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Editor’s THOUGHTS

PITCHING AND THE AUTHOR ONLINE PRESENCE  

I'm receiving many pitches from writers who wish to publish an article in this newsletter. I'm honored so many have heard about FundsforWriters! Many, however, I reject without even reading the submitted article. Am I that nasty or arrogant? Am I a bigot? (Yeah, heard that one.) Am I against new writers? (Heard that, too.) I hope not, but just so you understand, here are the reasons I issue quick rejections. Most of you who have been writing for a while already understand . . . but just in case . . . 

1) The submission exceeds the 500-600 word count.

Believe it or not, an editor will use a word count requirement to just cull the slush pile. No, they do not want to cut it for you. No, they don't want to spend uncompensated time to teach the writer what part of the piece is the most important. Yes, I've been told by someone that they overwrote it so I could whittle it down to what I needed.

2) The headline tells me the subject isn't right.

FundsforWriters receives pitches about falling in love, abusive parents, international travel, and how to make money (without mentioning once about writing). Um, read the guidelines and know the publication.

3) The piece is elementary and very general.

"How to make money writing." Sorry . . . I like to think we are beyond that point at FFW. And there's no way to cover that broad a topic in a 500-word piece. Get precise and acute with details and great advice, presumably from your experience.

4) The bio is missing or the writer has no online presence. 

On this one, assuming the above three pass inspection, I might ask the writer for the bio and not reject because they didn't send one. Often, the writer has no website. Then I'll Google the writer to read other articles they've written, giving them some benefit of the doubt. (See? I try to give everyone a chance.) But when I perform a search, often there is no website, no books on Amazon; or if they have books, they have less than ten reviews or have no Author Central page. 

Lack of an online presence makes me feel like I'm on the bad end of a potential scam. Or someone is professing to be knowledgable about something when they are not. Writers who cannot walk the walk. 

FundsforWriters and C. Hope Clark love writers. But we want good material in the newsletters, because our readers need quality pieces, not something you'd find on an SEO/writing mill site. We'd like to be a site someone aspires to publish in, not a place to practice on.


 

WE HAVE 2 NEWSLETTERS - THE FREEBIE and THE PAID SUBSCRIPTION . . . 

Remember that FundsforWriters, this newsletter, is free. Send it to whomever you like and share it liberally. But if you are serious about writing income resources, and your time is limited, consider subscribing to TOTAL FundsforWriters. It comes out biweekly, with 70 contests, markets, grants, retreats, publishers, freelance gigs, magazines and more, It's huge, but it saves you a lot of time searching. It's $18.75 for a year, or 26 issues. To subscribe, simply go to www.paypal.me/chopeclark/18.75 . It will be sent to the email you used unless you specify otherwise.

NOTE TO THE WISE: Send a receipt for one of Hope's books and receive TOTAL for free.    
(**and feel free to steal this graphic for your own site!)




Take a look at our Resources page at the FundsforWriters website. Hope has read each and every one of these books, and most are still dog-eared and highlighted on her book shelf and come highly recommended. 



 

WORDS OF SUCCESS

"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." 

—John D. Rockefeller

Success Story

If you've had any sort of success from receiving FundsforWriters, we want to hear about it. Toot your own horn and ours, too!. Send no more than 150 words to hope@chopeclark.com with SUCCESS STORY in the title.

 

featured article

COURAGE TO SPEAK IS COURAGE TO SUCCEED

By Dorit Sasson

I am writing this note in May with a full and happy heart on the bus ride home from New York City where I did a two-minute pitch at the Jewish Book Conference. I’d practiced my pitch since February when I first registered for the conference almost everywhere – in the shower, with my kids, on the bus to work... everywhere.

But it’s a totally different experience when you pitch in front of a large crowd – in this case, 200 people who represented the various Jewish Community Centers among bookstores, festival organizers, bookclubs nationwide. The full-blown decision makers.

