Writing Articles That Get Published

Non-fiction writing is meant to be published. It’s not something that you create to please yourself or your friends. It’s writing that you share with a number of readers, perhaps thousands. Unlike short fiction, which often gets stashed in a drawer incomplete, articles should go straight from your computer to either a print publication or online.

The neat thing about articles is that you can write and publish them even if you’re not planning to write for a living but just want to promote a product or service of yours or your company.

If you’re not writing articles yet, even if you write fiction, here are three reasons you should consider it:

•  They’re an easy way to gain credibility in your subject field.
•  They can drive quality traffic to your Web site or sales page.
•  You can get paid to write them. 

So what’s the secret that all non-fiction writers use to guarantee that their articles get published? You don’t have to have a genie in a bottle granting three wishes to succeed. All you need do is follow these simple steps to prepare yourself before you begin to write.

Choose the right type of article for the purpose.
All articles can be classified in one of these types: advice, how-to, profile, and review. Each has a specific purpose and must be written differently to correspond to its intended purpose. 

Know the direction of your article.
Before you begin, you need to know the direction your article will take. Once you know that, you need to ensure that every word you write supports that direction.

Define the specific thought, feeling, or action you want to stimulate in your readers.
Just like advertising people do when writing good direct-response copy, you want to think about the purpose of your article. Do you want your readers to feel inspired? Visit a Web site or purchase a product? Become more informed on a subject?

Note how your article will help your readers.
This step is similar to defining the benefits of the product or service you’re selling in a sales letter. It’s critical, because along with helping you write the article, the list of benefits will reveal if it’s worthwhile for you to write it. Make a list of the benefits your article will provide your readers. Some people say you should have at least six, but you don’t need to include that many if the ones you do include are strong.

Include useful instruction on your topic.
Identify some type of instruction you can give your readers. Just like with a sales letter, you want to engage them. Everyone likes to learn something new. Useful instruction ensures that that will happen.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that every article you write needs to be a “how-to.” The instruction could just be as simple as explaining how a marketing process works or providing examples of what others do when faced with a similar situation.

Identify how your readers will identify with your article.
It’s important that your readers identify with what you’ve written. Have they been in similar situations? What have you told them that will help them next time? As much as you want to engage your readers, you also want them to identify themselves as people who will benefit from the advice or instructions given in your article.

Answer the questions your readers will ask themselves.
As interactive as Facebook and other social media sites are, readers may find it hard to seek you out to get answers to questions that may arise as they read your article. To help make sure that you include answers to some of the frequently asked questions in your article, you should make a list of them to use as a guide before you begin writing.

The next time you sit down to write an article, create a worksheet for it and fill in the details before you begin writing. Not only will this help you to write your article faster, it will also guarantee that the content will be directed to your readers—and that’s what makes an article publishable.

Time is of the Essence

One thing you have on your side as a freelance writer is time. It can work for you or against you. Essentially, it’s all about how you play your cards—what you do with your time.  Play them right and you win. Play them wrong and you lose. But there’s always that constant of time.

You have plenty of time available. But does it seems to fly by more quickly than you’d like? That may be because you probably squander your precious working time. Realistically, you can’t write for hours and hours. The quality of your work will suffer, and your body will rebel.   

During an average workday, a writer’s work load consists of various important as well as less important items. Much of your time involves sending and receiving information. During the long hours you work, you’ll be doing a lot of fragmented things. Does this sound like your typical work day?

You need to be realistic when it comes to using your time wisely. Don’t take on too much, or you’ll set yourself up to fail. Only you know how much you’re capable of handling. Overestimating the number of projects you can handle at any one time will surely lead to disappointment. And if you keep that up, it will be more difficult to become more productive.

One of today’s biggest problems for writers is Email and varied other electronic distractions. If you receive lots of mail, you may find yourself taking care of it instead of your writing. It’s easy to procrastinate. And then there’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, to name a few of the social media distractions facing all of us daily. They’re addictive. And as with your Email, you may find yourself spending more time on them than on your writing. Set aside down time to take care of these tasks.

