FundsforWriters - May 18, 2018 - Is Nobody Reading Your Work?

Published: Fri, 05/18/18

Volume 18, Issue 20 | MAY 18, 2018

Message from the Editor

That's me holding a surprise gift from my Nebraska writing friends. Once a year, for three years now, I've met with two other ladies and talked writing and publishing. Gina, Hope, and Victorine. This year we added one more . . . Kim.

This year we also met at Gina's farm, and her husband disappeared so the ladies could do their thing. It also helped that Gina is trained as a chef, so we ate far too much. But every waking moment was about writing, publishing, marketing, and how to stay sane in this business.

Then this week, out of the blue, I received a coffee cup titled "Gathering of the Goddesses" and there are four avatars of a blonde, two brown-headed, and one dark haired lady (me - thanks for ignoring the gray). And our names are listed below each one.

I think I love this cup as much as my new release.

These little moments mean so much. When WLTX television came by my house recently to film a short feature they plan some time soon, the reporter/camera man wanted to film all around my study. I told him that each item had a meaning. From readers, other writers, conferences, settings, my family. The room was me...all me...and there was where I felt my strongest as a writer. He said he could tell, and it would be part of the story. I can't wait.

So, while you are working so hard to sell those books and rake in that money, allow yourself to stop and gather memories, too. Those last the longest.

C. Hope Clark
Editor, FundsforWriters
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TWITTER - http://twitter.com/hopeclark
AUTHOR SITE - http://www.chopeclark.com
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BOOKBUB - https://www.bookbub.com/authors/c-hope-clark

From Amazon reviewers:

The author is a captivating storyteller. It left me wanting to drive a Ford truck, wear a Bull Dogs tee, investigate for Ag, and ask my husband to grow a beard. I love the author's style and all her characters, hopefully will not have to wait too long for another book.

Wow, wow, wow. Stellar addition to the Carolina Slade series! Once again the author exceeds herself in writing this 4th book of the series.

SPONSOR OF THE WEEK

WOMEN READING ALOUD is an international organization
dedicated to the power of the writer's voice.

WRA believes in providing space for artistic growth where women writers explore their authentic voices in a supportive environment. Going strong since 2003, WRA offers writing workshops modeled after the Amherst Writers and Artists Method. Founded on the 3-in-1 principle, WOMEN READING ALOUD focuses on the equal value of the writer, the reader, and the listener.

Special literary events include domestic and International retreats in Greece and France. In 2019, WRA will host a writing retreat in Prague. All genres are welcome. WRA encourages writers to cherish their own voices, as well as the voices of others, as they travel the writer's journey.

Please visit us here: www.womenreadingaloud.org.

EDitor’s THOUGHTS

IS NOBODY READING YOUR WORK?

Some days it sure feels like we're writing into the air with nobody enjoying our words. Readers no longer leave comments on blogs. Few leave reviews for books. We can't tell if people read our magazine features unless they reply in an email, and we cringe at the open rate of our newsletters.

It feels like nobody's there.

Admittedly, I reply less on blogs than I used to, because it's just something else to keep up with. I do try to leave book reviews, because I know how important they are, but since nobody responds to a book review, it does make one wonder if anyone notices.

We're swamped with reading material, swamped with how-to-be-better material, flooded with newsletters from writers who've become editors, teachers, promoters, motivational speakers, agents, or publishers because there is more money to be made selling services to desperate writers than in simply writing.

Before someone teaches me how to become a better writer, I want to know where they got their expertise. Where have they excelled? How well did they write before they crossed over? But that's too much trouble, so I usually delete their messages, too.

You've got to be a writer because you love words. And you become a writing teacher because you have a history to teach from. In this crazy time when everybody calls themselves author, when I'm asked what's the best advice I can give a new writer, I say something along the lines of this:

Write daily. Write because you enjoy it. Write for the long term. If you want immediate money, get a job. This writing career is about loving to tell stories. Readers want to hear about how great your story is, not how many copies you sold or how brilliant your promotion campaign was. Readers want to be lulled and drawn into a new world they love, not sold a popular fad.

PREVIOUS FAVORITE POSTS:

HOPE'S 2018 APPEARANCES
(Times in Eastern)

May 19 - 1 PM, Chapin, SC, The Coffee Shelf
May 25 - 3-5 PM- Edisto Bookstore, Edisto, SC
June 11 - 6 PM, Chapin, SC Library booksigning
June 24 - 7 PM, WritersChatroom.com
July 6 - 3-5 PM- Edisto Bookstore, Edisto, SC
July 27-29 - Mississippi Writers Guild Conference
October 1 - 3-5 PM- Edisto Bookstore, Edisto, SC (also celebrating my birthday!)
November 2-4 - BookBaby Indie Conference, Philadelphia, PA

WORDS OF SUCCESS

"You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write."

