICE
It never sleeps...
Promote your work for free with your blog
By Sue Wilkes
You’ve published or written a book? Congratulations! Now the hard slog of promoting your work begins. If money’s tight, you don’t need to spend hundreds of pounds on a custom-built website. The beauty of using host sites such as blogger.com and livejournal.com is that they’re free.
A blog (weblog) or online journal will work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It never sleeps, and will enable you to reach a worldwide audience. And you’ll be in good company; top authors such as Nick Hornby, Scott Adams and Neil Gaiman have their own blogs.
Nervous about the technical side of blogging? You don’t need to learn a computer language. The host websites usually have ‘templates’ or sample layouts which you can choose from and customise to suit your needs. Online tutorials are normally available to show you how to add images and hyperlinks (links to other websites) to brighten up your ‘posts’ – the latest instalments to your blog. Or you could ask a computer-literate friend to help you.
Think carefully about what form you want the content to take. In its simplest form, a blog is just an online diary – you can update it several times a day, or once a week; it’s up to you. Or you can upload samples of past work you’ve had published so editors - potential customers - can see your writing style (assuming you’ve retained copyright and didn’t sell ‘All Rights’).
Blogging has an advantage over ordinary websites because it’s an interactive medium. You can leave comments on other bloggers’ websites using your blog name, and vice versa. Make sure you enable ‘comment moderation’ on your blog so you can vet comments and weed out any spam.
If you’ve written a book, but haven’t found a publisher, you could consider putting short extracts online to tempt an editor. A famous example of blog-to-book success is ‘Belle de Jour – the Diary of a London Call-girl,’ the titillating adventures of the eponymous author. ‘Belle’ has now had two books published, one of which was made into a TV series starring Billie Piper.
Author and illustrator Jane Odiwe self-published her first book, Effusions of Fancy (Paintbox Publishing, 2003). She couldn’t find a publisher for her second book, Lydia Bennet’s Story (a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice) so she self-published it, and put ‘tasters’ online in diary form as blog entries. Shortly afterwards, Sourcebooks, one of the publishers who’d originally turned it down, contacted Jane to say they’d made a huge mistake, and would love to publish her book. Lydia Bennet’s Story appeared in 2008; Sourcebook are planning to publish Jane’s third book, Mr Willoughby Returns, in the autumn of 2009.
Here are some tips to get you started:
So, have fun and see how much traffic you can generate – you never know where it might lead.
Free blogging sites:
Blogger https://www.blogger.com/start
WordPress http://wordpress.com/
Author blogs of note:
Neil Gaiman http://journal.neilgaiman.com/
Scott Adams http://www.dilbert.com/blog/
Nick Hornby http://nickhornby.campaignserver.co.uk/
Belle De Jour http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/
Jane Austen Sequels (Jane Odiwe) http://www.janeaustensequels.blogspot.com/
Sue Wilkes is the author of ‘Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives’ (History Press, 2008) and ‘Regency Cheshire’ (Robert Hale), which will be published soon. She's currently working on two books: ‘Stolen Childhoods’ (Robert Hale) on Victorian child workers, and an introduction to canal history for family historians, ‘Tracing Your Canal Ancestors’ (Pen & Sword). Sue's website is at: www.suewilkes.blogspot.com
And here’s your second helping of tutor advice.
Easy Magazine Research
By
Lorraine Mace
One of the problems writers abroad have is getting hold of English-language magazines to analyse and study so that we can pitch successfully. Most of us badger friends and relations to bring some with them when they come to visit, but how many of us know all the titles that are available for our specialist subjects? And why limit our research to the UK market when we could be making the same pitch to three countries at the same time? This article looks at ways to get the magazines we need, without taking up our visitors’ valuable weight allowance.
Ask for a sample copy
Sometimes the simplest way is best. Many magazine editors are happy to supply sample issues to prospective contributors on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope, but it’s also worth asking if they would provide a PDF version by e-mail attachment, which is easier for them and cheaper for you.
Websites
Most magazines now have websites where a selection of previously published material can be studied. This is essential viewing prior to making a pitch because you can check to see if your idea has appeared recently. There is often an editorial calendar and/or media pack for download, which will give you more information about editorial needs than is available in the actual magazine, including topics for forthcoming issues (see January 2009 issue).
What, who, where?
I subscribe to three online services to find out which magazines are available in the UK, the USA and Australia. These enable me to search by magazine titles, specialist subject matter, or article type. The service provides all the editorial details I need, from the editor’s name and e-mail address to submission guidelines. Most of the listings give the magazines’ website addresses and state whether or not sample issues are available and how to obtain them.
One additional benefit of subscribing to the services listed below is that I have pitched successfully to magazines I wouldn’t otherwise have known existed. One of which, in Australia, has since given me some regular work. Considering I live in France, it shows that being overseas doesn’t stand in the way of finding freelance opportunities.
Australia: www.awmonline.com.au
The fees I’ve paid to subscribe to the USA and Australian services have been covered many times over. It is free to subscribe to the UK service. Worthwhile to most writers, for ex-pats and overseas students these are essential tools.
Lorraine Mace is a columnist with Writing Magazine, winner of the Petra Kenney International Poetry Award (comic verse category), writes fiction for the women’s magazine market and is a writing competition judge. A tutor for Writers Bureau, she is the author of The Greatest Moving Abroad Tips in the World and co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam, of The ABC Checklist for New Writers. www.lorrainemace.com
