Making $$$ The Write Way A free eMagazine for writers of integrity *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ November 6, 2002 Volume 1 Number 2 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ To subscribe, and receive the FREE eBook, "So You Want to be a Travel Writer," surf here: http://www.ebookstand.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ In this issue: 1.) Letter From The Publisher---On The Home front 2.) Ask an Expert/Questions and Answers 3.) COMP-ortunity of the week 4.) Online Success-Internet Boot camp (Part 2) 5.) The Business of Writing by Duane Newcomb 6.) Editor's Pick/Reviews 7.) The Boast Post---Bragging Board of Writers Triumphs and Victories *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Making $$$ The Write Way eMagazine is a division of The Magnum Group ISSN pending. Copyright 2002 Write Spirit Publishing. All rights reserved. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Start Comping today by purchasing our best selling eBook: "BEEN THERE---COMPED THAT!" Free Travel, Dining, and Entertainment, All for the Cost of Some Ink Available at: http://www.ebookstand.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ On The Home front Carmel L. Mooney News from the "Home front" Hooray! Our premier issue went out last week. If you missed the first issue, be sure to click here for the archived issue: http://www.ebookstand.com/archive_1.html Last week we had a special on fiction from the author of "Grizzly Adams." And our Internet marketing expert started the first part of our Internet Boot Camp Series. You won't want to miss any of it! The positive responses were enormous and we appreciate all the wonderful feedback. Speaking of positives---we want to hear your writing accomplishments. It's fun and we all can encourage one another. So PLEASE---don't be shy---send us your "boasts" for the "Post a Boast" section. Remember this eMagazine is for you, the writer, author, and entrepreneur, so feel free to interact with us. We invite your contributions, boasts to post, and questions. Without you, this publication would not exist. As I peer over my computer monitor at the crimson, amber, and golden leaves outside, I can't help but feel excited about our upcoming autumn writing contest. We'll give you specifics soon, so look for upcoming details. And please, tell a friend about our eMag because the more subscribers, the more we can share valuable information to writers like you. Best autumn wishes and COMP-liments to all, Carmel *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ This week's newest COMP-ortunity Clear Blue Website: www.clear-blue.net Address: P.O. Box 2045, Olympic Valley, CA 96146 Phone: (530) 587-8931 Contact: Dan Dolan Location: Olympic valley, CA Description: Marketing representative company for small and boutique lodging properties. Coverage desired: Promoting the unique, personal experience of boutique lodging Prefers writers with: Small properties look for specific assignments prior to extending invitations. Possible comp: Case by case and decided, ultimately by the property owners *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ "Ask a Pro" Publishing/Comping/Writing Q&A "Your Questions---You Always Wanted To Ask," answered by professional writing consultant/coach/instructor, Carmel L. Mooney To ask Carmel a writing, publishing, or comping question, email her at: Carmel@ebookstand.com. Questions may be edited for length or content if necessary. Question: How long does an eBook need to be? BM, Auburn, CA Answer: eBooks tend to be shorter than regular print books although this is not a rule "in stone." Most successful eBooks range from 20-150 pages although there are many exceptions. The beauty of eBooks is that they impart information to the consumer in a tightly written and quickly accessible format. If an eBook is too long and takes too long for the consumer to download, there may be problems. So if your eBook is really long you may want to break it into separate parts. We live in the information age and eBooks fit this need perfectly. Just remember to write an eBook without fluff and to convey the information in a succinct manner. Question: I have no experience in getting published in magazines yet. What is the best way to break in quickly? JR, Skillman, NJ Answer: Two part answer---first, write what you know. You can overcome lack of experience with knowledge or experience. This will shine through in your query and your manuscript. When writing a query, focus and up-play your expertise and refrain from mentioning your lack of published credits. Secondly, start with smaller, less competitive, lower circulation and local publications that don't pay a lot at first but will provide you with a springboard and nice clips to query the larger guys. You may have to swallow your pride and take very little pay for the first 2-3 clips but then it will snowball and you'll be able to query and impress the bigger guys quickly. http://www.ebookstand.com/carmelmooney.htm To ask Carmel a writing, publishing, or comping question, email her at: Carmel@ebookstand.com. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies For Writers How to sell your publications online by Hazel Nieves, Our E-business Marketing Expert and Consultant Internet Boot camp Basics, PART 2. By: Hazel Nieves, Internet Marketing Expert Why Every Online Business Needs a Domain Getting your own domain name is one of the best things you can do for your Internet home business. People know the difference between www.mycompany.com and www.afreedomain.com/directory/~yourname/yourpage.html. By getting your own domain, you instantly get many benefits: Credibility. You look like a serious business, instead of somebody playing around on the web hoping to make a few bucks. Another advantage is with the search engines. Some search engines are starting to ignore sites hosted by free providers. One popular search engine requires the URLs of free sites to be specially emailed to them before they decide if they'll index them. Another has a safeguard in place so that only a certain number of sites hosted by a free provider may be submitted for indexing in any one day. Name branding/name recognition. It's much easier to remember a simple www.mycompany.com than one of those extra long URLs from a free domain. Email with your