In this Issue:

• "Welcome" - Dan Case, editor
  
• Feature "When Publishing is a BAD Idea" by Patricia Fry
  
• 16 Paying Markets - High, Medium, and Low
  
• Feature "Review - The Right Way To Write, Publish and Sell Your Book: Your Guide to Successful Authorship by Patricia L. Fry, Matilija Press 2006, $19.95" by Gretchen Craig

This newsletter is only sent to subscribers. Instructions for unsubscribing or changing your email can be found by following the link at the bottom of this newsletter.

If this issue was forwarded to you by a friend, take the time to subscribe for free by going to our web site at http://www.WritingForDollars.com and receive a free copy of the ebook, 83 Ways to Make Money Writing by Beth Fowler.

Welcome

It's finally here... the new 2nd Edition of The Complete Guide to Writing and Selling Magazine Articles. Peggy Fielding and I have gone through and updated everything and even added a section on digital cameras. Best of all, all of the markets were updated and the links checked — we added about 60 more markets so now there are over 350 markets included in the book.

Here are the top-selling writing books at AWOCBooks.com - FREE SHIPPING on selected books! ($2.95 value)

1. THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO WRITING & SELLING MAGAZINE ARTICLES 2nd Edition by Peggy Fielding and Dan Case. FREE SHIPPING!
   
2. CONFESSING FOR MONEY 2nd Edition Writing and Selling to the SECRET Short Story Market by Peggy Fielding FREE SHIPPING!
   
3. MAGIC STEPS TO WRITING SUCCESS by Charles W. Sasser. FREE SHIPPING!
   
4. THE ORGANIZED WRITER IS A SELLING WRITER by Kathryn Lay. FREE SHIPPING!
   
5. WRITING HUMOR FOR MORE THAN LAUGHS by Phil Truman FREE SHIPPING!
   
6. BE YOUR OWN BOOK DOCTOR: So You Can Cure What Ails Your Writing by Robyn Conley.
   
7. THE SUCCESSFUL WRITER'S HANDBOOK by Patricia Fry
   
8. JUMPSTART YOUR WRITING CAREER & SNAG PAYING ASSIGNMENTS by Beth Erickson.
   
9. BOB BLY'S FREELANCE WRITING SUCCESS (How to Make $100,000 a Year as a Freelance Writer and Have the Time of Your Life Doing It) by Robert W. Bly
   
10. WEEKLY WRITES (52 Weeks of Writing Bliss! For Writers Who Want to Develop the Habit of Writing Every Day, Every Month, All Year Long.) by Shery Ma Belle Arrieta
    

Dan Case, editor
editor@writingfordollars.com (put WFD in the subject line)

Are you thinking about publishing a book? You should know that not every written work is suitable for publication. And not every writer should become a published author.

How do you know when publishing is a bad idea? When one or all of the following applies to your project:

1: Your book doesn’t have an audience. It is imperative that you write the right book for the right audience. How do you know if there is an audience for your book? Start by writing a book proposal. A well-organized, well-researched book proposal will reveal whether your book will actually have an audience and who that audience is. If you attempt to spoon-feed your message to an audience who doesn’t want it, your book will fail. A case in point is the author who wants to force his unpopular political opinions on others through his book or the former alcoholic who writes a book designed to convince others to quit drinking, for example.

Through the process of writing a book proposal, you might decide to change your approach to the topic in order to attract a large enough audience to warrant publishing the book at all.

2: The competition for a book on your topic is too stiff. You may already know that your book has a huge audience. Now you must evaluate the competition. Are there other books like yours already on the market? How many? Are they selling? And here’s an important question: What makes your book different from the others? What does your book offer that the others don’t? Is this difference something that your target audience wants? If you plan to write a book on dieting, for example, you’d better make sure that you can provide a focus, slant and benefits that will attract those readers who have probably already read every diet book already on the shelves at Barnes and Noble.

3: You don’t understand anything about the publishing industry. You wouldn’t open a retail store related to a product that you know nothing about. You wouldn’t start a business featuring a service you cannot perform. Why would you blindly enter into the business of publishing? And folks, publishing is a business and your book is a product. Take time before you write that book—before you decide to become a published author—to study the publishing industry. How? Read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Join publishing organizations such as SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network), PMA and SPAN. Subscribe to and read several publishing/writing-related newsletters and journals.

4: You don’t know your responsibilities as a published author. Along with authorship come certain responsibilities. As mentioned above, you must produce a viable product. You need to know something about the industry, your choices and the consequences of your decisions. And you must take responsibility for making the right choices. Your responsibilities also include promotion.