They are the ones who decide whether to fly me out to various venues around the country to talk about my book’s message of courage during their upcoming programming year. So this brings me to my main point.

If you want people to know about your book, the best way to get the word out is to speak about it. There’s something about taking a book off the “Amazon hinges” and connecting with an audience. Social media can only take you so far. People see and hear your voice. You feel excited. They sense your passion. And the word spreads.

I call this organically building a platform.

Back to basics. 

I stood on that stage and gave that pitch every ounce of my being. There was that strong warrior woman of my Israel Defense Forces past I thought I'd parked in the memoir, but that day I brought her back. To New York City. Where the Story began. 

The pitch:

“It was an accident I got inducted in the Israel Defense Forces. I had no idea what I was getting involved in. My mother, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, child prodigy, Julliard graduate who played alongside Leonard Bernstein, was terrified I’d get blown up by terrorists. She thought I was throwing my future away. 

But I wanted to prove to my Israeli father that I could be my own person away from my mother’s fears and paranoias of Israel.

So I dropped out of college and found myself in the middle of the desert with a bunch of immigrants who ridiculed and bullied me. Aerogram after aerogram, my mother pleaded with me to come home.

I got my entire company punished because I arrived late for an inspection. I struggled to complete an eighteen kilometer march for our green beret in basic training. I held down an entire camp during one of Israel’s worst snowstorms in history with just one other Russian girl from my company. Mind you, that’s a great way to bond.

As a lone IDF soldier, it was hard to stay courageous, but I managed to earn the best soldier award from then president Chaim Herzog. And I heard my mother say, “Dorit, you’re a really good kid.”

Danny Ayalon, former ambassador to the US, says this about Accidental Soldier: "A touching and courageous journey of the female immigrant experience that many readers will sympathize with."

But the magic didn’t stop with the pitch.

Groups came up to me afterwards to ask questions ranging from how did it feel to write my memoir to how did it feel to come back to the States. One woman eagerly asked if I had additional copies of the book. Her group already received their review copies, but she wanted the one copy I had to give it to four other groups in her area who wanted a speaker to talk about an Israel type experience. Wow! Talk about instant booking!

At a busy café in midtown Manhattan, I sat with my publicist, who called the experience “mind-blowing.”

I blew up that room. Faces lit up. People watched as I spoke instead of peering over their thick books of numerous author profiles and copious notes.

Through trial and error, I've learned as an author to do these three things:

Write a killer book.
Hire a killer editor.
Speak. Speak. Speak.

I know of no better way to spread the word. And it begins with having the courage and the faith to put yourself out there.

By the way, if you know of an organization or group that needs a motivational speaker to talk about issues relating to courage and faith, I’m your gal. Let’s talk.

To your book writing success, Dorit.

BIO 
Dorit Sasson is the founder of Giving Voice to Your Courage podcast and website. She supports heart-centered business owners and authors build visibility and increase engagement as thought leaders. Her groundbreaking memoir Accidental Soldier: A Memoir of Service and Sacrifice in the Israel Defense Forces is a finalist for the next Generation Indie Book Awards and Santa Fe Literary Awards and is also a widely read handbook on how to become more courageous in life.


 

COmpetitions

THE SUNDAY TIMES SHORT STORY AWARD
http://shortstoryaward.co.uk/enter
NO ENTRY FEE.
The prize, worth £30,000 to the winner, is an international award, founded in 2010, that is open to any story of up to 6,000 words written in English. Stories need to have been either previously unpublished or only published after December 31, 2015. Five authors shortlisted for the award will each receive £1,000. The prize is administered by the Society of Authors. To be eligible, the author must simply have a record of prior publication in creative writing in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Deadline September 29, 2016. 



