On the surface, the path to publishing might not show you the diversity and range of possibilities for your writing. From speaking to hundreds of writers, I find many of them are focused on a particular area of writing such as writing a novel or a children’s book. They haven’t understood the value of learning good storytelling and communication skills that are relevant and useful for many different areas of writing.
Because these writers are focused on a small niche area of publishing, it’s almost like they are wearing blinders and can’t see any other possibilities. In this section, I want to challenge you to remove your blinders and see the wealth of possible application for your writing within the publishing community. While each area of publishing has its own specific requirements, good writing and storytelling skills can be used in multiple areas to strengthen your overall career.
For example, you may want to write a book and have done a little exploration but the only companies who have responded to your questions are the publishers who want you to pay them to get your book into print. These companies are called self-publishers. Instead, you are looking for a traditional publisher who will pay you an advance, then print and distribute your book. Yet because you have no background in book publishing, you don’t understand that 90 percent of nonfiction books are contracted from a book proposal and a few sample chapters, rather than a complete book manuscript. Without this critical detail, you have focused on writing a full-length book manuscript. Then you discover it may take you 12 months to find a literary agent who has to locate the right publisher. Then you learn it will take a longer-than-expected span of time for this publisher to release your book—normally 12 to 24 months after you turn in your manuscript. To a beginner, this realistic and practical publishing timeframe isn’t evident on the surface.
Also, writers don’t understand they can gain valuable training, experience, and exposure through writing magazine articles. From idea to assignment to publication with a printed magazine can be a much shorter timeframe for four to six months than books. Every editor is actively looking for writers who can communicate—whether they are a newsletter editor, an online editor, a magazine editor, a book editor or anyone else who has the title “editor.” As a young magazine editor, I quickly learned I had to do less editorial work and could have greater confidence in assigning an article to a published author than an unpublished author. I read the ideas and considered giving the assignment to the unpublished author but their chances dramatically improved with any type of publishing experience.
Magazine and newspaper writers learn valuable skills that help their success with a longer project such as a book. These writers learn to write for a specific audience or publication and to write within a specific word length. Also through the writing process, they learn the value of a focused headline or title and relevant subheads scattered throughout the article, as well as hooking the reader with a tightly written opening. Then they continue to feed information to the reader as they structure their writing, and conclude the article with a focused point called a “takeaway.” These writers also learn the importance of meeting a specific deadline (or a better way to stand out with the editor is to complete their assignment before the deadline).
In addition, writers can learn the skill of rewriting and following an editor’s direction. Sometimes your article will be “almost there” but not quite. Can you follow the editor’s directions and complete the assignment to their satisfaction? It’s much easier to learn about this process on a 1200-word magazine article than a 50,000-word book project.
Finally, these writers built trusted relationships with their editors—newspaper and magazine. Many of the editors I’ve worked with have moved up to higher paying publications or have become book editors or editorial directors. The seeds of my relationship with them were planted through my magazine writing. As a new writer you need to understand the necessity of building these lasting relationships.
Your journey to publication will be completely different from my experience. It will at times startle and surprise you. The writing business is a strange mixture of creative combined with practical “how-to” skills. These pages are signposts, and every step may not be critical for you. For example, you may not care about writing children’s books or short stories, yet I would encourage you to read and explore this type of writing. If you try it and it fits your writing style, it may be the key to expanding your writing world and I’d hate you to miss it.
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