domain name in the address. Instead of an address like workfromhome3848@somefreedomain.com, you'll get one that says webmaster@mycompany.com. This makes it easier for the recipient of your email to connect you with your website. Better support. Because you pay some company to host your domain, you can generally expect far better customer support from them than from a free provider. How to Choose a Domain Name It's best to think of several different domain names, in case your ideal name isn't available. Try to come up with a domain name that: *Describes your business. For example, if you're in the business of building custom log homes, then try to have the words "log homes" in your domain name. *Ends with .com. You can register all sorts of different extensions such as .net or .org, but people are most familiar with .com. *Is memorable. For example, even if your company is called "Luxury Custom Log Homes", a good URL would be www.customloghomes.com or simply www.loghomes.com. Don't use the first letter of each word in your company name to get the domain www.lclh.com - it's too hard too remember. How to Register Your Domain You own a domain when you register it and pay the fee. It's always payable in advance, and non-refundable so make sure you don't make any typing mistakes when you register! The first step is to find out if your chosen domain name is available. You can do this from a number of different places online; the place I suggest is Godaddy.com Only $8.95 per year!!! Be sure if someone else registers it for you, it's in your name, not the person or company that registered it for you!!!! Hosting Definition: A service provider that provides server space for a fee on their servers which are connected to the WWW so that your website can be accessed online. In selecting a web host that will provide you with the service and features you need…remember not to choose your web host based solely on cost alone! Choosing the right web host is a decision that will affect your online business in a big way. For example, a poor hosting company that has a lot of downtime ends up costing you in lost profits. Some of the things you want to consider when choosing a web host include: *Fast connection to the Internet. Your site must load fast - one of the major reasons visitors click away from a website is slow loading time. Excellent uptime. If your web host's servers go down, then your website also goes down! That translates to lost profits. Find a web host with an excellent uptime record (for example, my host boasts 99% uptime to date!). *Site/data backups. It would be pretty devastating to lose all your hard work. Find a web host that performs daily backups. [On that note, you should also be backing up your own data on a regular basis ... it only takes a few minutes!] If you want to know who I use, shoot me an email at bizsuccess@kahi.com *Plenty of storage space. How much you need will depend on what you envision your site to be. Make sure you leave room for growth; be sure to have more than enough space for both your current and your future needs. This includes your normal web pages, graphics, scripts, and anything else you may want to use for your website. *Adequate transfer space. Every time someone views a web page, they're actually downloading data. Read the fine print in the contract to see if you are limited to a certain percentage of system resources. Web hosts may charge you extra if you go over the transfer limit. *CGI scripts. Many web hosts will provide you with some standard CGI scripts for things such as counters, forms, and passwords. Also make sure you have the ability to create and upload your own CGI scripts - you should not be restricted to what the web host offers. *Secure server capability. Secure servers allow you to transmit pages in an encrypted format. This is necessary if you plan on selling something directly from your website. Look for a web host that offers secure server capability for low or no additional costs. *Visitor stats & demographics. Analyzing your traffic is an important part of doing business online. Your web host should offer some demographics - the more, the better! Look for number of hits, number of unique visitors, referrers (where your visitors are coming from), browsers, and other such information. *Unlimited, free, and responsive customer service. Make sure you can get the help you need, when you need it. It can be very frustrating if you run into a problem and can't find anyone to help you! With a good web host you won't need support services very often, but when you do you want to be able to contact someone right away. *Money-back guarantee. You should be able to try out your web host and get your money back if you are unsatisfied with them for any reason. Many web hosts offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Next week in Part 3 we'll look at more e-commerce: ---Hazel Nieves, expert on Internet Marketing and Online business success is owner of Web Development Company, Sierra Technology Solutions. Inc. She has 20 years experience in sales, marketing, and technology and is a committed crusader in helping take the confusion out of taking your business online. You can Contact Hazel at 530-367- 2915 or customerservice@sierratechnologysolutions.com Special Offer! Writers Special E-biz Website Package Turn-key Package Includes: *5 Custom Pages *Shopping Cart (up to 10 products) *Secure Server *One year hosting service *Uses your own domain *Up to 15 Email accounts *Attractive Professional designs to choose from *Copyright Statement page Special Price: $ 600.00 complete Get started today with your Affordable Professional E-business website here: http://www.sierratechnologysolutions.com/writers/writers_special.htm Learn more from Hazel at: http://www.sierratechnologysolutions.