Getting Published

Submitting Your Work
Know Your Audience
Tips to Getting Published
Amazon Shorts
Resources on Writing on the Web
Page 2 - Make Your Writing the Best

Submitting Your Work

In addition to the market guides listed below, conferences may send participants a list of editors and agents who will be at their conferences. Study the lists to determine which publishers are the best for your type of writing. Then check their details in the market guides below and on their websites.

www.WritersMarket.com- a subscription Web site
www.stuartmarket.com
Christian Writers' Market Guide
The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines
Writer's Market
Writer's Market Companion
Other market guide are on their genre Web page.

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Know Your Audience

It is one of those things easily forgotten, especially by beginning writers. Who is your audience? It may seem simple, but in reality, it takes work. Here are six questions to ask before you start writing your article or book, or query or proposal:

1. Who is your audience?
2. What are their ages and gender?
3. Where are they?
4. What do they read, subscribe to, and search for on the web?
5. What associations or groups are they part of? How many of them are there?
6. How can you or a publisher reach them?

The more you know about your audience, the easier it is to write for them. Once you have targeted your audience, you will find it easier to craft your story or article with that group in mind.

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Tips to Getting Published

“Successful writing is about finding and keeping your focus. If you can't summarize your would-be manuscript (or, worse yet, one you've already written) in one line, that tells me you aren't really clear on the theme or purpose of the piece.” - Kathi Macias, author of The Train-of-thought Writing Method: Practical, User-friendly Help For Beginning Writers. 
  For more on focus, read Eating the Elephant , adapted from Kathi's book.

Join a critique group and learn from their feedback. Honest feedback here can help many times over. A face-to-face group is best, but an online group can be just as good. For more on critique groups, check out the Critique Groups Web page on this site.

Give your manuscript to a few friends for them to read. Try to have it reviewed by at least one person who knows the subject matter well.

“New writers put out feelers for what the market responds to; intermediate writers need to settle into building readership and focus for the long haul. I know many writers find this advice chafing, but choosing an audience for which you want to write several books can make all the difference between being focused and being tossed about by each breeze that occurs either within your creative spirit or with changes in the market.” - Janet Kobobel Grant, Literary Agent, Books & Such

Sally Stuart, of the Christian Writers' Market Guide, mentions several common mistakes in submitting your writing:

1. Writing when you don't know what publication you are writing for.
2. Writing when you have never read similar material in the same genre-so you don't know what is typical.
3. Writing without reviewing punctuation rules first. Meaning that you consistently misuse punctuation--either using the wrong punctuation or even putting it in the wrong place.

Janet Chester Bly, the author of Words to Live By For Women and God is Good All The Time, identifies 12 common beginner mistakes:

1. Weak, passive, and rambling lead sentences.
2. Too many "is, am, was, were, be, been" verbs, instead of "ram, rush, rankle, rage, revolt, reel, etc."
3. Over-use of adverbs.
4. Wrong timing-haven't worked through the emotional issues in the subject to be of objective help to the reader.
5. Sloppy punctuation and phrasing.
6. Couldn't make a passive verb active if they wanted to, because they don't know which word's the verb.
7. Choosing a topic that's been done to death, with no fresh slant.
8. No key focus--jumps from one thought to another.
9. Repetitious words within close proximity.
10. Too few or no personal anecdotes.
11. Going way over the word limit.
12. Wimpy titles.

“Showing and telling provide the same information, but the impact on the reader is different. To tell is to inform from a distance, such as when you provide description or backstory, or explain an event. Showing doesn't deal with abstraction. It creates an image in the reader's mind of an event happening to real people in real time at a specific place through the use of active nouns and verbs and details that engage the senses.” - Bharti Kirchner, The Writer, August 2005

Other tips include:

1. Set it aside for a spell. Often coming back to a piece will help you see how to make it better.
2. Eliminate passive voice from your writing. A good article by Dianne Butts is What is Passive Voice on her Web site.

Consider using a manuscript critique service or an editorial service. These can be found at the back pages of Writer's Digest and The Writer magazines. Here are several well-known services:

• Sally Stuart 
• The Christian Communicator Manuscript Critique Service

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Amazon Shorts

Amazon Shorts are short stories, of 2,000 to 10,000 words, priced at 49 cents. They can be read online, printed, or emailed. Writing an Amazon Short on a topic that helps solve problems is a good way to get your writing known.

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Resources on Writing on the Web

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Making Your Writing the Best