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10 Things You Need to Do After You Sent That Awesome Query Letter

Posted on July 21, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

waiting for the editor to reply, writing cartoon — You can't just wait for the editor to reply to your query. If you do, you'll die an unpublished old maid/dude...:) Excuse the cartoon, my first creation ever:)

We all know it’s essential to craft an intriguing, easily readable query letter. That’s how we (hopefully) get the editor’s attention. And if you need to polish your query skills, I suggest reading 7 Great Query Letter Resources: A List of (E-)Books, Articles and Blog Links.

This post is about what happens after having sent that great query letter.

1) Keep track of your query. I prefer a simple excel sheet. I note when I sent it, when I should follow up (should I not hear from the editor before), what other publications the idea might fit if the query is rejected or doesn’t get a response after the follow-up. I also include a section for brainstorming for other ideas for the same publication. After all, I want to write for this magazine more than once.

2) Keep researching other markets and their guidelines, and make sure you take notes about the guidelines, payment terms, topics and articles already published on the publication. After all, your querying days are never really over.

3) Write for, market & optimize your blogs. If you’ve a writer’s blog, work on it. If you don’t have a writer’s blog already, it’s time to start one. You don’t need to write about writing related topics, but you need to post article samples and links to your published work. The blog will serve as a portfolio, so take full advantage.

Plus, the more you know about blogging, the easier and more fun it will be for you to get blogging jobs, and/or monetize your own blogs.

If you have several blogs, work on them too. They all serve as your portfolios as well, proving your writing skills in those niches.

4) Keep networking with other writers (and bloggers).

5) Assuming you heard from the editor before needing to follow up, go ahead and start working on the article – keeping the editor’s notes in mind. Sometimes writing a killer article that will satisfy your editor might be harder than writing the query.

If the editor liked the idea but requests a few tweaks, or another query based on these tweaks,

Do so.

If the editor tells you they liked your style but can’t use that piece, keep querying .

6) Assuming you didn’t hear from the editors, follow-up on your old queries at the suggested time period. Many publications offer their response time and when you should follow up if you don’t hear from them in that period. If no specific time is given, follow your gut. If it is a massive magazine, you might want to wait for a couple of months. If it is a website, 2-3 weeks before following up should be fine.

7) Read about the topics you are writing on. This is great for self-improvement, discovering markets you weren’t aware of, getting to know the markets you know better, finding authors to network and giving you new article ideas.

8) Query other publications, and keep track.

9) When You Get An Answer or No Answer After the Follow-Up:

If you haven’t heard up from your follow-ups after a couple of weeks, feel free to pitch the idea to other publications. But to be on the safe side, notify the first editor nicely. This is to be on the safe side, and not to burn any potential bridges.

Of course, keep tracking queries and their responses.

If you got a no with some suggestions from the editor, keep them in mind. But there’s nothing much you can do after a “no, thanks”. You cross your fingers for the next publication.

10) Use this list in order and/or mix things up. Add your own points and apply them at a pace that suits you best.

Best of Luck.

7 Great Query Letter Resources: A List of (E-)Books, Articles and Blog Links

6 Reasons Why Every Writer Should Blog

Challenges of Writing A Novel & Some Great Resources for Tackling Them

Posted on July 11, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I used to think that there were two challenges about writing a novel: 1) finding a great story, and 2) trying to get that great story published.

While I still believe these are the biggest challenges a writer faces, I realized there are 4 more challenges that came along my way:

1) Novel or Screenplay?

You love reading novels. You love watching movies. And you love creating dialogue-heavy stories. So how do you decide whether your story works best as a novel or a screenplay?

As a writer with no connections to Hollywood, I realized that I had a better chance of finding a publisher that might be interested in my novel. Now, please notice that I said easier, and not easy.

Getting a novel published seems to be relatively easier than getting a screenplay to Hollywood. I had a sneaking suspicion this might be the case and this is the article that helped me make up my mind: The Novel vs. the Screenplay: a Tough Love Guide for Talented Writers.

2) POV : Point of View

So you decided you’d rather write a novel. You have your characters, and you have your story. But from which point of view are you going to tell everything?

I really struggled with this decision. I tried different ones through several chapters, and then saw what worked best. I also looked at my favorite books in the same genre to see what other authors did.