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ The Business of Writing by Duane Newcomb Beginning writers and even seasoned professionals are often confused about magazine pay rates. What do you have to accept? What leeway do you have to ask for more? Let's see if we can bring some clarity to this problem from my experience. There are basically three separate situations here: Speculation. When you send in an article "on speculation," meaning that an editor is willing to look at it but not necessarily to buy, many magazines, especially the smaller publications state what the pay is in Writer's Market, and will simply send you a check for a certain amount if the article is accepted or published. You can accept this, or you can write back, explain why you feel the article is worth more, and state exactly what you want. I have been successful at this most of the time. A few times, I have lost my editor over this when I inquired about payment. In one case, a trade journal paid $250 for something I had worked extremely hard to research. When I asked for more the editor blew up and said he'd decide what to pay. When I run into someone like this I generally mark that magazine off my list because I know, in the long run, I'll never make money working for them. Assignment. After you have sold a few articles to a magazine, you should stop doing anything on speculation and ask to handle future articles on assignment. For assignments, all rates should be negotiated in advance. I make it a point to ask for either twenty percent above my last fee for that magazine or for about twenty percent above the rates states in Writer's Market. Price the query. Since I frequently write articles for magazines I've never worked for before I always state the price I want at the bottom of my query. Usually I set this price at from twenty to thirty percent above the rates the magazine says they pay. Or if I have been working for similar magazines and have already established a rate, I ask for that rate, even if the magazine says it pays less. Does this work? Of course it does for smaller magazines. Actually I don't use this system when working for major magazines. I simply negotiate the fee in advance. I have used this system for years and know that it works well for smaller publications. Don't try this, however, until you have sold quite a few articles and have confidence that you can deliver. Duane Newcomb is a literary consultant with 36 non-fiction books to his credit, over 5000 articles and more than 150 client books in print. He has taught articles and non- fiction writing courses at numerous colleges, universities and writer's conferences across the United States. Duane's: The Professional Author's Newsletter is a free monthly newsletter that is full of tips and techniques for writing, finding a publisher, and publicizing your book. Subscribe at dnew@thegrid.net and visit his Writing the Non- fiction Book web site at www.bookforce.bizland.com. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ Editor's Pick Book, Magazine, Website, and e-Book Review by Victoria Beninga, Editor This week's review: So You Want To Be A Writer By Carl Perrin As I was reading Carl Perrin's SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER, the feeling I got was one of friendly encouragement. I felt as if a group of friends and I were sitting on a comfortable couch chatting with Mr. Perrin as he answered all our questions about getting started as writers. SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER is a 109-page book packed with good common-sense advice. Mr. Perrin answers all the questions he has been asked by aspiring writers. He is very honest and includes his real-life writing experiences, even the ones that resulted in a normal part of the writing process: rejection. He doesn't talk down to the reader; instead, he writes in a casual, humorous, down-to-earth, friendly manner. He also weaves inspirational and often hilarious quotations throughout his book. Mr. Perrin writes about grammar, getting ideas, finding your niche, determining your audience, editing, markets, manuscripts, queries, rejection, editors, agents, and much more. In one example of getting ideas, he shared how he was teaching a class, realized how dull the textbook was, so wrote his own. Do you have a busy life and feel you don't have time to write? Did you know you can write anywhere at any time? Mr. Perrin reminds us how we often do writing in our heads while doing other things, such as the dishes. Do you do that? If so, you are accomplishing one of the most important aspects of writing, even if you haven't yet put anything down on paper or in the computer. If you would like answers to all your questions about getting started as a writer, you can order: SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER as a paperback or an eBook at http://www.ebookstand.com/books.grp/CA1729.html . Once you've read this book, you'll never think that washing dishes is a waste of time. Victoria Beninga * Travel Author/Columnist/Associate Editor * Travel column at http://plum.he.net/~mountan/destinationsforfamilies.htm * eBook, RV PACKING SIMPLIFIED, available at http://www.ebookstand.com/m/victoria *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ The Boast Post Don't be modest—we applaud you! Whether it's an assignment victory, a publishing accomplishment, or a writing goal achieved, we'd love to hear it. Send your boast in 50 words or less to: Carmel@ebookstand.com (may be edited for length or content) *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Coming Soon: -Guidelines, rules, topic, and prize listings for the upcoming autumn writing contest *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ It's FREE---List your inn, resort, restaurant, entertainment venue, business, or destination seeking written coverage---contact the publisher at: Carmel@ebookstand.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Making $$$ The Write Way eMagazine TO SUBSCRIBE: Send an e-mail with "subscribe" as the subject to: subscribe@ebookstand.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send an e-mail with "unsubscribe" as the subject to: unsubscribe@ebookstand.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Write Spirit Publishing P.O. Box 3405 Auburn, CA 95604 Contact us at: Carmel@ebookstand.com We welcome your comments/suggestions/requests/contributions Carmel L. Mooney, Publisher Victoria Beninga, Associate Editor http://www.ebookstand.com If our links don't work for you this may mean your E-mail program doesn't like our code. If so, please click directly from our online issue at: http://www.ebookstand.com/newsletter_archive.htm This eMagazine may be FREELY distributed to friends, discussion lists, and writing groups as long as the entire issue is included. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~