Ever since the Internet appeared on the scene, publishing on it has been given a bad rap. Some publishers refuse to publish any writing that’s previously appeared on a Web site. Hogwash!
The truth of the matter is that many of them fear the Internet, seeing it as prime competition. And rightly so. Big city newspapers, for example, are falling like a stack of dominos. They say they just can’t compete with sites that offer their content for free. Philadelphia’s leading newspaper, The Inquirer, and its sister publication, The Daily News, recently went on the auction block, and even though a group of investors won the bidding, their future is still uncertain.
Many periodical publishers cling to the notion that people need to hold some sort of paper in their hands to read it. In fact, recent surveys have shown that nearly 50 percent of readers get their news and other information online or through T.V. As the older generation gradually dies off, the younger one will increasingly turn to electronic media to satisfy their informational needs.
The fact is no one–editors, public relations people, and, yes, even writers–recognize the Internet as a legitimate publishing medium. One reason is that essentially non-writers communicate on it. And even if a professional writer publishes pieces on Web sites, there’s no way to tell the difference. Sure, the writing is most likely better quality, but there’s no definite line as there is in print publishing.
Secondly, few Web sites pay little or nothing for contributed work. Most site owners, beyond the corporate sites, are people with a special interest and are not professional editors or writers. And that’s the rub. Sites that do offer writers opportunities for publication don’t have any approval process, so they accept everything. Someone has got to decide which pieces are good or not before posting them.
What’s needed, both for the publishing industry and professional writers, is a professional publishing division of the Internet–a section with e-zines (electronic magazines) controlled by editors that pay writers rates comparable to print publications.
Unfortunately, Web site owners are a greedy lot. Even if they do have advertising on their sites, they don’t want to share the revenue from it with writers. Let’s face it, an e-zine wouldn’t have the high printing costs associated with print, so they could divert that income to paying good writers. Plus, the publications can easily be subscription controlled. And the subscriptions wouldn’t have to cost as much as print because of no printing costs.
The process of submission to these e-zines would be the same for writers. They would still send queries or manuscripts. They’d get paid on acceptance or on publication–or like some cheap publishers, a long time after publication.
It’s important that everyone–editors and writers, alike–recognize the Internet as a bonafide medium of communication. It may not happen immediately. But it will happen.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Put a Spin on It
People now associate the word “spin” with the public relations hype that surrounds the President or other public figures. In that context it means to spin the information in the opposite direction to distract the public from the actual problem at hand. In writing, it has a very different–and positive–meaning.
I’m sure you’re familiar with spin-offs of popular T.V. series. These are new shows in which a character from the popular one plays a leading role. The NCIS series is a good example. Some of the characters from the original show occasionally appear in the new show to provide continuity. But in lots of spin-offs, the new show takes on a life of its own. And so it is with writing, especially for freelance writers.
Spin-offs of new articles, short stories, lectures, and whatever else your creative mind can think of are what make freelance writing interesting and economically possible. Too many beginning writers work on one project at a time and after it’s finished, they don’t do anything with all the research that went into it. That research is a gold mine of information. It can provide the facts for a series of articles, the background for a short story or a play, or the material for a lecture.
As I worked through the last 25 years, I learned to gather as much information as possible so that I could write for different markets and in different media. On one trip along 1,000 miles of the Oregon Trail, I gathered enough information for 16 articles. But I didn’t stop there. I’ve also put together two lectures on the pioneers, and wrote a children’s story, all based on that same research.
Spin-offs are easy. They can take the shape of sidebars, which later you can turn into stand-alone articles. Sometimes, the big picture is just too big–too broad, which forces you to divide it into parts. There’s always a market for short pieces. They right in front of most writers, but they don’t see them.
Writing a book is a BIG project. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work, especially in the research department. I’ve written a book on restoring and refinishing antiques. From that I’ve spun off articles, blog posts, short pieces for my antiques Web site, a seminar, and finally a continuing education course.
While you won’t get rich doing this, it certainly helps pay the bills. So start spinning and see what develops.
I’m sure you’re familiar with spin-offs of popular T.V. series. These are new shows in which a character from the popular one plays a leading role. The NCIS series is a good example. Some of the characters from the original show occasionally appear in the new show to provide continuity. But in lots of spin-offs, the new show takes on a life of its own. And so it is with writing, especially for freelance writers.
Spin-offs of new articles, short stories, lectures, and whatever else your creative mind can think of are what make freelance writing interesting and economically possible. Too many beginning writers work on one project at a time and after it’s finished, they don’t do anything with all the research that went into it. That research is a gold mine of information. It can provide the facts for a series of articles, the background for a short story or a play, or the material for a lecture.
