Words on the Water | Freelance Writing Blog

Hi everyone, well? It’s been over six months since the redesign of my blog and I’ve been very happy with the results. I’ve made some great contacts and new friends, found some fellow writers and editors (whose work just blows me away) and started growing my RSS readers. (Waves “Hi” to the RSS readers).

My initial goal for this blog was provide a look into my experiences as a freelance writer and game designer and promote a sense of community by saying “This is what has worked for me, hope this sheds some insight so you can figure out what works for you.” In addition to writing, I’ve also shot semi-professional photography, sang songs, and performed on stage. There are some days where I struggle with myself, wanting psychic powers to know what readers want to read. Instead I look away from my crystal ball, and simply write what I think is worthwhile.

I wanted to run a “reader appreciation” contest as a way of encouraging feedback and rewarding all the great participation, comments, and feedback I’ve already gotten this year. Unfortunately, I’ve tried the contest thing on other sites–even something as simple as “post a comment here”–but only ended up with a few entries and a lot of promotional legwork.

So I put it to you, please help me design a contest by either contacting me directly or posting a comment on this blog. My goal is two-fold: a) reward readers for sticking with me and b) see what it is they’d want to read.

What you Get for Participating

Contest participants for the “Help me Design a Contest” contest will get their blog featured in an upcoming post on this blog provided it’s related to a topic that fits the theme of my blog, Words on the Water. Examples of topics relevant to my blog are: gaming, game design/writing, agents and publishing, freelancing, blogging, editing, tools and resources, etc. If you’re not sure whether or not your site fits, please feel free to ask me. That’s free promotion at no cost to you just for brainstorming!

My ability to feature blogs for contest participants within a reasonable amount of time will greatly depend upon how many people participate. If, by some bizarre twist of fate, I get 100 responses in a week–then it may take me a little bit to sift through all those blogs.

If you promote my contest in any way, shape, or form, I will feature your efforts and shower you with link love in an upcoming “contest update” post. Contest promoters do not have to be as “on-topic” as regular participants, simply because I’m trying to stay true to the spirit of the contest and transparent to my readers.

The idea I end up going with will be based on a ten point scale identifying ease-of-installation, ease-of-participation, achieving the two aforementioned goals, and bonus points for “fun.” Winner will either get a $30 gift certificate to Borders new online store or a gift (not to exceed $30) from The Hunger Site.

Contest ends August 31, 2008 at midnight. Winner will be notified via email and mailing address will be requested at that time. Once I receive your address, I will be happy to ship your prize to you within the week at no cost to you. If you have an international address, I hope I can make arrangements with you to email you an online gift certificate instead due to customs and shipping headaches.

I’d wish you good luck, but I’m probably more nervous about this one than you are! Instead, may all your projects be well-written and may all of your publishers pay on time!

Do you ever find yourself in that situation where you’re working on an article and you need to get a hold of an authoritative resource? Have you searched endlessly in the search engines for what you need only to be sorely disappointed with the results? And what happens when you do find a resource? Now you have to take an extra step and contact them which–depending upon how quick their turnaround is you might miss your deadline.

Started through a Facebook group by PR guru Peter Shankman, HARO is a great solution to your “need for resources” woes. I’ve used HARO for this blog, an upcoming five day marathon of articles about the most common questions I hear from writers. Up until that point, I found it very difficult to get agents to respond to me, but through HARO I got so many responses I’m still sifting through them!

One of the reasons why I like the group so much, is because of the way that Peter manages this free service. He’s transparent, he’s real, and he advocates “being nice.” Just this morning, he mentioned to subscribers to do one nice thing every day in his introduction which is part blog, part “welcome to the community.”

This morning I thought of you, my readers, because there was a call for “Diet, Health and Cookbook Authors.” If you fit the bill, please contact me and I will be happy to send you the listing.

