Addicted to Writing

Manage Your Freelance Writing Career While Writing What You Love

The Best Free Resources for Writers to Find Markets to Pitch

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Or you can just look at a pink screen until you can think of markets to pitch. 🙂

Newer freelancers or those who are just thinking about venturing into freelance writing might be afraid they will run out of ideas to pitch. If that’s the case with you, you can always restock your idea well by brainstorming, and I’ve got the post to help you with that: Finding Article Ideas & Writing About Them: 30 Inspiration Tips for Writers

But for many of us, the problem is usually matching the idea to the right market. So I went ahead and wrote an article about this for WOW! Women on Writing: How to Find the Right Markets for Your Ideas,where I interviewed fellow experienced freelance writers and included their tips as well as my own. I also talked about how long you should keep pitching after your idea has been rejected. After all, two of my ideas found homes in about two years.

If you are however in a too-long-didn’t-read mode and want me to just give you some useful links, here they are:

–wheretopitch.com: Wheretopitch is an amazing free tool run by Susan Shain. You put in a keyword, and the website suggests where to pitch for you.

–whopayswriters.com Whopayswriters is another free website where writers list how much they were paid for an article, how long it took, and how easy/difficult it was. If you do a little digging, you will see many magazines you haven’t thought or known about. And you will have a great idea on what you will be dealing with when it comes to payment terms.

– Contently’s Rates Database: This database is much smaller than whopayswriters.com, but you can still go through the list to get ideas on where to pitch.

– *Your writer friends: When I’m stuck on where to write pitch a given piece or if I need more alternatives, I turn to my writer friends. I try to return the favor as much as I can. Writers are busy. We don’t all have assistants (though we really need one), so make sure you are not just receiving favors all the time. The goodwill will dry up. Don’t leave a bad impression.

If you are bad at coming up with places to pitch, you can offer to do other things for your friends such as proofreading or brainstorming ideas with them.

-Funds for Writers: Funds for Writers is an amazingly helpful resource website run by C. Hope Clark. An established writer herself, the website offers submission guidelines for markets, information on grants and contests as well as articles on all aspects of making money from your writing. I strongly recommend subscribing to the free newsletter.

–Writer’s Weekly: Writer’s Weekly is also a great free resource featuring market guidelines and articles. Both Funds for Writers and Writer’s Weekly are paid markets for writers, should you think you have an article idea for them. However, as with any publication, read their guidelines very carefully before pitching anything.

– Paid Publishing Guidebook by Freedom with Writing, as well as their newsletters. Freedom with Writing website offers a free book of markets to their newsletter subscribers. You also get markets suggested to you in the newsletters.

– Paidwrite.com. Kristy Rice’s wonderful website offers comprehensive lists of freelance writing markets. Make sure you hang out there a while to make the most of it.

– Jennifer Mattern’s All Freelance Writing website.In addition to answering most (if not all) of your questions about freelance writing , the website features a markets directory.

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And yes, you will encounter markets you have seen elsewhere, but the more you internalize them, the better. Nothing beats knowing at least five markets an idea might be a good fit for from the top of your head. It’s a wonderful time and sanity saver.

How about you? How do you find markets for your ideas?

3 Little Things That Cost Entrepreneurs Money: What Planning Ignores About Selling Products

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Entrepreneurs spend a lot of time and money on their product launches. They measure demand, arrange memorable pre and actual launches, get their fans, friends, and fellow entrepreneurs to spread the word, and their potential customers sulk and leave without buying. This happens on many occasions. The products are quality; the pricing is right.

So why doesn’t the sale go through?

– Limited Format. 

Not all learners prefer one method. Visual learners stay away from texts, but some people can’t learn or stayfocused without reading. Not including transcripts for videos, or not including audio or video for texts is a missed opportunity. 

– Payment Method.

PayPal has become the Google of online payment processors. It’s secure, highly convenient and almost ubiquitous, almost being the keyword. There are still countries that don’t allow PayPal. Even though “PayPal” payments technically allow credit cards to be connected, you can’t fill in your information correctly if you can’t use PayPal, meaning your country isn’t listed.

– Payment Schedule.

I’m a writing coach and creator myself. I understand the effort that goes into creating something valuable, evergreen,and comprehensive. You don’t want to sell your product short. But while it is okay to set your price at whatever your marketresearch and branding strategy prove logical, you can still offer installments.

A budding entrepreneur or freelancer who wants to learn from you might want to invest a couple of grand, but they might not afford it at one go. So not offering them options creates disappointment and revenue loss.

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What has kept you from buying an online course or other product?

Launching A Travel Blog, Publishing A Novel, Project Overwhelm and Spring Fatigue

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Spring is here my fellow writing addicts! That means more sun, happiness and unfortunately extra tiredness and sleepiness. I’ve taken to eating more healthily, moving more and getting some herbal-based supplements that are supposed to boost the immune system.

In the meantime, I’ve tried to launch my travel blog and my novel as an e-book in addition to my other writerly duties such as pitching, writing, marketing, researching and so on.

I say “try to,” because launching a new blog has been a step well beyond my comfort zone. Don’t get me wrong; I love blogging. I love WordPress. I’ve been doing it for a long time now, and I believe I have gotten good at it.

But there is something stressful about starting over with a new blog, picking a theme – which I argue is one of the most frustrating things about blogging – and getting an audience to a blog you are proud to show people.

I’m still working on the design, but the first post is ready for consumption and sharing: How to Financially Survive a Trip to Oslo

And finding a theme that suits your needs, expectations and wants is no easy feat, as I wrote about it here. The fonts change, level of flexibility and options differ. Whether you are going for a free or premium theme, I wish you luck.