You may want to check your mail the first thing in the morning, then at a couple of specific other times during the day. But limit the time you spend with it. Before you know it, you could easily spend most of your morning doing basically insignificant tasks. And turn off any message or sound telling you that you have mail. That will surely draw you away from your work.

Avoid other distractions, too. Let your voice mail or answering machine take messages for you. You can call whoever called you back later. And don’t forget to turn off your cell phone. If you’re constantly checking your cell, you won’t get any work done, either.

You may also want to keep a piece of scrap paper handy on which to jot down thoughts about other projects that may pop into your head as you’re working. If you don’t, you won’t remember them later. And if you stop to pay attention to them while you’re in the midst of writing, you may find that they’ll knock you off your writing track.

Make writing a priority. But it’s also important not to write for long periods at a stretch. Take breaks every so often. Get up and walk around. Go for a walk, Do laundry. But don’t take your break at your computer. Surfing online isn’t really taking a break, and you’re body needs to get up and move around.

Schedule other duties around your writing. Write when you feel mentally sharp. That can vary from person to person. You may feel sharper earlier in the morning, so get up earlier to write. Or you may feel sharper later in the afternoon. Figure out when your mental peak occurs and work with it. Do menial tasks like cleaning or taking out the trash during your mental down time.

To help you get the most out of your time, create a daily or weekly To-Do List. (See my post “Smart To-Do Lists Get Things Done” from Sept.6, 2013). Use the A-B-C priority system. Once you have made your To Do List, place an “A” next to items of top importance, a “B” next to those less important but that still need to be done, and a “C” next to those with the least importance.  You may find that the ones with a “C” next to them may complete themselves automatically or may not need doing at all.

Schedule five minutes of review time into your day. Look at what happened yesterday, what will happen today, and what you need to do tomorrow. The more you plan out your day, the more you’ll accomplish.

If time is getting between you and your writing, start doing something about it before it’s too late.

Do You Need an Agent?

Do you need an agent? The answer could be both yes, and no. Today, with a lot of writers heading into self-publishing, over half the books published go to market without an agent’s help. Even if you work with a traditional publishing house, you can place your book without an agent.

While it’s true that every writer gains some prestige by having an agent, having one doesn’t make you any better a writer. If you don’t produce quality writing, having an agent won’t help you. Agents save editors time and money. Editors know that agents, if they’re competent, weed out the bad material, so basically an agent vets the material for the editor, so whatever an agent sends in is usually given preference in being read earlier than material that comes in “cold." But in no way does it guarantee that the work will get published.

A good agent knows which publishing houses are in the market for what sort of book or project. He or she knows which publisher will release which rights and what the probable bottom line on other negotiations will be. And agents like to deal with certain editors.

A good agent should also be a good friend who can also be objective. He or she will be part salesman, part lawyer, part literary critic, and part father/mother-confessor.  Agents get calls from writers who can't pay their bills, from writers who are drunk or who have been arrested for one thing or another, and from writers who just want to hear a reassuring voice.

Of course, once you place your book or book proposal in an agent’s hands, you may hear nothing for a long time. Busy agents are in constant touch with those who buy ideas, books, movies, scripts for TV miniseries, book excerpts, and subsidiary rights, as well as with their clients. And remember, you won’t be the agent’s only client.

What agents are good for is negotiating through the maze of book contracts and subsidiary rights, both foreign and domestic. These include sales to book clubs, special sales, film and T.V. options, syndication and reprint rights, and so on. Depending on the arrangement you make, your agent may handle all of your works, only your books, or only certain kinds of books. Some agents will tell you at the beginning what they’ll handle and what they won't. If they don't, ask.

You may want to give an agent only certain kinds of writing and sell the rest yourself. Some writers feel the advantage of a large literary agency lies in the specialists who negotiate film or T.V. rights which can be lucrative. But most good agents who have been in the business any length of time will have some sort of representation in this highly specialized area. It's rare  these days for agents to handle magazine articles or short stories. If they do, it’s usually because you’ve made money for them through your books and have gained some notoriety.

