Writer Magazine
In order to attain success as a writer of special feature articles, you must possess at least four qualifications:
(1) ability to find subjects that will interest the average man and woman, and to see the picturesque, romantic, and significant phases of these subjects;
Every time you pick up your favorite magazine you pour over it, looking through every article. By the time you are finished many of the pages are dog-eared and you’ve discovered that so many of the articles are in line with your own personal interests and writing style.
Advantages of an online magazine are many. If there is a list to work with you can start out full steam. However, if you do not have a list then it will be harder to get the magazine off the ground. You need a list to start with; otherwise whom will you mail it to?
Seth Godin recently offered an interesting blog, “Without fortune cookies, are there fortunes? His post discussed the changing fortunes of writers. From my own experience as a writer, I’ve seen the extremely slow and lethargic publishing industry grind out a process to edit, promote and print my upcoming book. All told, it will be about 14 months start to finish, from the time I signed my contract to the time the book is actually on shelves at Barnes & Noble, Borders and Amazon (I guess Amazon must have shelves too). Advances on royalties are modest for all of those who are not Bill Clinton or Sarah Palin. And once the book starts selling, there is still a significant lag before a writer receives royalties. This model is challenging at best for any would be author, then again, my primary goal is to use the book as a platform to further support my B2B Marketing Services firm. This results in a symbiotic relationship, with the book(s) promoting my business, and my business creating profits allowing me to write more books. An author, seeking profit from book sales alone will likely need a sideline to pay the bills, often as an editor, copywriter or in many cases some unrelated field of endeavor. Very soon, the costs and logistics of paper based book production will likely result in a metamorphosis similar to the music industry as it transitioned from CDs to iPods. What will happen to the writers then? Will earnings for writers be further squeezed to the point that there are no more “full time” authors?
Five years ago, neither Facebook nor YouTube existed. Now Ehow, Squidoo, and other digital publishing sites saturate the Internet world. Digital storytelling, reporting, or teaching is no longer limited to content writing. Article distribution has become its own business. Ghost writing is a growing source of income. Dozens of websites exist for the sole purpose of connecting writers to article vendors. Pennames are an everyday Internet occurrence. But in the process, author accountability sometimes slides to the background. Writers are working cheap. Quality suffers. Facts get jumbled. The sorting out of sound content becomes more difficult. Look for the balanced digital magazine. Find the one that cares about reputation. Otherwise, do not permit your company name to get mixed in with it.
Do you want to make money writing articles for magazines? This is a great way to get started as a writer. Let’s look at an easy process you can follow to get published as soon as possible.