THE WELL-FED E-PUB - November 2006

THIS MONTH’S MENU THEME: ATTENTION, MAGAZINE WRITERS!

Welcome to THE WELL-FED E-PUB!

Serving up food for thought and tasty tips for the prospering writer. Come

on in, sit anywhere and bring your appetite!

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VOLUME 5, ISSUE 11 – NOVEMBER – NEW BOOK RELEASE!!

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“THE WELL-FED SELF-PUBLISHER”: NOW AVAILABLE!

Book (hard copy and ebook versions) PLUS phenomenal companion ebook (“The Well-Fed SP Biz-in-a Box”) available at www.wellfedsp.com! ALREADY READ IT? Might you write a review on Amazon? Thanks! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0967059860/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/102-8104184-3297769?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

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“WELL-FED SELF-PUBLISHER” TALK IN ATLANTA! (Remember 11-11-11!)

On 11/11 at 11 a.m. See Dessert & http://www.wellfedwriter.com/SeminarDates.shtml

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CLOSEOUT!! TWO LEFT! WELL-FED WRITER SEMINAR (6 CDS) – Just $79.95!!

Includes shipping, ebook, & CD. http://www.wellfedwriter.com/cdseminar.shtml.

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NEW WEB SITE FEATURE: The Well-Fed KnowledgeBase!

Q&As I’ve received! Add your own! http://www.wellfedwriter.com/kb.shtml

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THIS MONTH’S MENU THEME: ATTENTION, MAGAZINE WRITERS!

(But Even If That’s Not You, You’ll Still Find Plenty of Good Ideas!)

I. APPETIZER: MAGS OR COMMERCIAL WRITING? WHY CHOOSE?

CW Income Attractive to Mag Writers, Who Can Have Their Cake & Eat It Too!

II. CRISP “FIELD” GREENS: FEATURES AS “DOOR OPENERS”

Denver FLCW Uses Articles on Local Firms to Win Trust and Land Work!

III. MAIN COURSE: USING ARTICLES AND BLOGGING TO ATTRACT CLIENTS

Small-town Maine FLCW Leverages ‘Net to Cast Feelers Far & Wide (AND Land Work!)

IV. DESSERT: Sweet Success Stories and Tips

TIP: Atlanta FLCW Writes Articles, Firms Get Publicity, Mags Get Great Content!

Atlanta Mag Writer Has Epiphany: Asks for Steady Work for Predictable Cash Flow!

V. COFFEE, MINTS AND TOOTHPICKS

- November “Well-Fed Self-Publisher” Appearance in Atlanta! (11-11-11!)

- Final Closeout!! Well-Fed Writer Seminar (6 CDs) – Just $79.95!! TWO LEFT!

- NEW WEB FEATURE: The Well-Fed KnowledgeBase!

- AWAI Copywriting (& Other) Courses: Register Here, Get 2 Bonuses (no charge!)

- Well-Fed E-Pub Needs All Courses!

- Want Some Well-Fed Business Cards To Spread The Word?

- How Can My Mentoring Service Serve You?

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I. APPETIZER: MAGS OR COMMERCIAL WRITING? WHY CHOOSE?

CW Income Attractive to Mag Writers, Who Can Have Their Cake & Eat It Too!

I recently got an email from a reader who observed, “You dog on magazine articles pretty heavy.” Hey, I have nothing against writing for magazines, but if maximizing writing income is your goal, I don’t see it as a solid path to financial self-sufficiency – the point of all this work of mine. More importantly, I enjoy commercial writing (CW) more than magazine writing (MW). That may not be you, but maybe you don’t have to choose.

I have a dear friend who does quite well in the magazine field, but she’s been at it for over a dozen years, has a couple of proven niches, and is very good at what she does. Which makes her the exception. And even she will admit that the ramp-up time to healthy profitability with magazines is far longer than with CW.

She also notes, accurately (if a bit snootily), that CW doesn’t demand quite the writing skill level of magazine writing (MW). Arguably true, but of course, that’s a triple dose of good news for us: As a CWer, you can make more money than your average MWer, do it faster, and with more modest writing gifts. Sounds like a pretty potent trifecta to me.