As I worked through the last 25 years, I learned to gather as much information as possible so that I could write for different markets and in different media. On one trip along 1,000 miles of the Oregon Trail, I gathered enough information for 16 articles. But I didn’t stop there. I’ve also put together two lectures on the pioneers, and wrote a children’s story, all based on that same research.
Spin-offs are easy. They can take the shape of sidebars, which later you can turn into stand-alone articles. Sometimes, the big picture is just too big–too broad, which forces you to divide it into parts. There’s always a market for short pieces. They right in front of most writers, but they don’t see them.
Writing a book is a BIG project. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work, especially in the research department. I’ve written a book on restoring and refinishing antiques. From that I’ve spun off articles, blog posts, short pieces for my antiques Web site, a seminar, and finally a continuing education course.
While you won’t get rich doing this, it certainly helps pay the bills. So start spinning and see what develops.
Friday, April 16, 2010
The Money Migraine
Collecting the money owed to you can be frustrating and time consuming. In this business, we call it a “money migraine.” Some markets pay on time all the time, other are just the opposite. I got paid for my first article exactly one year after I sent it to a magazine. At the time, I was so excited about being published in a national magazine that it didn’t dawn on me that if I wrote full time that I would starve if I had to wait that long to be paid.
The better markets out there do pay on time and do respect writers. But some of the middle markets and, especially those at the bottom of the ladder, drag their feet. One magazine even offered me free advertising for the $1,500 they owed me for several articles. Now why would I advertise in their magazine?
The first step in timely payment is to find out when you’re supposed to be paid. Don’t hesitate to ask a publishers when they pay writers. Some pay on acceptance, some on publication, and some after publication. Knowing when you should expect payment will help you know if you should take further steps.
If payment time passes, send a second invoice, accompanied by a friendly reminder. Hopefully, the publisher may have just forgotten. Editors are busy and sometimes overworked. Or perhaps your invoice got misplaced. If you receive no answer or money after 10 days, it’s most likely that you’re being ignored.
Send another letter, reminding the editor that you met your obligations and insist that the publisher meet his or hers. If not answer again, it’s time for you to call. But often this has no effect.
What should you do now? If all else fails, you can take a publisher to court-–small claims court, that is. The only problem with this is that you have to do that in the county or town in which they’re located. For a small fee, you can file a claim or have someone locally file one for you. There’s a good chance you’ll get the money owed you, but you’ll have lost that market.
In my experience, nearly all publishers eventually do send payment–albeit very late. Continuing to work with a slow-paying publisher is a decision you’ll have to make. Sometimes, it’s a one-time event, but there are publishers who operate by the seat of their pants. You’ll have to decide if it’s worth continuing to work with that publisher or should you put your energies into finding a new one.
The better markets out there do pay on time and do respect writers. But some of the middle markets and, especially those at the bottom of the ladder, drag their feet. One magazine even offered me free advertising for the $1,500 they owed me for several articles. Now why would I advertise in their magazine?
The first step in timely payment is to find out when you’re supposed to be paid. Don’t hesitate to ask a publishers when they pay writers. Some pay on acceptance, some on publication, and some after publication. Knowing when you should expect payment will help you know if you should take further steps.
If payment time passes, send a second invoice, accompanied by a friendly reminder. Hopefully, the publisher may have just forgotten. Editors are busy and sometimes overworked. Or perhaps your invoice got misplaced. If you receive no answer or money after 10 days, it’s most likely that you’re being ignored.
Send another letter, reminding the editor that you met your obligations and insist that the publisher meet his or hers. If not answer again, it’s time for you to call. But often this has no effect.
What should you do now? If all else fails, you can take a publisher to court-–small claims court, that is. The only problem with this is that you have to do that in the county or town in which they’re located. For a small fee, you can file a claim or have someone locally file one for you. There’s a good chance you’ll get the money owed you, but you’ll have lost that market.
In my experience, nearly all publishers eventually do send payment–albeit very late. Continuing to work with a slow-paying publisher is a decision you’ll have to make. Sometimes, it’s a one-time event, but there are publishers who operate by the seat of their pants. You’ll have to decide if it’s worth continuing to work with that publisher or should you put your energies into finding a new one.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Can You Change a Contract?
Your chance of making a profit from a book or article hedges on the contract you sign for it. Contracts can be as short as a page or as long as 30 pages. Some publishers call them agreements, but they’re contracts, nonetheless. It pays to read them carefully because whatever is included in them is binding for both parties.