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As most of you know, I’ve done a lot of writing and editing within the gaming industry. Like other industries, there are some industry-facing and/or fan awards that softly bolster the businesses that do their very best. There are two awards that are typically presented at GenCon Indy that not a lot of folk are aware of; one is The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, and the other are the ENnie Awards.

Diana Jones Award

I had the pleasure of sponsoring this event through Flames Rising last year and was on hand to take pictures and throw in support.

Attracting international attendees, there are folk from Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, the UK and as far away as Australia have come to Indianapolis for this convention opener. The Awards commemorate the “excellence in gaming” and while for many folk that might mean “excellence in design” — the Diana Jones awards has a different take on it.

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If you follow any of the places I go like Wizard World 2008 or GenCon, you probably also know I’m a huge supporter of other people in the industry–artists, writers, fans, etc.–who do exactly as I do. Many of us have a full time job and career, but are passionate about the hobby for fun times and the great people associated with it. Then there’s the unsung actors, stars of television shows and script writers, that aren’t as well known as the Angelinas, Lindsays, or Nicoles of the world, but they are out there pounding the pavement because they love what they do.

If you’ve enjoyed Buffy: the Vampire Slayer or Firefly, you probably know the name of Joss Whedon.

His new venture is two parts-comedy, one dash of “evil” in the style that he knows best. Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog capitalizes on Whedon’s rabid fan-base by offering three acts of an online musical starring Neil Patrick Harris as the villain, Doctor Horrible, Felicia Day as his love interest, Penny, and the unforgettable Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer.

While most people are flocking to the blog (rumor has it fans crashed the site on the first day because there was so much traffic) there is a “master plan” attached to this dastardly selection of musical bad-er-goodness. (Yes, the cast can sing. And good, too!)

It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it. You know the old adage, “It’s Show Business – not Show Friends”? Well now it’s Show Friends. We did that. To Show Business. To show Show Business we mean business. (Also, there are now other businesses like it.)

ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

It is definitely well within the Whedonverse which, if you’ve watched any of Joss’ creative works, will probably mean that there won’t be a happy ending to this sordid tale of supervillainy woe. While it may not be for you, I’m spreading the word anyway because even if you don’t like the content of this musical extravaganza–you gotta love the idea and wonder why you didn’t think of it first.

You may have noticed that from time to time I drop in a few pieces of clipart or photos in between my posts. I’ve taken some of the photos myself, other times I’ve relied on images tagged with Creative Commons because I don’t have time to focus on my graphic design skills but am very conscientious of the fact that like writing–art takes time, money and materials to make. Creative Commons has give me the ability to know what my rights are to an artist’s work, for some of the same reasons I described for writers in my post entitled, “When do you need a copyright?.

Finding these resources isn’t as easy at it might look because sometimes the word “free” simply means “you don’t have to pay.” That doesn’t always mean that there isn’t some other catch associated with getting the artwork or that there aren’t any copyright restrictions. From subscriptions to spam, there’s often other headaches that come with searching for open source clipart and photos.

Here’s five resources that I rely on from time to time. For your convenience I’ve reviewed a few of them in a more structured format to provide you with the highlights and a little bit more detail than I typically go into. The ratings are from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest rating.

Openclipart.org

From the home page, Open Clipart is extremely straightforward about the goal of their site.

This project aims to create an archive of user contributed clip art that can be freely used. All graphics submitted to the project should be placed into the Public Domain according to the statement by the Creative Commons.

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Hi everyone, special thanks to my guest bloggers who are helping me frame up some great posts this week. The first guest blogger I’d like to introduce is Ryan A. Span, who got his start posting an online serial novel. Ryan is blogging today about his experiences posting a well-read online novel which led to print publication through a small press publisher. Ryan’s writing style is kind of interesting, because he shoots straight from the hip and doesn’t look back. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoy exchanging emails and interacting with him; Ryan’s a really nice guy and very passionate about what we all love to do–write.