Not surprisingly, a lot of MWers with excellent writing skills gravitate to the CW field, in part or completely, to take advantage of the financial bump. (Simply put, CW buyers generally have more money than magazines do, and so while you not only will typically make more money, you also rarely have to play the “chase-your-check” game that’s far more common with the pubs).

Plus, MW isn’t looking all that attractive these days. One readers and long-time MWer, observes, “The magazine market hasn’t just degenerated; it’s disintegrated. Per word rates haven’t changed much since the 1960s, and although some magazines have gone up to $1.50 and $2 a word, I’ve heard of more than one instance where the rate has been slashed by a quarter or a half. But what’s killing magazine writers is a dwindling word count for assigned stories. And it’s really more work to write short than long.

Magazine émigrés often find their skills transfer nicely to newsletters, case studies, executive profiles, company histories, or any other project where good storytelling is valued (the case in a LOT of CW if you bring a creative instinct to your writing).

Sure, as a CWer, you’re writing what your clients want, not what you want, but the financial advantage is usually well worth the tradeoff. Someone might complain, “I don’t want to write about widget production when I could be writing about my passions.” Hey, I hear you. Life’s too short, right? Fine, but if writing about your passions pays $350 for 20 hours of work and writing about widgets pays three times that much for half the time, could you get excited about that? Knowing you could ALSO write about your passions but not rely on them to pay your bills? Doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition.

While this month’s EPUB has plenty of juicy ideas for everyone out there, many involving the use of articles, as such, they’re likely to resonate especially well with you magazine writers (past or present), whether or not you’re looking to transition to CW. Let’s dig in!

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II. CRISP “FIELD” GREENS: FEATURES AS “DOOR OPENERS”

Denver FLCW Uses Articles on Local Firms to Win Trust and Land Work!

A few months back, I ran a great little piece from Denver FLCW Joseph Coplans (joseph@inkstaininc.com, www.inkstaininc.com; piece archived in Dessert at http://www.wellfedwriter.com/ezine/july2006.html). Well, he recently sent me a pretty exciting update with a great idea for landing work that’ll definitely appeal to all those former/current magazine writers. Check it out!

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Peter: It’s been going super grand multi-awesome. I’ve learned not to charge hourly. I charge flats. It works for me. Web sites are 3 to 4K, so far. A couple a month. Wow. And I’m out finding my own writing jobs and hiring my own designers to create collateral for my own clients so I’M THE ONE calling the shots on the prices. Also I’ve been able to form some strategic partnerships with well-known designers here in town.

I’m also writing for a couple of very well known creative agencies in town, finding that writing can also open doors for lucrative opportunities. I write a ‘Spotlight’ for The American Institute of Graphic Arts Colorado web site, which, and this is KEY, has given me access to the people I write about. I just approached the AIGA president and asked if I could do a ‘SpotLight’ about cool design in Denver. He gave me front-page real estate! (http://www.aigacolorado.org).

After I wrote about one agency, they concluded that I ‘got’ their company. After I wrote about another, the owner concluded I was the real deal, the missing element for his studio. These 700-1000 word articles have opened SERIOUS doors – the kind no cold call could pry. Between those two agencies, there is now 15K of jobs waiting (one gave me a $3200 web site right away). So, writing about whom you want to write for opens the door for paid projects. Recently, a big firm in town called me up to make sure I wrote a spotlight about them. Cool, huh?

PB: When I contacted Joseph for his OK to use this, he added this: “It’s amazing how much groups like the AIGA (and others like the Art Directors Club, Environmental Design Group, etc.) need critical thinking – or just semi-intelligent summations of what their members are doing. Designers truly enjoy talking about their work. They, like everyone else, enjoy a smattering of limelight, even if it’s a small article about them on a local AIGA web site. Designers need excellent sources of copy and will turn to that person who wrote an article about them if a true rapport was built. Now, teaching designers how to be excellent sales people so you can get the copy budget you need (cough), THAT’S another story for another time.”

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III. MAIN COURSE: USING ARTICLES AND BLOGGING TO ATTRACT CLIENTS

Small-town Maine FLCW Uses ‘Net to Cast Feelers Far & Wide, AND Land Work!