5: You don’t have the time or desire to promote this book. You’ve probably heard it before—whether you land a traditional royalty publisher, self-publish (establish your own publishing company) or hire a fee-based POD publishing company, you are responsible for promoting your book. I hear from authors occasionally who say, “I am eager to produce my book—it must be published this year (or this month or this week)—but I don’t have time to promote it right away.” I say to them, “Then it is the wrong time to publish the book.” If you want to produce a book that is wildly or even mildly successful, you really must schedule time—lots of time—to promote it.

Perhaps you can make publishing a good idea for your proposed book by changing some of the negatives listed above. In other words:

• Study the publishing industry.
• Learn what your choices are and the consequences of your decisions.
• Write a book proposal so that you know you are writing the right book for the right audience.
• Understand your responsibilities as a published author and take them seriously.
• Schedule plenty of time to promote your book.

© Copyright 2006, Patricia Fry

Patricia Fry is a full-time freelance writer and the author of 25 books including, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. She is also the president of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network)

• Minnesota Conservation Volunteer - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Accepts simultaneous submissions.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction. Subjects: Minnesota natural resources, wildlife, natural history, outdoor recreation, land use. 

• National Parks - Guidelines:  Pays on acceptance.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: National Park System. 

• Ohio Magazine - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Ohio. 

• Oregon Business - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments. Subjects: Business. 

• Outdoor America - Guidelines:  Pays on acceptance.  Seeks nonfiction, photos/artwork. Subjects: fishing, hiking, hunting, boating. 

• Plane and Pilot - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: General Aviation. 

Medium - $125 - $500

• NewCity - Guidelines:  Pays on acceptance.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Chicago, Politics, Art. 

• NorthWest Travel - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Destinations in the Pacific Northwest. 

Low - Less than $125

• Mennonite Brethren Herald - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Mennonite Religion and Lifestyle, Poetry. 

• Music For The Love Of It - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, photos/artwork. Subjects: Amateur Musicianship. 

• New York Spirit Magazine - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Accepts simultaneous submissions.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Holistic Health. 

• Northern Breezes, Sailing Magazine - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, columns/departments, photos/artwork. Subjects: Great Lakes, Midwest sailing community. 

• One-Story - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Accepts simultaneous submissions.  Seeks fiction. Subjects: Short Stories. 

• Pangaia - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction, fiction, fillers, photos/artwork. Subjects: Earth Spirituality. 

• Parameters - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction. Subjects: Military. 

• Parents - Guidelines:  Pays on publication.  Seeks nonfiction. Subjects: Non-Fiction stories that will appeal to a wide variety of parents. 

Patricia Fry has a wonderfully helpful guide in The Right Way To Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. She’s frank, she’s precise, and she’s thorough. She begins with the information all writers need to hear and would rather not: it’s a tough business. Accepting that fact from the time you start page one of your manuscript will save a lot of misunderstanding and disappointment when the time comes to actually find readers. Ms. Fry’s book covers everything from margin widths to applying for an ISBN number to writing thank you notes to booksellers.

Much of the book is for beginning writers, but even seasoned veterans will find practical advice in how to sell more copies. The dreaded query letter, the book proposal, the agent search, the marketing and promotion ploys – it’s all in here. Besides telling the reader what goes into a good query or proposal, Ms. Fry has included valuable examples from her own career.

I, for one, would rather stay in my nice snug office than get out there and promote myself and my book. Lots of us writers are introverts, and I envy those of you who relish publicizing your work. But we gotta do it. Ms. Fry gives specific examples of things you can do to promote your book without exposing yourself (figuratively, of course) on table tops and street corners. One of the values of this book is that Ms. Fry has included actual dollar estimates of what various promotions cost, and that is good information for the beginner, as well as her pointers on what works and what doesn’t work.

A substantial part of the book deals with those writers who choose not to pursue the big publishing houses, especially writers of non-fiction. She explains the advantages and disadvantages of alternatives such as small publishers, Publish On Demand, vanity presses, and self-publishing. However, Ms. Fry’s book does not neglect fiction writers or writers for the big publishing houses in New York. It’s hard to imagine a writer not finding useful advice in this book.

Recommended for everyone. Highly recommended for those new to the business of writing.

Gretchen Craig is the author of Always and Forever, a historical novel with romantic elements set in antebellum Louisiana. The sequel, Ever My Love, will be released from Kensington Zebra in May, 2007. Read the first chapter of Always and Forever on Gretchen’s website at www.gretchencraig.com .