About Ryan A. Span

Ryan A. Span is 24, lives in Britain with his girlfriend, and writes books because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. Ryan is the author of Street: Empathy, his cyberpunk debut published by Gryphonwood Press, part of the free-to-read online serial Street.

What it’s Like Being an Online Novelist

One fateful evening in December 2006, I was sitting in front of my latest novel-to-be and decided that this was the one. I’d toyed before with the idea of making regular online releases of my work but had never been quite convinced I had it in me. This time, though, I knew I was holding a story with the potential to go all the way.

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When I first started this blog, almost a year ago, I wanted to add my voice to a community of writers and hope that one day there will be this magical exchange of ideas where we all sit down and treat each other like adults. Almost every post that I write I try to take the attitude that even though this is my perspective on what has (or hasn’t) worked for me, maybe this same thing works for someone else. Most writers will tell you that in order to be truly successful in the field you have to be in the right place at the right time and be open to criticism. I feel I’ve achieved moderate success based on milestones that I’ve set out for myself: this year I’ll have two publishing credits for novellas. But–and this is a big “but”–I’ve never published a novel before, never dealt with an agent before. Maybe someday I will; maybe I won’t. Since I haven’t been there and it’s not on my radar, I haven’t posted about it yet because I’m doing the research to provide relevant and useful information from whaddaya know–actual agents.

For the most part, I’ve had really great responses because I’ve learned to put the caveat on what I say: I am asking this question because… or I am asking for your opinion. You’d be amazed by how quickly attitudes and egos get out of whack when you either post directly about anything or postulate a vague-ish question to generate some interest or camaraderie.

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When I talked about two free sites to look for places to submit your work, I had also mentioned about the phenomenon that happens when editors come to you for work. (By the way, if you haven’t read the comments on my post about Duotrope and Ralan, take a look. Some new sites added!)

I’d like to talk a little bit about the timing for when this sort of thing occurs. An editor typically doesn’t “find” you right off the bat; referrals take a lot of time based on how build your career and reputation as a writer. I’ve found that if you want those referrals, it’s essential that when you’re putting yourself out there, you maintain a good reputation. I can not say enough how easy it is to ruin your online reputation but, on the flip slide, it’s just as easy to start building a great one.

If you believe, as I do, that we’re all part of a vibrant community of writers and editors then this post is for you. By keeping other writers’ interests at heart through word-of-mouth advertising and referrals, you can maintain your network, build relationships, get referrals for work, attract readers, and a whole lot more!

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Well, we’ve now been through the cost of writing and where you can look to publish your fiction. We know that there are paid subscription listings available and a few of you may subscribe to other places like Absolute Write or the Freelance Writing Job Bank. As you go through the listings, though, you may ask yourself whether or not the publisher is “worth it.” Here are my top tips to help you create your own set of writing submission criteria for any publisher.

What is the Publisher’s Online Reputation?

If I’m researching a publisher, I like to check out what other writers are saying about them by organically searching for their name or variants thereof. I read through forums, blogs, comments, etc. to see if there are any negative comments about a publisher. If there’s only a few, I may follow up on the author’s blog to see if the comments were credible. Remember, a lot of inexperienced writers may take rejection very poorly–even if the writer was in the “wrong.”

Besides chatter online, I also look for news about their business or how well they promote their writers. Sometimes, I may accept a lower rate per word depending upon how well a publisher might treat me and my work.

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Now that we’ve talked about the cost of writing, let’s look at how we can make money. One way to make money, is to write fiction and get published. But how? There are two ways to get published. The first way is to have an editor come to you; the second is to submit your work, unsolicited, to a publishing venue for their review. Most fiction writers start out by submitting unsolicited work to people they don’t know. This is, by far, the most time-consuming and pain-staking process that often requires more time spent on researching your market than you might finishing your story.

Ralan.com

Most writers are aware of the Writer’s Market, a paid subscription service offering publisher listings for several fiction and non-fiction markets. I have also mentioned, quite extensively, the virtues of using Ralan.com, who is an army of one.

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