WRITER'S BLOCK PRIZE IN POETRY
https://writersblockaward.submittable.com/submit/60675
$8 ENTRY FEE.
Louisville Literary Arts announces the third annual creative writing prize to be celebrated with a $500 prize for first place at the 2016 Writer’s Block and with publication in The Louisville Review, the literary magazine of Spalding University’s nationally distinguished low residency MFA in Writing program. Deadline September 15, 2016. Submit through Submittable up to three poems, total page number not to exceed seven pages.



PRESS 53 AWARD FOR POETRY
http://www.press53.com/Award_for_Poetry.html
$30 ENTRY FEE.
Deadline July 31, 2016. The author of the winning manuscript will receive a cash advance of $1,000, publication of the manuscript in April 2017 as a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection under a standard Press 53 book contract, a 1/4-page color ad in Poets & Writers magazine, and 10 copies of the completed book with an option to purchase unlimited copies at a discount for as long as the book is in print. 



TETHERED BY LETTERS
http://tetheredbyletters.com/submissions/contest/
$8-$15 ENTRY FEE.
There are three submission categories: 1) short stories of any genre ranging from 1,000 to 7,500 words, 2) flash fiction with a word limit of 750 words, and 3) poetry no longer than three pages. Winners of the contest will be published in a future issue of F(r)iction alongside stunning original artwork from TBL’s talented team of artists.  Short story prize $1,000. Flash fiction prize $300. Poetry prize $300. 

 

GRANTS

FLEDGLING FUND
http://www.thefledglingfund.org/apply/
Fledgling has an open rolling application process for grants to support outreach and engagement for social issue documentary film projects that have the potential to inspire positive social change around issues that affect the most vulnerable. You can submit an application online at any time and will be asked to include a description of the project, its social change goals and your plans for moving the project forward. Typically, film projects have at least a rough cut. We review proposals on a rolling basis and you will be notified of our decision within three months. Grants typically range from $10K – $25K. We support audience engagement planning and implementation. Support for planning is for building the strategy for outreach and engagement and can be used before a project is complete to prepare for its launch. Grants are NOT available to support production or post-production. 



DRUNKEN BOAT RETREAT
http://www.drunkenboat.com/retreat
Join Drunken Boat for a 10-day program bringing writers and artists from around the world together with Sardinian writers and artists for a generative and collaborative retreat. The program will culminate in the annual celebration of Grazia Deledda, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1926. Work generated during the residency will be considered for publication in a special Drunken Boat feature. The Drunken Boat Retreat in Sardinia program fee is $1,500. Several partial scholarships of $1,000 are available. In addition to access to faculty and the Sardinian delegation, the fee includes admittance to all of the program events including concerts, lectures, performances, and most excursions. The program fee does not include airfare or accommodation, though there are some accommodation-inclusive scholarships available. Some meals will be included as part of the excursions and events, but participants are expected to make their own arrangements otherwise. Apply as early as possible, but final deadline is July 15, 2016.



GEMINI INK MENTORSHOP
https://geminiink.submittable.com/SUBMIT/60838
Deadline August 15, 2016. Application fee $15. Apply to the Gemini Ink 2016 Mentorship Program and be one of four writers chosen to work one-on-one with a nationally recognized author, free of charge. Designed for individuals with busy lives, the Gemini Ink 2016 Mentorship Program offers you the flexibility to create a work environment specifically tailored to your creative needs. Over a period of six months, you will work through three drafts of your project and receive detailed, attentive feedback from your mentor, closing out your project with a public reading of your work (please note that travel is not covered by Gemini Ink). The Mentorship Program is open to writers from all 50 States.



THE HAVEN FOUNDATION
http://www.thehavenfdn.org/guidelines
The mission of The Haven Foundation is to strengthen and sustain the careers of freelance professional writers, artists and others connected with the entertainment industry across the United States (“qualified persons”). The Foundation accomplishes its mission through direct financial assistance to qualified persons, including financial support.
 

