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The Road to Riches – Or at Least Success - In writing
(how to become a published author)
Getting published is the first step on the road to becoming a writer. It’s an exciting day when you receive your first paycheck for something you wrote. It’s a stamp of approval on your ability to write the meaning of the everyday for the general public. If you want to know how to become a published author, read on. It can be a difficult and frustrating road, but the destination is well worth the journey.
Starting Small
The first thing to remember when wondering how to become a published author is that beginning should look like a beginning. Don’t expect instant recognition or huge payment for your first efforts in the writing world. You will learn as you continue to write and get feedback. Don’t always expect feedback either. You will have to become your own critic to some extent. The following list includes great opportunities for publication as you improve your writing skills.
Newsletters
As you learn how to become a published author, your first lesson may be that you won’t always get paid. When you are first starting out, your best opportunities may be with free publications that only accept donated work. Many newsletters are created by non-profit organizations. They need donated time from several sources in order to keep the public informed about their work. You could start your practice there. You can also start the process towards name recognition.
Newspapers
Newspapers are also a good place to begin your publications. Reporting jobs are difficult to land and may not be worth the time and effort that they require, but you can start with letters to the editor for great practice. You’ll see your name in print if you can write a clear letter addressing relevant topics. That could lead you to a relationship with the editor so that you can move into a few freelance jobs.
Magazines
As you query magazines for possible publication opportunities, you will do well to include some of your already published work. Whether you’ve been compensated or not, your name in print along with some representative writing will help you get an interview with a magazine editor. Now we can talk about how to become a published author for money. Magazines start writers at low wages with the opportunity to increase.
Online Publications
Online publications work in much the same way. You will probably find job postings on job boards. If you can demonstrate that you have been published somewhere before your chances of landing a paid job will increase.
Anthologies
As your skills improve, you will be able to step into jobs with books. Anthologies are filled with skillfully written pieces along some subject line. You will need to use all of your capabilities you have learned so far as in writing for an audience and creating a tone acceptable to the publication. If you can do that, you will start to enter into the world of books. You may want to stop there, or you may want to take your work further.
Books
Writing your own book will take time and work. As you think about how to become a published author, remember that you do not necessarily have to become a book author. Writers work in all fields, and some are limited to one or two. If you have enough motivation and capability, book writing can be a lucrative field to enter into. If you’d rather stick to short term projects though, stick with the magazines and other similar publications.
If you need more information about how to become a published author, check out specific information about any of the above genres. The internet is a great source, but you can also support other writers monetarily by visiting your local book store.
Conducting a Self-Evaluation After Getting Fired Sometimes life is hard and when you get fired, it gets even harder. In a country where employee turnover is high and there are no laws to protect you at your work place, potentially anybody is at risk to be fired. In general, that is true, but companies usually only fire a person that has done his or her job improperly, or is not qualified for his or her job any more. Therefore after you get fired, it is time that you conduct a self-evaluation. First of all, you need to make sure you know the reason why you have been fired. Do not just assume, you know why you have been fired. Make sure that your employer tells you the exact reasons why he has fired you. A self-evaluation as to whether the employer is right and whether you might have to work on yourself can only be done after you know why the company has told you to leave. If it was tardiness and absence of work that has gotten you fired, you need to be self critical enough to see that you need to be on time and be at work every day that you are not taking a vacation day. Keeping a job means playing by the rules and these rules do include times that you have to be a t work if you want to keep the job. When your boss told you, that you are not accomplishing your work or you are not qualified for the position, think back and try to find out why he might have said that. Did you deliver your work on time? Was it correct, mostly without any problems and errors? If that is not the case, then perhaps your boss was right and maybe you were not qualified enough to do the job. It might be that you need some more training or some more classes at the university to be able to do your job right. Or maybe you have just chosen a job that is not for you. When you are conducting that self-evaluation, make sure you are not too hypercritical. If it clearly was your fault that you got fired, you need to improve yourself and the personality traits that have led to the firing. Sometimes even though your boss gave you an explanation why you have been fired, you might not agree with the reason you have gotten fired from your company. Yes, sometimes these reasons might not be right. Since this is a society where anybody can get fired, maybe you have been fired because your boss did not like you and he made up some dubious reason for firing you. This is why you have to conduct a self-evaluation to make sure if what you were told is the truth. A self-evaluation might also lead you to the conclusion that you need to choose a different profession than the one you have been in. Maybe it took to get you fired to ser you in the right direction and at some point in your future you might actually thank that boss of yours that he had fired you. Otherwise you might have never found the job that you were destined for and would have been miserable doing the job you were doing. Unhappy employees are not good for a company and some bosses are good enough to realize that. Whatever the reason is that you got fired, make sure you find the reason and check with yourself how much truth lies within that reason and do you have to change to be a better employee and be able to keep your next job. News is News All Over the World (writing newspaper articles) Writing newspaper articles is a fun and interesting line of work. Newspapers exist in big cities, small towns, within corporations and on college campuses. Newspapers are printed for special interest groups as well as for world and national news. There are free newspapers and papers that appear for sale on newsstands every day. With such a large variety of newspaper types printed, there are myriads of possible opportunities for writing newspaper articles. There are some basic rules to writing articles for any newspaper and there are also some specific aspects to know about each type. Writing Newspaper Articles In general, to write a newspaper article there are a few rules that apply across the board. First, the news has to be relevant. Because newspapers make up a genre of writing that is constantly refreshing itself, there is no room for common knowledge or historical pieces. The exception is if those kinds of writing serve to connect to a current issue or event. People who read newspapers want to know what’s happening now. For that reason, writing newspaper articles often involves relatively high pressure to get the latest news written each and every day. There are some low-pressure possibilities in writing newspaper articles though. The Infrequent Print Several newspapers are only printed weekly or even monthly. In small towns that must get their papers printed off-site, it is not feasible to create a paper each and every day. That means that there’s a week, every week, to get the news in and written. Another example of low pressure writing for newspapers is working for a free publication. Free newspapers are often geared to a special interest group. Since that group is not paying for its paper, they may only receive the interesting tidbits once a month. Writing for these kinds of newspapers becomes focused on creativity and niche writing because the current events will have already reached the audience through more frequent publications. The Daily News from Top to Bottom The most reliable and frequent publications are those of big, national newspapers. The staffs are very large and are able to print very clean copies of very full newspapers. By clean, that means without errors. Smaller papers are also printed daily, but they seem almost insignificant except to the people of the local community. They receive national news second hand and run very small staffs. Interestingly enough, none of these daily papers are really about the news. Of course that is where most of the effort lies and that is the reason that people buy the papers, but it is not the root of a newspaper. Writing newspaper articles is a job heavily dependent on the advertising industry. A newspaper will only be as large as there are ads to pay for it. Newspapers do not make their money at the newsstand. They pay the bills and the employees with money from advertisers. On Campus News Working for a university paper will not be representative in the area of newspaper advertising. While some businesses do pay for ads in university papers, the funding comes from the school. If for some reason there were no advertisers one day, the paper would still go out. University publications are much more focused on the development of the students than making a successful business. Most campus papers are free and are created by students. School is a great place to get started in writing newspaper articles. The environment is challenging, but nurturing at the same time. The deadlines and standards still exist, but the writer gets great encouragement and training through the work. After working for a college paper, it will be much easier to get a job with newspapers of the cities and towns. Writing newspaper articles can be a great job. There are so many opportunities to get into writing that it is hard to pass them up. Some jobs may be very difficult to get, but others will be steps towards increasing writing success. |