Publishers have revised their contracts since the Internet came into prominent use to garner every business advantage. In today’s market, that means electronic sales, among other things. Publishing to their Web sites or publishing your work as an ebook are options they never had before. And with the success of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s ebook reader, those options have stepped right out front. This applies both to books and article, but not as much to short stories.
Signing a contract put you into a legal binding agreement . However, it also binds the publisher into the same agreement. Once, a magazine I wrote for sent me contracts for every article. In it was a line about electronic rights. I changed the wording to say I wouldn’t sell them or sometimes, I said I’d sell them for 10-15 percent of the article fee. His editor agreed. The publisher ignored the changes and published them on his Web site anyway. After two years and many articles later, I called him on it, and his lawyer said he basically didn’t have a leg to stand on because he had ignored the original contract changes. The publisher ended up paying me over $400 in back fees.
Another time, a client, who had hired me to write an extensive four-page advertorial for a big-city paper, ignored the phrase in it which said he had only one full edit of the manuscript. This was to prevent him from changing his mind lots of times before publication–a habit of business executives. In the end, he had to pay me 100 percent more because each additional edit cost him $1.00 per word. Again, his lawyer said he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
You can change any of the wording in a contract before you sign it–as long as the publisher agrees. A publisher usually begins with a standard legal contract, then adds whatever details he or she needs for the individual project. A standard contract gives all the monetary and legal advantages to the party who draws it up. In the above examples, these were the magazine publisher and myself. You, as the writer, have the right to change anything in the contract, should you not find it in your best interest.
If this is your first contract with a particular publisher, you don’t have the bargaining power to change much. But as you continue working on projects for that same publisher, your bargaining power increases.
And it isn’t just about your advance, should you be writing a book. Other items that you can change include deadline dates, reversion of rights back to you after publication (used mostly for articles), electronic rights (Web site and ebooks), royalty percentages, subsidiary rights (T.V., film, worldwide rights), and more.
So the next time you receive a contract from a publisher, read it very carefully. In fact, make a copy and underline or highlight sections on the copy that you find questionable. Don’t hesitate to ask for changes. Remember, it’s in your best interest. The publisher already has theirs covered.
Publishers have revised their contracts since the Internet came into prominent use to garner every business advantage. In today’s market, that means electronic sales, among other things. Publishing to their Web sites or publishing your work as an ebook are options they never had before. And with the success of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s ebook reader, those options have stepped right out front. This applies both to books and article, but not as much to short stories.
Signing a contract put you into a legal binding agreement . However, it also binds the publisher into the same agreement. Once, a magazine I wrote for sent me contracts for every article. In it was a line about electronic rights. I changed the wording to say I wouldn’t sell them or sometimes, I said I’d sell them for 10-15 percent of the article fee. His editor agreed. The publisher ignored the changes and published them on his Web site anyway. After two years and many articles later, I called him on it, and his lawyer said he basically didn’t have a leg to stand on because he had ignored the original contract changes. The publisher ended up paying me over $400 in back fees.
Another time, a client, who had hired me to write an extensive four-page advertorial for a big-city paper, ignored the phrase in it which said he had only one full edit of the manuscript. This was to prevent him from changing his mind lots of times before publication–a habit of business executives. In the end, he had to pay me 100 percent more because each additional edit cost him $1.00 per word. Again, his lawyer said he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
You can change any of the wording in a contract before you sign it–as long as the publisher agrees. A publisher usually begins with a standard legal contract, then adds whatever details he or she needs for the individual project. A standard contract gives all the monetary and legal advantages to the party who draws it up. In the above examples, these were the magazine publisher and myself. You, as the writer, have the right to change anything in the contract, should you not find it in your best interest.
If this is your first contract with a particular publisher, you don’t have the bargaining power to change much. But as you continue working on projects for that same publisher, your bargaining power increases.
And it isn’t just about your advance, should you be writing a book. Other items that you can change include deadline dates, reversion of rights back to you after publication (used mostly for articles), electronic rights (Web site and ebooks), royalty percentages, subsidiary rights (T.V., film, worldwide rights), and more.
So the next time you receive a contract from a publisher, read it very carefully. In fact, make a copy and underline or highlight sections on the copy that you find questionable. Don’t hesitate to ask for changes. Remember, it’s in your best interest. The publisher already has theirs covered.
Can You Change a Contract?