Got this great piece from Maine FLCW Tom McKay (tom@mainecreative.com, www.mainecreative.com), former magazine writer (amongst other things) who’s come up with a pretty nifty strategy for using magazine articles, blogging, and the Web to attract commercial clients to HIS web. And all this from a pretty remote town in chilly Maine.

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Still waiting for the perfect time or place to dip your toes in the commercial writing waters? I get it. I waited almost six years before talking the plunge. Of course, I didn’t jump. I got pushed. By 2001, my last two employers had gone out of business, swallowed up in the “dot-bomb.” I was pretty confident of my writing abilities, since I’d already had some success as an ad agency copywriter, magazine writer, CBS Radio feature reporter, and talk show host.

In the mid-90s, I read Bob Bly and a dozen other writers on freelancing, but never quite believed it could work. Certainly not in the small town in coastal Maine I’d fled to after a decade in Los Angeles. Then in 2001, I discovered The Well-Fed Writer. Peter’s story of his own journey helped me BELIEVE I could do it too. And I have.

This March, I celebrated my fifth anniversary of successful self-employment. Every week new people contact me out of the blue, via my Web site and blog, in addition to referrals. The best news? I haven’t made a cold call in years (yes, I made my share in the beginning.) Thanks to email and the Web, it’s never been easier to build a client base regardless of your location. Sure, it’s easier if you can meet and establish personal relationships with clients in your own city, but face-to-face isn’t always necessary. My biggest client is 3,000 miles away in Silicon Valley, and we’ve never met. In fact, quite a few of my clients are out-of-state, and I’ve rarely met most of them.

Thanks to Google and Yahoo, new prospects have contacted me from three different states in the past two weeks alone. How’d they find me? Well, launch a Web site and start writing articles that will interest potential clients, in whatever field you’re targeting. Make them informative, not a sales pitch. Include keywords that will attract people searching for information on that topic. Post the articles on your site.

If you have a blog, write posts about topics within your latest article, with links to the full article. Blog about other aspects of your field too. Offer expert advice on topics that would interest potential clients. Skip the “personal diary” stuff: i.e., baby pictures, the new haircut, etc. Makes you look less professional, and this is strictly business.

How will Google find your articles and blog posts? Register at Technorati (a search engine for blogs) and use services like Pingoat.com, which “pings” (notifies) services that keep track of weblogs. This alerts the search engines that your blog or Web site has been updated, so they’ll review and index your site. That helps push you higher in the search results. But it all starts with this: Put valuable information out there for potential clients to discover. If you write it, they will come – no matter where you live.

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IV. DESSERT: Sweet Success Stories and Tips

TIP: Atlanta FLCW Writes Articles, Firms Get Publicity, Mags Get Great Content!

Atlanta Mag Writer Has Epiphany: Asks for Steady Work for Predictable Cash Flow!

Got this clever tip/strategy from another Atlantan, FLCW Polly Wade (polly@pollywade.com, www.pollywade.com), about landing well paying work while addressing both a company’s publicity needs and a trade pub’s need for good content.

That’s followed by an intriguing piece from Atlanta magazine writer (but with good FLCW instincts) Mark Hoerner (syllable@earthlink.net) about a MOST profitable epiphany he had recently. He still writes mainly for magazines (business mags), but he’s begun treating his business LIKE a business – keeping his eye on cash flow – something many creative types don’t do (which usually explains why they starve). Cool stuff.

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POLLY WADE: I just got back from a trip to Ohio visiting family and clients. One client, a trade magazine editor, lamented the state of today's writers, saying, "Most of the news releases I get look like they've been written by the CEO's niece or nephew.” His magazine has downsized, and he relies more than ever on good material coming TO him; he doesn't have as much time to go searching for a good story. When I asked him for names of companies who might have use for a good freelancer, he didn't hesitate (it helps that he knows I can give him material he can work with, not just PR schlock.)

Here’s how it works: a writer like me approaches a company that wants to get a feature placed in a trade publication. Once done, you approach the trade pub, and because you’re the kind of writer that understands the importance of writing good, relevant, benefits-oriented (i.e., NON-hype-y) content that resonates with that publication’s audience, it has a much better chance of being accepted. It's a great win-win-win. The magazines get good material for free, companies get a feature placement and the writer gets paid by the company.