-Annie Proulx

SPONSOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

SUccess Story

If FundsforWriters has aided your writing journey, let us know so we can share with the others. Thanks!

Email hope@chopeclark.com

Perk up!

By C.M. Saunders

Writers need to be paid. Fact. But sometimes, you don’t have to be paid in cold, hard cash. Working for perks in lieu of monetary compensation has always been an integral part of the industry. Of course, this doesn’t help pay the bills, but these perks are definitely not to be sneezed at, especially if you target products and services you would spend your money on anyway.

The first thing you need to understand is that virtually every major company in the world has a PR and marketing department. The reason these departments exist is to spread the word about their business, and this is where you come in.

An easy starter is to write to companies asking what new or upcoming products are available, and if they would like anything reviewed in exchange for samples. Don’t go crazy and start demanding a new TV. The more expensive the item, the more likely it will be that the manufacturer will only loan it to you and expect it back. To secure items you may have to ‘pitch’ the manufacturer, saying specifically who you intend writing for, and provide information like circulation figures and market demographics. Most importantly, highlight why it would be in the company’s best interests to be featured in this particular publication.

A concept prominent in consumer magazines is the ‘road tested’ feature where new-to-market products are tried out. Look for extra sweeteners you can offer such as a post on your personal blog, a Tweet, or even an Amazon review. The more exposure you can offer, the better. Personally, I review a lot of books, albums and computer games. Therefore, I work with a lot of publishers, publicists, and record labels. The first step is to approach these people (their contact details are freely available online) and ask them to add you to any mailing lists they keep. Then you’ll be among the first to know of any new or upcoming releases, as well as press trips and interview opportunities.

In 2012 I fired off a quick email to the developer of my favorite computer game asking for a ‘check disc,’ including a link to my blog and mentioning my reach on social media. The company, eager to generate publicity ahead of a new launch, was more than happy to accommodate. Furthermore, they've sent me a new and updated version of the game every year since, amounting to over $250 worth of free software. In fact, my expenditure on entertainment has been practically non-existent for years.

With a little experience, you can ‘build’ features from the ground up, get paid AND collect masses of free swag. Let’s suppose you wanted to go on a camping trip. Pitch your idea to editors who may be interested, then, when a commission is secured, use it to approach various other entities. Firstly, you are going to need specialist equipment and camping gear, so contact outdoor suppliers and ask them to kit you out. New boots? Track down well-known brands and ask. And how about a camera to document the event? Again, ask.

Standard practice is to offer to give their product a subtle ‘in copy’ mention (“I couldn’t feel a thing in my new Karrimor hiking boots!”) and a ‘thank you’ at the end of the article, along with perhaps a link to their website. You might not be able acquire everything you require, but, taking into account the fee you will receive from the publication, you should at least be able to procure enough to make the trip profitable.

To help make the whole process easier, try using a service like PRweb which hooks you up with PR companies and enables you to put out requests for products or services. They exist to make your role as a journalist easier.

http://service.prweb.com/about/prweb-for-journalists/

BIO: C.M. Saunders is a freelance journalist and editor. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in over 60 magazines, ezines and anthologies worldwide, including Loaded, Record Collector, Fantastic Horror, Trigger Warning, Gore, Liquid Imagination, and the Literary Hatchet. His books have been both traditionally and independently published, the most recent being Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut) and Human Waste, both of which are available now on Deviant Dolls Publications. He is represented by Media Bitch Literary Agency.

COmpetitions

THE BOOKSIE 2018 POETRY CONTEST
https://www.booksie.com/contest/The+Booksie+2018+Poetry+Contest-13
$6.95 ENTRY FEE. Deadline September 30, 2018. One grand prize winner will receive $1,000, and exposure on the Booksie.com website, which receives millions of readers per month. Two runners-up will receive $150 and exposure on the website. The poetry can be of any type, length, or content. Just make it memorable.

NOWHERE TRAVEL CONTEST
http://nowheremag.com/contests/
$20 ENTRY FEE. Deadline July 1, 2018. We are looking for young, old, novice and veteran writers to send us stories that possess a powerful sense of place. Stories can be fiction, nonfiction or essay, but please indicate which genre at the top of your manuscript. Entries should be between 800 and 5,000 words and must not have been previously chosen as a winner in another contest. The winner will receive $1,000, with publication in Nowhere granted under First North American Serial Rights (FNASR). Up to ten finalists also will be published.