Your chance of making a profit from a book or article hedges on the contract you sign for it. Contracts can be as short as a page or as long as 30 pages. Some publishers call them agreements, but they’re contracts, nonetheless. It pays to read them carefully because whatever is included in them is binding for both parties.
Publishers have revised their contracts since the Internet came into prominent use to garner every business advantage. In today’s market, that means electronic sales, among other things. Publishing to their Web sites or publishing your work as an ebook are options they never had before. And with the success of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s ebook reader, those options have stepped right out front. This applies both to books and article, but not as much to short stories.
Signing a contract put you into a legal binding agreement . However, it also binds the publisher into the same agreement. Once, a magazine I wrote for sent me contracts for every article. In it was a line about electronic rights. I changed the wording to say I wouldn’t sell them or sometimes, I said I’d sell them for 10-15 percent of the article fee. His editor agreed. The publisher ignored the changes and published them on his Web site anyway. After two years and many articles later, I called him on it, and his lawyer said he basically didn’t have a leg to stand on because he had ignored the original contract changes. The publisher ended up paying me over $400 in back fees.
Another time, a client, who had hired me to write an extensive four-page advertorial for a big-city paper, ignored the phrase in it which said he had only one full edit of the manuscript. This was to prevent him from changing his mind lots of times before publication–a habit of business executives. In the end, he had to pay me 100 percent more because each additional edit cost him $1.00 per word. Again, his lawyer said he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
You can change any of the wording in a contract before you sign it–as long as the publisher agrees. A publisher usually begins with a standard legal contract, then adds whatever details he or she needs for the individual project. A standard contract gives all the monetary and legal advantages to the party who draws it up. In the above examples, these were the magazine publisher and myself. You, as the writer, have the right to change anything in the contract, should you not find it in your best interest.
If this is your first contract with a particular publisher, you don’t have the bargaining power to change much. But as you continue working on projects for that same publisher, your bargaining power increases.
And it isn’t just about your advance, should you be writing a book. Other items that you can change include deadline dates, reversion of rights back to you after publication (used mostly for articles), electronic rights (Web site and ebooks), royalty percentages, subsidiary rights (T.V., film, worldwide rights), and more.
So the next time you receive a contract from a publisher, read it very carefully. In fact, make a copy and underline or highlight sections on the copy that you find questionable. Don’t hesitate to ask for changes. Remember, it’s in your best interest. The publisher already has theirs covered.
Publishers have revised their contracts since the Internet came into prominent use to garner every business advantage. In today’s market, that means electronic sales, among other things. Publishing to their Web sites or publishing your work as an ebook are options they never had before. And with the success of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s ebook reader, those options have stepped right out front. This applies both to books and article, but not as much to short stories.
Signing a contract put you into a legal binding agreement . However, it also binds the publisher into the same agreement. Once, a magazine I wrote for sent me contracts for every article. In it was a line about electronic rights. I changed the wording to say I wouldn’t sell them or sometimes, I said I’d sell them for 10-15 percent of the article fee. His editor agreed. The publisher ignored the changes and published them on his Web site anyway. After two years and many articles later, I called him on it, and his lawyer said he basically didn’t have a leg to stand on because he had ignored the original contract changes. The publisher ended up paying me over $400 in back fees.
Another time, a client, who had hired me to write an extensive four-page advertorial for a big-city paper, ignored the phrase in it which said he had only one full edit of the manuscript. This was to prevent him from changing his mind lots of times before publication–a habit of business executives. In the end, he had to pay me 100 percent more because each additional edit cost him $1.00 per word. Again, his lawyer said he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
You can change any of the wording in a contract before you sign it–as long as the publisher agrees. A publisher usually begins with a standard legal contract, then adds whatever details he or she needs for the individual project. A standard contract gives all the monetary and legal advantages to the party who draws it up. In the above examples, these were the magazine publisher and myself. You, as the writer, have the right to change anything in the contract, should you not find it in your best interest.
If this is your first contract with a particular publisher, you don’t have the bargaining power to change much. But as you continue working on projects for that same publisher, your bargaining power increases.
And it isn’t just about your advance, should you be writing a book. Other items that you can change include deadline dates, reversion of rights back to you after publication (used mostly for articles), electronic rights (Web site and ebooks), royalty percentages, subsidiary rights (T.V., film, worldwide rights), and more.
So the next time you receive a contract from a publisher, read it very carefully. In fact, make a copy and underline or highlight sections on the copy that you find questionable. Don’t hesitate to ask for changes. Remember, it’s in your best interest. The publisher already has theirs covered.
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