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MARK HOERNER: I recently had a thought that smacked me in the face like stepping on a rake left in the front yard: I asked for money. You see, creative writers, even creative non-fiction writers like me, consider themselves artists or journalists right up until the Visa bill comes in. We rarely see our work as a business. Reading TWFW nourished the seeds already planted about how I was going to market myself full time. I simply went back to my business magazine contacts and asked for regular business, setting up a regular schedule of monthly articles to give me a cash flow.

Well, they did so without hesitation and I now have roughly $1250 each month that I know will be recurring. A slightly different but no less important piece to this is that I began thinking in terms of hourly rates: is this article that I am writing comparable to a $50/hr rate? If so, I do it without problem. If not, I look for perks. Do I get to travel? Can I reuse/resell the information? Will it lead to other articles about the same subject? Does it put me (this is huge) in front of business professionals on a daily basis who, through seeing the finished article, are already sold on my writing skills when I hit them up for writing work in the future? Can I get more exposure, a free ad, etc, out of this venture so that the prospecting value adds enough to the actual value that it translates into money down the line. Or, I simply ask for more money to take the article fee up to my hourly rate. Either way, it’s a paradigm shift for the typical magazine writer.

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V. COFFEE, MINTS AND TOOTHPICKS

- November “Well-Fed Self-Publisher” Appearance in Atlanta! (11-11-11!)

- Final Closeout!! Well-Fed Writer Seminar (6 CDs) – Just $79.95!! TWO LEFT!

- NEW WEB FEATURE: The Well-Fed KnowledgeBase!

- AWAI Copywriting (& Other) Courses: Register Here, Get 2 Bonuses (no charge)!

- Well-Fed E-Pub Needs All Courses!

- Want Some Well-Fed Business Cards To Spread The Word?

- How Can My Mentoring Service Serve You?

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“WELL-FED SELF-PUBLISHER” TALK in ATLANTA! (Remember 11-11-11!)

I’ll be doing a no-cost “Well-Fed Self-Publisher” mini-seminar at the main Atlanta Public Library on Saturday, November 11, 2006 at 11 am. Details: http://www.wellfedwriter.com/SeminarDates.shtml.

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FINAL CLOSEOUT!! WFW SEMINAR (6 CDS) – Just $79.95!! JUST TWO SETS LEFT! WFW Seminar on 6 CDs (with 40-page Course Materials), The BIGGER Banquet Ebook AND teleseminar CD: $79.95. Details: http://www.wellfedwriter.com/cdseminar.shtml. They won’t last! Email peter@wellfedwriter.com to confirm availability.

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NEW WEB FEATURE: THE WELL-FED KNOWLEDGEBASE!

Over the years, I’ve gotten a TON of questions, and I’ve saved a lot of the answers. Check out the result (AND add your own!): a growing source of information on all your commercial writing questions: http://www.wellfedwriter.com/kb.shtml

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AWAI COPYWRITING (& OTHER) COURSES: Register Here, Get 2 Extra Bonuses!

Six-Figure Copywriting, Graphic Design, Internet Writing, Fundraising, Health Market and more! TWO Bonus CDS: http://www.wellfedwriter.com/awai.shtml

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WELL-FED E-PUB Needs ALL COURSES!

“GREENS” (200-300 words), MAIN COURSES (400-500; query first), TIPS (150-200) and SUCCESS STORIES (200-300) to peter@wellfedwriter.com.

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HOW CAN MY MENTORING SERVICE SERVE YOU?

For details and testimonials, visit www.wellfedwriter.com/Mentoring.shtml.

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NEW Subscribe/Unsubscribe feature. To Subscribe (YAY!), Unsubscribe (boo!) and/or update your address for the E-PUB, visit: http://www.wellfedwriter.com/ezine.shtml.

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BIG THANKS!

THANKS again to Susan Cochran in Atlanta for her great editing/proofing prowess on the E-Pub. Need a good editor/proofreader? susan_cochran@mindspring.com, www.cochrancompany.com.