On Getting Articles Published

It's one thing to write insightful and well-crafted prose, quite another to navigate the business of writing - actually getting published and making money from your craft. Most of the ideas for this post come from The March/April issue of Writer's Digest, which attacked theme: Your Economic Survival Guide. Lots of great stuff here. I'll center in on ideas for getting articles published.

1. Build Relationships. Maybe you meet writers at socials or writers' conferences. Offer to take them to lunch to ask for advice. If you've written for someone before, keep in touch! Keep a good client list. If you came through with a good article last time, they're more likely to take your idea next time. Submit to them regularly.

2. Understand the Market. Perry Perkins makes a full-time living writing articles. At first, he wrote articles and used Writers Market to try to find appropriate places to place them. Then, he took a different approach. He spent several days reading through Writers Market, cover to cover, studying it. This knowledge can become a brainstorming list to dream up articles a certain publication might love. Then he could write queries based on what magazines were looking for, rather than trying to taylor his articles to fit their purposes.

There's an interesting parallel to Warren Buffett's advice to a young person wanting to learn how to invest like him. Basically, he told him to start like he did, studying every publically traded stock in the United States. The person objected - there are thousands of stocks! To which Buffett replied, "Start with the A's". I think Buffett's point was: if you want to pick the best companies, it helps to understand how they compare with other companies. The more companies you know and understand, the better decisions you can make.

Writing is a skill. But we sell our writing in a market - an industry. The more thoroughly we understand that market, the easier it will become to find the perfect match for our articles, and to propose articles that would be the perfect match for specific publications.

3. If your writing is good, then it's a numbers game - put out lots of submissions. Trying to move up from making a partial living to making a full living, Perkins upped his submissions from an average of 2.5 per day to 15 per day (assuming a five day work week). It worked!

4. Query big, well-paying publications first.

5. Don't put hours into an article until you know someone wants it. Query first.

6. Know the publication, giving editors what they want, when they want it, how they want it. You know this by studying their guidelines for submission and reading their publications.

Leftover Questions

I've written article for magazines, but have never done extensive article submission. Do most magazines accept multiple submissions? I suppose that since Perkins recommends hitting the big publications first, they he's giving them a week or a month to respond before submitting the proposal to lesser publications. How long do you give the major publication? And if there are 10 lesser publications, do you send out those 10 at the same time? What if more than one wants it? Do you write two similar, but different articles?

If you have answers or suggestions, please let me know.

Latest Book With BookSurge

Since printing and publishing are changing so rapidly during these revolutionary times for the industry, we're having to keep up with best and worst publishing practices on blogs and forums rather than books. We're trying to do our part by posting our experiences.

So here's my latest:

I couldn't be more pleased with BookSurge's reprint of the Spanish version of my music book - Debate de la Musica Cristiana Contemporanea. I marked my calendar June 18 as the day I mailed them a copy to scan. They advised me that there was a slight mark on the cover, so I sent them another copy, thus delaying the process several days.

Yesterday, July 9, I received their new copy for my approval. Except for having the name of our new publishing company on it (Wisdom Creek Press, LLC) and the copyright in my name instead of the old publisher, I couldn't tell any difference in quality or content between it and the original! Both the print and the cover were beautiful!

They say it will be live to order on Amazon within a week or two. I'll revise this article to reflect the actual date when it goes live.

I've not done a new book with BookSurge, but this reprinting of an out-of-print book is a snap. And to get all this printed and available at Amazon within a month?

They have also been very responsive to my e-mails and questions and have contacted me immediately when my book arrives with them, etc.

Author Copies

How much does it cost for me to purchase copies of my own books? Example: for a 250 page paperback book with a black and white interior and a list price of $15.99, I pay:

1-9 copies - $5.60 per book
10-50 copies - $4.80 per book
51+ copies - $4.16 per book

Sales Channels

Besides Amazon.com, they also will sell my book through www.BookSurge.com, www.Abebooks.com and www.Alibris.com . It will appear on www.BooksinPrint.com and www.GlobalBooksinPrint.com in approximately 2 - 3 weeks.

Bookstore Distribution

Distribution is offered through Baker and Taylor. That is set up free through BookSurge. Yet, there is no policy with the free account that bookstores can return unsold copies. A rep at Baker and Taylor told me that "retailers will not order a non-returnable title." A manager at Books-a-Million told me confirmed that he'd be reluctant to purchase anything that wasn't returnable.

A contact at BookSurge tells me that I can set up Baker and Taylor with a returnable policy for for about $250-$300 (more work on my part, but cheaper) if I work through them directly or through BookSurge for $600.

Galley Proofs

Some big-time reviewers will only look at Galley Proofs, since they want to get their reviews out prior to publication. But BookSurge doesn't offer a Galley Option. So I'm considering getting my early copies, ripping off the cover, and gluing on a temporary Galley-looking cover. Any other ideas to overcome this hurdle?

How I Plan to Earn $2000 More with my Writing this Year

I plan to save $1500. That's it.

No, the difference in numbers isn't a typo. Let me explain.

Money management gurus drive home the need to curtail spending. They often put it this way:

"A dollar saved equals two dollars earned."

Here's their angle: If you want to net $1 more through writing this year, you can do it in one of two ways:

#1: Earn an extra $2. If you're in a higher tax bracket, half of those earnings will disappear in the form of taxes, leaving you with your $1.

#2: Save $1. You keep it all. The IRS doesn't tax savings.

Now I'm not in a high tax bracket, so let's imagine that for me, $1500 saved equals $2000 earned.

The amazing thing is that the way I'm saving won't hurt me at all. It's not like I'm committing to eat Ramen Noodles for the rest of the year, or cutting my marketing budget. I simply compared prices on some of my services and winged better deals.

My primary savings came from changing my merchant account (the company that processes my credit cards for online purchases of my writing.) Cherie had been complaining for some time that too much of our earnings were being eaten up by our merchant account. I'd always respond, "Well, you know we compared before we got the service several years ago. I guess it just costs a lot."

But when they said they decided to charge us $40 more per month (ostensibly in order to serve us better!), I fired up my calculator and began asking around about the top merchant services. One ministry said they had changed merchants every two years, because companies would advertise a killer rate, inching up to an exorbitant rate before you knew what had hit you. He ended up with PayPal. I'm making the change, which should save me about $1200 per year. (Before the increase, they were charging us over six times the amount that PayPal charges for the same service!)

I've also found that you can bargain with Internet Service Providers. Mine was charging me about $70 per month for DSL wireless (allowing me about five computers to access). I got an advertisement in the mail that said I could get a competing service for about $45 per month. But I didn't want to go through the hassle of changing (change e-mail addresses, etc.). So I called my provider and said, "I like you guys, but your competitor is offering me the same service for $45 per month."

"We can beat that," he said. So immediately I began saving another $300 per year.

In my book on personal finance, I quote the CEO of Wherehouse Music as saying,

"Manage costs, not revenue. And remember that there is no such thing as a fixed cost."

Cutting costs frees up writers to take the assignments and write the books we're passionate about, rather than having to always go for the best paying. Extend this to paying less for houses, cars, etc., and you'll be that much closer to making a decent living from your writing.