Remember your options:

Third Person Limited

Third Person Multiple (or Author Omniscient)

First Person

Second Person

Articles That Helped Me With POV

Whose Point of View?

Picking the Perfect POV

Good reasons for multiple POV

Point of View, Parts 1 & 2

3) Order of Scenes

Which chapter will you start with? How do you order your scene?

I think that with all the other decisions regarding your novel, you have to decide what works best for you. I rewrote, reordered and rewrote again. And, I did eventually go back to my first order. It provided the best flow.

4) Quantity of Dialogue

Since I was originally planning to write a screenplay, my chapters are filled with dialogue. I am not saying it is all dialogue, but my characters talk a lot. And because I decided to go with Third Person Omniscient, I think the amount of dialogue works for the story.

But of course I have to remind you that I am only in the writing stage. I haven’t finished the story, and haven’t sent queries to any literary agents. Right now, my only concern is to put my story on paper. There might be many changes along the way. And of course we don’t know if agents/ publishers are going to be interested yet.

However you should keep in mind that you need to have a story to be able to get a rejection or approval. So come on! If you have a story to tell, start writing it. Then you can deal with formatting and querying.

8 Awesome (Free & Paid) Places to Find Market Guidelines

Posted on July 4, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Writer’s Market – (from Writer’s Digest)

Writer’s Market 2018 can be found at the newsstands, or you can access the online Writer’s Market database. It is a paid resource, and some writers complain that it is not as up-to-date and extensive as it should be. I agree to a certain point, but I wouldn’t give it up on it just yet.

It offers some solid information, such as when the magazine was established, how to submit, who to submit, how much of it is freelance written, its response time, length and much more. However, you need to check the information yourself, as publications change editors/websites/pay rates, and many even cease to exist.

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I bought the VIP program which cost me $49.95 – it gives me a year’s subscription to the Writer’s Digest Magazine, a year’s access to the database, The Essentials of Online Marketing & Promotion Webinar, 10% off all Writers Online Workshop courses and 10% off all Writers Digest Shop purchases.

Remember that Writer’s Digest also works with freelancers, and you can find the submission guidelines here.

Susan Johnston’s The Urban Muse Guide to Online Writing Markets

Susan Johnston is a published author who runs her own blog The Urban Muse. Her e-book, The Urban Muse Guide to Online Writing Markets. She offers the website’s name, its attitude and who it targets. It also includes its pay rate (if it is specified), the topics covered and a link to the masthead/contact page/submissions page wherever possible.

At the very least, you have the link to the magazine’s main page where you can do your own digging. The book also features the reasons you might want to write for the web, how to approach the editors, and Susan’s own successful e-mail queries, including the background stories of these queries.

The book costs $17.99. I bought it after seeing it recommended on Carol Tice’s Make a Living Writing blog. I think it is a must for web writers, as her listing includes online publications in diverse areas, including web design, social commentary, relationships, parenting, stock markets, writing and more.

She also lists other resources where you can search for online writing markets.

Writing for Dollars

Writing for Dollars has its own free guidelines database, as well as a free newsletter that comes with useful articles on writing. The newsletter also contains a group of markets, but to find more, you need to dig in to the database. As far as free resources go, it is pretty good. For instance some of the publications writing you can find on the database include Freelance Market Writer’s News, FundsforWriters, WOW! Women on Writing, The Write Markets Report and more.

You can search according to the subject, market name, pay rate, submission style (simultaneous or not) and payment time (on acceptance or publication).

The markets are divided into three according to their pay: High (over $500) Medium ($125-$500) and Low (less than $125).

Writing for Dollars is itself a low-paying market. It starts from $10 (for reprints) and goes up to $25 for solicited articles. You can read its guidelines here.

Freelance Writing

Freelance Writing.com is a wonderful website that it comes with its own free (albeit) small markets database, job listings, writing contests and resources (such as useful articles and free e-books). If you subscribe to the newsletter, you will get freelance writing jobs. Currently they have free e-books on writing persuasively, writing good sales pages, online copyrights, time management, creativity and many more.

Towse’s Links to Online Submission Guidelines

Towse’s Links to Online Submission Guidelines is a quite comprehensive (and free) guide to submission guidelines (listed alphabetically) and agents (also listed alphabetically).

