Fab Freelance Writing Blog

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If you’re looking at print and the Web as totally different animals, you may want to rethink, and get up to speed on the Web.

Here’s what’s happening with YA fiction. Lisa Holton Announces New Venture, Teams with HarperCollins - 6/18/2008 7:37:00 AM - Publishers Weekly reports:

“Fourth Story will produce stories and content that span multiple formats, including books, Web sites, online games, DVDs, audio/digital downloads and social networks. Its first series is The Amanda Project, an interactive, collaborative fictional mystery series for girls aged 12 to 14, told across a variety of different media including books, a Web site that features games and a social networking platform, a related series of blogs and satellite sites, music, and merchandise. Fourth Story, which owns all rights for the property, will produce the content for The Amanda Project with a creative team including Web design agency Happy Cog, young adult authors, artists and graphic designers.”

Get up to speed on the Web, and try pitching one of your properties in a multiple platform format.

How would it work?

Pitching your next book in multiple format

In your book proposal, offer reader interactivity via a blog and Web site. You should create both the blog and the site before you start pitching the book.

Not only will it make your proposal stand out, but you’re also showing considerable marketing savvy and commitment to your idea.

Book sales are slumping, and multiple format offers a way to boost them. Learn how to use the Web, and gather a platform for you writing.

I created Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) as a way for writers to do this; you need to know the Web and how it works, and USE it.

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There’s great money in Web writing. Some Web writers are making $20,000 a month by blogging for a stable of sites. Others are writing articles or ebooks.

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Technorati Tags: pitch, ideas, freelance writing, how to write, Web writing, formats

“Should you follow up when you send a query to a magazine?” a reader asked this week.

My answer is a fence-straddling “It depends.”

If you don’t have a history with the magazine and its editors, and this is the first query you’ve ever sent them, then No.

OTOH, if you’re a known quantity at this publication, and you’ve worked with them before, then sure, you could, if you have a reason - if the topic is timely, or you’re about to send the query to another publication, for example.

In my experience, if an editor wants an article, she gets back to you very smartly, within 48 hours, often on the phone. However, if the story is a “maybe” and doesn’t fill an immediate hole the editor has, then the story can be set aside. Getting in touch may just jolt the editor into making a decision.

Here’s what you could do if really want an answer quickly: collect five or six story ideas, and send them to the editor in a bunch. Just create a title, and a snap summary (no more than three sentences) for each idea. At the bottom of the email message or letter, ask about the previous query you pitched.

With this approach, you don’t look desperate, you look creative, professional and busy.

More on pitches in: “Get Started Writing Articles For Magazines”.

Technorati Tags: freelance writing, writing, magazine, query, pitch

Books are sold on query letters and proposals.

If you need help with yours, Nathan Bransford, an agent with Curtis Brown, has an excellent blog, on which he dissects query letters.

Technorati Tags: books, query letters