Agents also help negotiate solutions to conflicts between you and your publisher. They push for timely payment of advances and royalties. They keep accurate records of your sales. Some agents are also lawyers, or have lawyers in their company, and can review alleged abuses by a publisher, alert a writer to possible problems stemming from something he is about to publish, and act as a knowledgeable go-between for the writer. Some agents act as middleman by finding the right author to write a book on an idea an editor or publisher has.

Should you attempt to publish your book with a traditional book publisher? Even if you manage to get an editor’s okay, you may want to consider getting an agent to handle the contract. Book contracts can be sticky business. In fact, some publishers have been known to send outrageous contracts to beginning writers, who don’t know any better. Book contracts can be 30 pages or more with lots of fine print—important fine print that if not read correctly and dealt with could end up costing you a lot of money in lost subsidiary rights and even fees. A good example is requiring you to create an index for a non-fiction book—something you’ll end up paying for out of your advance.

And while it’s possible to sell a book on your own, you may end up spending a large part of your time doing so—time you could have spent actually writing. It’s for this reason that an agent’s 10 percent is often worth it.

Taking Stock

For many writers, the New Year means a chance for a new beginning. For others, it offers a time to reflect on what happened during the past year. Whichever one it is for you, the New Year offers a time to set new goals and analyze your situation. Just as retailers set aside the month of January to take stock of their inventory, so should you take stock of not only what you wrote and published in the last year, but accomplishments you achieved and problems you need to solve.

To move forward, you have to plan ahead. Recognize problems early on—set down goals you want to reach, obstacles you need to overcome, and the resources you have at your disposal. Doing all of these things is almost as good as solving the problems, themselves.

No general ever goes into battle without some sort of plan. Military commanders need a map marked with all their troop units’ positions and weapons in order to make fast and effective decisions in the heat of battle. You need to do the same in order to assess your situation and draw on the resources or ideas best suited for each situation.

First, write down the problem or direction you’d like to take, followed by the goals you need to achieve to solve that problem or get started in your new direction. Together these are known as a situation summary.

Although you can use a situation summary at any time to resolve difficult business decisions, writing up one or more of them at the beginning of the year will set you off on the right foot.

A common problem facing many freelance writers is upgrading their markets. Perhaps you’ve published several articles or short stories in local newspapers or small regional magazines, none of which pay you enough to make a living. You want to continue freelancing but to do that you’ll have to sell to more reliable, higher-paying markets. This is where a situation summary can work wonders.

To begin, jot down a short concise statement of what you’d like to do. Next you need to write down your goals—both long and short term—as well as actions you’ll need to take to reach them. Be specific. Lay out a detailed plan, including relevant dates and resources required. For each goal, write down three actions.

Following your goals and actions, you should write down the benefits of the actions you’ll be taking. Will they increase your financial bottom line, increase your work schedule flexibility, or give you peace of mind—or all three?

How much time or money will be required to achieve your goals? Will you have to spend additional time writing and marketing that might be spent with your family? Will you need to purchase new or additional computer equipment and programs? Or will you need to do a good deal of research to go in-depth with a subject?

What if what you’ve got planned doesn’t work out? List some alternative solutions and why you should stick to your main plan. Some call this “Plan B.” However, often these alternatives present other problems that make reaching your goals for the new year doubly hard.

If you’re seeking to improve your markets, you must allow a block of time to study what’s out there. Are there editors out there that you know that might help you advance your plan? List anyone and everyone who may be able to help you. Can you build on what you’re doing now? Perhaps you can spin off a new specialty from a subject that you’ve written a lot about?

Lastly, set a date to review your actions—say in a month or two. And set a date to review your short-term goals to see if you’ve reached one or all of them, most likely at the end of the first or second quarter.

A situation summary, like a business plan, should be flexible and able to be adjusted as you go. Keep an open mind. Look for the positive side of whatever develops and build on it. And if you do, you’ll definitely have a Happy New Year.