FREELANCE MARKETS

THE BINGE-WATCHING CURE
http://bingewatchingcure.com/submissions/
The Binge-Watching Cure will be an anthology of short stories of increasing size. The first story will be 100 words — anyone can read that. The next, 200 words. Then 500, then longer, all the way to novella length. We’re looking for stellar stories of various lengths for The Binge-Watching Cure. The stories must have strong characters and compelling plots. Genre fiction is okay because great fiction often crosses the genre barrier. Deadline: December 31, 2016 (or until filled). Length: Up to 25,000 words. $200 for stories under 5,000 words, $500 for stories 5,000 words or longer.



HOME SCHOOL LIFE
http://homeschoollifemag.com/writers-guidelines/
Every issue of home | school | life starts just like every one of our homeschool days: at our kitchen table, with big cups of coffee, more than a little mess, and lots and lots of conversation. home | school | life magazine reaches a smart, diverse group of thoughtful homeschool families four times a year, with information-rich issues that readers refer back to year after year. 



FUND YOUR LIFE OVERSEAS
INCOMES ABROAD
https://internationalliving.com/fund-your- life/
Five times a week readers receive a story of 500-600 words telling them about ways they can earn an income that lets them live anywhere. As with our daily postcards we can pay you $75 if we use it. But before you submit an idea to us, familiarize yourself with the style and subject matter of our Fund Your Life Overseas e-letter by signing up. We also want writers for our new publication, Incomes Abroad. This publication is designed with one goal in mind—to equip readers with an income they can take anywhere in the world. Incomes Abroad contains personal-experience articles offering plenty of practical advice on how expats can fund their new lives abroad.



JUST LABS
http://www.justlabsmagazine.com/writersguidelines
An award-winning, nationally recognized magazine that covers all aspects of the life of the Labrador retriever – your Labrador retriever. Based on the phenomenally popular book of the same name, Just Labs looks at not just life with a pet or life with a dog… but life with a Lab.
 

JOBS

WEB CONTENT EDITOR
https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/443781200/
Location Washington DC. Department of the Treasury. Pays $108,459.00 to $152,687.00 / per year. Deadline July 21, 2016. The incumbent will serve as an expert in the area of Web content; writing for the Web; Web formats, including videos, webcasts, and other multimedia; Web publishing tools, including content management systems; Web metrics; section 508 compliance for accessibility of Web content to people with disabilities; social media and the use of social media in reinforcing the messaging of an organization; and generally, using the Internet as an effective communications tool for internal and external audiences. 



FUNERAL SERVICE EXAM CONTENT WRITER
http://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=82fc5077486bd853&q=writer&l=United+States&tk=1an41djdtav9hesc&from=web
We’re currently looking for a funeral service professional to write instructional content for our study guides. We need someone to create high-quality work that will display their knowledge and experience in the field. Location New York.

publishers/agents

DARK PARK PUBLISHING
http://www.darkparkpublishing.com/submissions/
Dark Park Publishing is currently accepting well-written novels and novellas in all areas of Dark Fiction. Works can be Horror, Dark Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Western, or Dark Comedy in any genre. Complete works should be 25,000+ words for Novellas and 50,000+ words for Novels. Work must be written in English. Authors of works accepted for publication by Dark Park will receive a $150 advance, plus royalties to be paid every six months, plus ten free copies of the print edition of the book when available.



ABINGDON PRESS
http://www.abingdonpress.com/submissions.html
Abingdon Press provides resources that meet the needs of people who seek and would serve God. We produce and deliver resources for use in ministry and for individual faith development. Among these products are books (Christian living, academic, leadership), church supply items, church program resources, curriculum resources, and a host of other print and digital media. We suggest that a prospective author first submit for consideration a proposal (including short summary, intended audience, chapter outline, author biography, platform, and marketing plan) as well as 1-2 sample chapters, one of which is the first chapter. Please submit unsolicited material to submissions@umpublishing.org.