Writer’s Weekly

Writer’s Weekly is a wonderful e-zine that comes with a free newsletter, free guidelines database, news from the industry and free articles. Just like Writing for Dollars, it is also a paying market itself (in the subject of writing of course). It pays more than Writing for Dollars.

Freelance Market News

You can subscribe to Freelance Market News Magazine at £17 for 6 months (6 issues), and £29/year (11 issues). The site offers a free sample issue. The magazine is also a paying market. You can find its guidelines here. The pay ranges from £40 to £50.

Worldwide Freelance

WorldwideFreelance.com offers a free newsletter with useful articles, links and some market guidelines. Their premium database costs 24.95/year and 39.95/2 years, and it is supposed to have 2.500 writing markets. The site also offers e-books on writing, blogging and writing markets. Market List E-Books (such as 50 Women’s Writing Markets or Travel or 50 Traveling Writing Markets) cost $6.95 each.

As you can guess from the website’s name, you can find info on markets from Canada, Australia and the UK as well.

This is all from me for now. Please feel free to add your favorite resources.

*Note: Only Amazon links and Susan Johnston’s e-book link are affiliate links, so I make a small commission when you buy through them.

How to Handle Rejection (and When It Might Be A Good Thing)

Posted on June 28, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Writers are constantly exposed to a form of rejection. Well, no one likes to be rejected in any area, but we writers need to face the music more often than others. We apply to a lot of writing gigs both online and offline, try to get our stories/novels published, and/ or get our scripts read by producers/agents. And it doesn’t always matter whether we targeted the right market or abided by the guidelines. It doesn’t always make a difference that our writing is good, or the query letters rocked. John Grisham got rejected. J.K. Rowling got rejected. Do I really need to give more examples?

And having been writing full time since late 2009, I can say that I am pretty much at the start of the rejection cycle. Because although I have been writing since I was basically a preteen, I had never sent my writing to anyone besides my friends. I loved being read and I enjoyed a loyal following that loved what story I would come up with next.

But we all grew up and our lives became much more hectic than just going to school, socializing or dating. We were distracted by our career and family plans. That’s when I finally decided that I was not satisfied with writing just for me and my friends. I also wasn’t going to settle for some job I didn’t want because the economy sucked. It was time to follow my. So I dove straight into heavy research. I studied how magazine queries were made, how articles were formatted. I read about how you could sell your screenplays even if you lived a world away from Hollywood.

I read about blogging and writing, and applied what I learned. In addition to running several blogs, I got some decent gigs and continue to have them. I also keep getting rejected. Here is what I’ve learned so far:

1) Obviously, your samples won’t impress everyone. For many jobs, you will be either be overqualified or under-qualified. If you are overqualified, the job is highly unlikely to satisfy you.

2) With some gigs, you’ll have been 10 minutes/2 days/50 applicants too late to have applied.

3) Job-hunting for writers isn’t all that different from job-hunting for others.

4) You will be rejected, even if you avoided every rookie mistake you were supposed to avoid.

5) Many editors will not reply at all.

6) Some editors will just reply “No, Thanks”, only after you followed up twice.

7) It is be frustrating, but the acceptance e-mail and the check are all worth it. Yes, I am assuming the check is decent.

8) You constantly have to work on writing better, marketing and networking. And you need to keep querying.

A writer friend of mine recently mentioned that he hated the rejection letters that said that he was a good writer, the story was good but they were just not interested. I hate the letters that don’t come at all, or come very late. I have a whole article about it.

While obviously the news (of rejection) stinks, it at least enables you to move on, and learn. So try not to let it get you down so much. I once read somewhere that the more rejection letters you have in your drawer, the closer you are to being published. And then the author of the article had gone on to list the number of rejection letters famous authors got before they got lucky. The list is quite impressive.

Proof? John Grisham’s first novel is A Time to Kill. His first published worked however is The Firm. A Time to Kill got published after The Firm. Same guy, same style, same quality, both bestsellers. One just happened to be misjudged.

So the ultimate lesson is to hang in there. Your turn will come too, whether it is getting constant magazine gigs, or getting your fiction out there. You are just going to get rejected a lot in the process.