Why You Should Use Writer’s Market in Your Freelance Writing Career
Writer’s Market is one of the most comprehensive resources in print for the freelance writer wanting to publish novels, magazine articles and trade journal articles. If you are looking for possible publishing opportunities, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this.
Insights and Advice
The first 100 or so pages include articles and interviews with authors and publishers that give some great advice on beginning and maintaining a freelance writing career. This includes a guide on what to charge for various projects, contract information and query letter examples.
A Thorough Guide to Writing Markets
If there is a magazine currently accepting freelance article submissions or an agent on the lookout for the next great mystery author, it will most definitely be in this book. The book is divided into sections for each market, such as book publishers, consumer magazines, trade journals and contests. In each section, each magazine or publisher is listed alphabetical order. If you are looking at consumer magazines or trade journals, the listings are more fully divided by subject, such as Water Sports or Animals. There are even listings for online journals and magazines.
Each magazine or trade listing includes:
- Name of publication
- Location and contact
- Amount of publication written by freelance writers
- Circulation
- Rights information
- How to submit queries
- Time to publish after manuscript is received
- Type of article accepted
- If photos are required or accepted with submission
- Word count
- Payment
- Tips
Each book publisher listing includes:
- Name and location of publisher
- Contact if applicable
- Genres accepted
- If non-agent submissions are accepted
- Recent titles
- Tips
- Number of titles published per year
- Number of queries and manuscripts received per year
Each literary agent listing includes:
- Name and location of agency
- Contact
- How to submit
- Recent Sales
- Terms
- Genres the agency represents
- Number of clients
- Percent of clients that are new and unpublished
Example
Suppose you have a strong knowledge of and interest in health and fitness. You have a great idea for an article on this subject, and you would like to submit a query to a magazine. You can open the book to the consumer magazines section and find the alphabetical listing for Health and Fitness magazines. Just glancing, I see twenty-one listings for Health and Fitness magazines that are currently accepting articles from freelance writers.
Tips
- Read the entire listing before submitting an article. There may be guidelines or rules you need to follow for your submission or query.
- Make sure you are submitting the right kind of article to the right kind of publication. If you do things the wrong way, the publication may immediately discard any future submissions from you.
- Read a few previous publications before submitting an article or book. This gives you an idea of the type of work they tend to publish. They may have already published something similar to your idea as well.
- Study and perfect your query letter. Most of the time, this is what you will be sending to the editor. If your query letter isn’t good, your article will never even get on the editor’s desk.
Comments
Hi Jenwriter,
This is helpful because I find the Writer’s guide to be a trustworthy and accurate source of information on literary agents, even though I’ve been collecting nothing but rejections so far. I’ve gone through the 2007 edition and I’m about to purchase the 2008 copy. Good post. -Mike
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