WARREN PUBLISHING
http://www.warrenpublishing.net/publishing-with-warren.html
Currently, we are accepting the following manuscripts for our 2016 publishing list: 
-Specialty subject matter that can be presented in hard cover format, such as photography, travel, cookbooks, health and fitness, inspirational and motivational, and legacy books; 

-Fiction, suspense, romance*, and historical; and

-Children's books: ages 2+ through Young Adult. 

Most traditional publishers cover the entire cost of publishing, but only accept certain books. In self-publishing, even with the help of online publishing companies, the onus falls on the author to foot the bill. Warren is a hybrid publisher, a happy medium between he two. When a book is accepted with Warren, we enter into a partnership with the author, providing our expertise; our editing, design, and concept professionals; our nearly 30 years of publishing experience; and our worldwide reach for sales and marketing.



BICK PUBLISHING HOUSE
http://www.bickpubhouse.com/
The mission of Bick Publishing House for Teens/Young Adults is to relate modern science and its ethics, communications arts, philosophy, psychology to the teenager's world, so they can make their own responsible decisions about their own lives and future. The Life Sciences books in the series are presented with accessible texts, with glossary of terms, illustrations, index, resources, bibliography, websites. The mission of Bick Publishing House for Adults is to bring professional information to the general audience in mental illness and recovery, addictions and recovery, in the art of living with disabilities, and in wildlife rehabilitation.
 

SPONSORS

GET WEBSITES THAT ROCK, BOOK COVERS THAT SIZZLE

Shaila Abdullah has designed websites, book designs, marketing materials, and email campaigns for over 60 authors, writers and speakers. Being an award-winning author herself, she understands the industry, and will provide you with designs that reflect your unique style, genre, and personality. 

MENTION THIS AD AND GET 10% OFF (NEW CLIENTS ONLY)
EXISTING CLIENTS EARN 8% REFERRAL FEE FOR SENDING IN NEW CLIENTS 

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View portfolio: http://myhouseofdesign.com/author-portfolio/
Services for authors: http://myhouseofdesign.com/services-for-authors/

A few testimonials from happy clients:

"Superb work, excellent customer service. Just marvelous overall.” —C. Hope Clark, author, founder of FundsforWriters, http://www.fundsforwriters.com

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"Shaila is a terrific designer, highly professional and extremely creative and delivers amazing results. Her sense of humor and positive spirit has made the whole process of developing and launching my web site a pleasure. –James Hutchison, playwright, http://jameshutchison.ca/

"When I first saw Shaila’s work, I was struck by the fact that her designs are not only beautiful but also perfectly reflect the personality of the business it represents. Her suggestions, insight, and artistic talent made the final product much better than what I’d envisioned on my own.” —Jacqueline Adams, writer, http://jacqueline-adams.com/
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Fine print

Please forward the newsletter in its entirety. To reprint any editorials, contact hope@fundsforwriters.com for permission. Please do not assume that acknowledgements listed in your publication is considered a valid right to publish.

C. Hope Clark
E-mail: hope@fundsforwriters.com
140-A Amicks Ferry Road #4
Chapin, SC 29036
http://www.fundsforwriters.com

Copyright 2000-2016, C. Hope Clark
ISSN: 1533-1326

**Note that FundsforWriters.com places paid advertising in this newsletter, ALL ads being related to writers and the business of writing, screened by FundsforWriters to make sure the information is suitable for writers and their endeavors to improve their careers. But the mailing list is not sold to third parties. You will not receive this newsletter without your permission. It's physically impossible since recipients must opt-in, giving us permission to send the newsletter. If at any time you no longer with to receive the newsletter, click the UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom of each newsletter. We want you to enjoy this newsletter at your pleasure, not be forced to read anything you do not wish to receive. The website is not advertised using unsolicited messages by Aweber, affiliates or other third parties. Direct any complaints, suggestions, and accolades to Hope Clark at hope@fundsforwriters.com. We are an anti-spam site.