MARIA W. FAUST SONNET CONTEST
http://sonnetcontest.org/
$5 ENTRY FEE. Deadline June 1, 2018. Cash prizes, totaling over $2,000, will be awarded in several categories, including: Top Three Sonnets, Local Area (Three Winners – Winona and adjacent counties), Best Youth (Three Winners – Age 17 and Younger), Laureate’s Choice (Fifteen Winners), Sonnets may be written in Shakespearean, Spenserian, Petrarchan or Non-Traditional rhyme schemes, but each must be in the fourteen line, iambic pentameter form. No entry fee for those of age 17 and under.

ORISON BOOKS
https://orisonbooks.submittable.com/submit
$15 ENTRY FEE. Deadline August 1, 2018. We seek to publish spiritually-engaged poetry, fiction, and nonfiction of exceptional literary merit. Currently holding a competition for fiction, nonfiction and poetry for the next anthology. The winner in each genre will receive a $500 cash prize as well as publication in The Orison Anthology. Submit up to three poems (15 pages maximum), one story (up to 8,000 words), or one work of nonfiction (up to 8,000 words).

BOSQUE POETRY PRIZE
http://bosquepress.com/bosque-journal/
$10 ENTRY FEE. Deadline June 30, 2018. Prize $500 and publication in Bosque Issue 8. Submit four thematically-linked poems.

SOUTHERN FRIED KARMA
http://sfkpress.com/contests/
NO ENTRY FEE. Deadline May 31, 2018. Southern Fried Karma seeks unpublished book-length fiction for our 2018 Novel Contest! We focus on cultivating the artistic voices of the new millennium—with a Southern accent. The successful manuscript will go beyond stereotypical depictions and illuminate the multiplicity of the Southern experience: past, present, or future; the good, the bad, and especially the unexpected. The winner will receive a $1,500 advance on a book publishing contract with SFK Press. All finalists will be eligible for contracts as well.

GRANTS / FELLOWSHIPS / CROWDFUNDING

WILLAPA BAY RESIDENCY
http://www.willapabayair.org
$30 APPLICAITON FEE. Deadline July 31, 2018. Willapa Bay AiR offers month-long residencies to emerging and established visual artists, writers, poets, and musical composers. The Residency provides lodging, all meals, and work space, at no cost, to six residents each month from March 1 through September 30 of the year. Willapa Bay AiR uses the SlideRoom online application system, and there is a $30 application fee. We do not accept applications submitted by any other means. Willapa Bay AiR welcomes residents from across the globe. Willapa Bay AiR is situated near Oysterville, Washington, an historic village approximately 30 miles north of the mouth of the Columbia River.

18th STREET ARTS CENTER
http://18thstreet.org/
There are three, rotating, live/work artist studios at the center where artists are in residence from one to three months (sometimes longer). Location Santa Monica, California. No fees. No stipends.

A STUDIO IN THE WOODS
http://www.astudiointhewoods.org
Location New Orleans, Louisiana. Adaptations Residencies will provide artists with time, space, scholarship and staff support to foster critical thinking and creation of new works. The call is open to artists of all disciplines who have demonstrated an established dialogue with environmental and culturally related issues and a commitment to seeking and plumbing new depths. Recipients will be provided $2,000 as a stipend and $2,000 towards materials. ASITW provides full room and board including food, utilities for living and studio space to selected residents.

ANTENNA SPILLWAYS RESIDENCY
http://antenna.works/spillways/
Location New Orleans, Louisiana. Residents will be awarded paid travel to and from New Orleans, an initial two week stay in Antenna's residency space, a $1,000 honorarium, and introductions to local stakeholders in their areas of interest. Spillways focuses on process over production, so in these initial immersive two weeks, residents are encouraged to come with an open mind and let their ideas adapt to what they’ve learn. Each resident’s experience will be built to spark projects that react in unique and interesting ways to the cultural fabric of the city. Once Residents finish their initial visit they will have up to three months to develop a proposal for a larger project within the city. Open to national and international visual artists, writers, collectives, or long-term collaborative projects.

ARTELES CREATIVE CENTER
http://www.arteles.org/residency.html
Deadline May 30, 2018. The residency programs take place at Arteles Creative Center, in the beautiful landscapes of Hämeenkyrö, Finland. We host 11–14 artists per month, in carefully selected multidisciplinary groups. The residency periods last one or two months.

DORA MAAR FELLOWSHIP
https://www.mfah.org/fellowships/doramaarhouse/fellowship/
The Brown Foundation Fellowship provides one to three months in residence at the Dora Maar House, a private bedroom and bath and a study or studio in which to work, expenses paid for round-trip travel from a fellow’s home to the Dora Maar House, and a grant based upon the length of stay at the Dora Maar House. Mid-career artists and scholars with established reputations who are engaged on a professional level in the arts and/or the humanities are invited to apply. Location Menerbes, Vaucluse - Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur: France.