(This blog runs on the premium Studio Press’ Focus Pro – aff. link.)

But none of that compares to the challenge of publishing your novel. From deciding on whether you are going to work with individuals or a company, from deciding on whether you’ll format yourself or hand it over to a professional, from downright infuriating copyright laws to marketing, it is mission impossible for writers. Or it has been for this writer.

I decided to go with a self-publishing company that came highly recommended to me. And while they have had their pros, I continue to be disappointed by their after-publishing customer service. I talked about my self-publishing woes in this post.

If you try to buy my book but can’t, comment and I’ll try to find a link or a solution that works for your company.

My novel is currently only available digitally. You can check it out on Amazon (aff. link).

About the novel:

Making A Difference (M.A.D.) is a contemporary romantic comedy with some drama attached. It’s set in New York, and this is the plot summary without spoilers:

Everybody loves Jay. He’s that humanitarian PR guru who doesn’t live like the rich and runs a profitable company so that he’ll have more resources to help people. He defines himself through how much he and his company make a positive impact.

He’s engaged to a gorgeous CEO whose purse collection could feed the homeless in NYC, but he’s only human.

If anyone notices the irony, it’s Jay’s new partner Zoe. 10 years older than her, Jay is the reason she studied PR. So when Jay’s business partner/best friend takes a less pressuring position, she’s delighted to return to the firm she interned for.

But Jay and Zoe have a big secret: 5 years ago, they fell hard for each other. She was a student at NYU where Jay was a lecturer. To Jay, his legacy was everything, and he’d never risk his reputation by dating a student. Moreover, he’d die before he let Zoe ruin her career. She is furious he doesn’t take the risk for them. She leaves the country to get over him.

And now she’s happily coupled-up with lovely writer Colin.
Colin detests Jay, and he doesn’t even know the entire story. Zoe’s upset Colin’s turning into a whiny jerk, but he’s the first guy she has felt strongly for in a long time.

Jay can no longer dismiss his feelings as nostalgia, but Zoe’s still furious at him. And the last time he tried to fix things, she left the company and the country. And now that the stakes are even higher.

Will Jay be able to follow his heart even when improving the world seems easier?

 

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What have you been working on?

Self-Publishing Your Novel with Mill City Press: Pros and Cons

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The cover!!! 🙂

My debut novel Making A Difference (amazon link) was finally on electronic bookshelves. But before I could hop to social media promoting the hell out of it, I encountered one weird problem after another.

I don’t know how many of these problems are due to Mill City Press. But I do expect them to help me fix it.

So far, with the weekend in between, customer service hasn’t exactly been fast, but if this week things don’t get done, I might officially regret my choice.

Here are some of the problems:

– It’s available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but only people from certain countries could manage to buy it so far.

I live in Turkey. The company is American, and my novel is in English, and I have friends and audience all over the world. So far, friends and family haven’t been able to buy the book. We tried Barnes and Noble, as we had the same problem. My customer rep hasn’t offered any solutions up to now.

Amazon suggested I changed my address to an American one. Which worked. I can buy my own book, yay? But this is obviously a temporary and narrow-reaching fix. If you have ideas, I’m happy to hear them.

What’s the point of releasing a digital book if it can’t easily be accessed worldwide?

– The customer service is slow to respond, and they want a phone call to go over the issues.

I get that my book is not their only problem, and I’m not their only customer. But my whole reason to involve a company was to be able to bypass technical issues and potential problems.

While anything can go wrong at any time in this world, I expect more from a company in this digital day and age. Them being available on weekdays on a normal 9-to-5 schedule wreaks havoc in my life because there is a considerable time difference between Florida and Istanbul. And making International phone calls are expensive, and apparently, they don’t do Skype.

Wait, what?

In 2018, after paying a hundred of bucks (just for the website, formatting/distributing the book has a different cost that I paid) I have to pay to fix problems?

Why isn’t there a way to chat with their authors online?

That doesn’t sit very well with me.

– They forgot to email me about some big news.

Writers tend to be obsessive about certain things, such as waiting to hear from their editor and checking their email about a million times a day. It is worse when you have an author account, and you are checking expectantly if they formatted your book so that you can more or less estimate your launch date.

Then you read that you will get an email notification with important updates so you relax (a bit) and go about your days. Then you don’t get an email notification when the book is ready and already on Amazon.

Ouch.

– My supposed $99/year (if I choose to renew it later) author site is a big nothing.

Imagine just an image picture of my book. But instead of the book, it just says image not available. You can’t click on it. There is no writing. You can’t find my name or my book among the collection when you search. And the most popular categories have got nothing to do with mine. Lovely.

Below is the screenshot of my author website.

Appealing, right? Notice how the promoted categories are Christian books? My book is a contemporary romantic comedy where characters are mostly liberal agnostics with some strong opinions. It’s PG-13, but still…Not the best marketing strategy on my end or theirs.

100 bucks might not sound like a lot of money to some, but I could get hosting, find a theme and make a website myself with that. Hell, I could just spend it on ads or improving my writer website and sell it here.

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After these major cons, let’s include some pros:

  • The formatting looked good.
  • The package was affordable. They are fast responding to your questions/concerns prior to making the investment.
  • They work with authors from all over the world.

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Do I recommend them? It’ll all depend on how/whether they fix the existing problems. Stay tuned. And while I can’t see my sales at the moment, you can always help me out by buying the book and leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Have you published your novel yourself? What problems have you encountered?

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