FREELANCE MARKETS

SLICE
https://slice.submittable.com/submit
Deadline June 1, 2018. We offer contributors $250 for long stories and essays, $75 for flash fiction, and $75 for poems. The maximum word count for submissions is 5,000 words. The theme for that issue is “Time.”

NEW HAVEN REVIEW
http://www.newhavenreview.com/submissions/
We like to see submissions from writers who can claim some connection to Greater New Haven, no matter how spurious, though it's not mandatory. We also like to see book reviews that are better than the book reviews you usually see out there, for whatever reason. But that said, we mostly publish essays, fiction (of any genre), poetry, and occasionally photojournalism. We pay at least $500 for prose pieces, fiction or nonfiction. We pay at least $25 per poem, and are often amenable to publishing more than one of an author's poems.

BELT MAGAZINE
http://beltmag.com/contact-us/
Belt Magazine is a nonprofit journalism website dedicated to the politics and culture of the Rust Belt and the Midwest. We accept Rust Belt related pitches for features, articles, commentaries and first-person essays.

SUBTERRAIN
http://subterrain.ca/about/35/sub-terrain-writer-s-guidelines
Deadline June 8, 2018. subTerrain publishes original fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essays, and commentary three times a year. subTerrain welcomes submissions from both emerging and established authors. Theme: Margins.

GRAY'S SPORTING JOURNAL
https://www.grayssportingjournal.com/submissions/
Gray’s is published seven times a year, including four themed issues: the Fly Fishing Edition (March/April), the Upland Bird Hunting Edition (August), the Big Game Edition (September/October), and the Expeditions and Guides Annual (December). Because 90 percent of our readers are bird hunters, 85 percent are fly fishers, and 67 percent hunt big game, we’re always looking for good upland-bird-hunting, fly-fishing, and big-game manuscripts for these issues and throughout the year, but don’t confine yourself to these themes. We usually publish one poem per issue. Features may be fact or fiction, hunting or fishing, long or short but no shorter than 1,500 words. Yarns are just that—campfire tales, fact or fiction, and should run from 750 to 1,500 words. Expeditions articles run between 2,500 and 3,000 words. We pay from $600 to $1,250 for features, based on quality, not length; yarns average $600; poems, $100. We pay $50 to $300 for photographs. For Expeditions pieces, we pay $850 to $1,000 plus $75 per picture published.

Publishers/agents

MIDNIGHT INK
https://www.midnightinkbooks.com/
Midnight Ink is a fresh new voice in mystery fiction committed to publishing suspenseful tales of all types: hard-boiled thrillers, cozies, historical mysteries, amateur sleuth novels, and more. It’s always midnight somewhere.

BELT PUBLISHING
http://beltmag.com/belt_publishing/
Belt Publishing (beltpublishing.com) is a small, independent press founded in 2013 as a platform for new and influential voices from the Rust Belt and Midwest. As with our sister publication, Belt Magazine, we are committed to carefully edited, complex writing. We believe in quality over quantity and community over analytics. Our titles have been praised by the New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Daily Beast, Ebony, Ploughshares, and numerous other publications.

SINFUL PRESS
http://www.authorspublish.com/sinful-press-accepting-submissions/
Deadline June 30, 2018. Seeks novels of 60,000 words or more and short novels, novellas and novelettes of 10,000 to 60,000 (digital only). Sinful Press is aimed at a female audience and we are interested in well-written erotica with strong characters and a captivating story line in all sub-genres. Sex scenes must be believable and explicit.

STAIRWAY PRESS
http://www.stairwaypress.com/about/
Stairway Press publishes and markets literary books in various genres (including science, science fiction, short stories, political essays, literary thrillers and adventures). The main thing we focus on is writing quality. We represent the finest writers we can find...writers who might otherwise be overlooked in the world of the written word.

DUNHAM LITERARY AGENCY
https://www.dunhamlit.com/about.html
Dunham Literary represents authors of quality fiction and nonfiction books for adults and children, plus some illustrators of children's books. See each agent to determine who to pitch with your genre.

TRANSATLANTIC AGENCY
http://transatlanticagency.com/agents/agent-biographies/
Transatlantic is a North-American, full-service literary agency. We are exceptional in the industry because our agents work in both the United States and Canada. Our head office is in Toronto, and our agents are located across North America from the east coast including Toronto and New York, to the west coast, including Vancouver and Portland. Our 13 agents actively represent a broad spectrum of writers, creators of intellectual property, and speakers, helping them to connect with readers and audiences throughout the world and in all media.