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Hi, folks. Lee Ann here. In this video, we're looking for a market for your work using the
resources I introduced in the audio lecture. I've included links to those resources in
this learning item, and we'll access them here and see what you can find in them. This
video does move rather quickly, but the beauty of a video as opposed to an in-person lecture
is that you can stop and start at will, so take a slower look at the sections you're
most interested in, and let's get started.
First, if you didn't know about these resources, you might just use any search engine to find
a magazine on a topic that you'd like to write about. And that's certainly one possible way
to being finding a potential market. Let's try that: Google: Magazines for Skiing. I
don't know anything about skiing; I've just chosen that topic as an example. You can try
any topic that you're interested in. I'm going to look at images, and my hits are magazine
covers. I see Ski, Skiing and Powder. Now I know a couple of titles out there about
my topic.
Let's say that you already know a magazine that you'd like to submit to. Let's say, for
example, that you want to write an article on skiing, and you already know you want to
submit to Powder magazine. In that case, you'll need to know the writer's guidelines, or the
rules by which the magazine editors want to receive your submission. We can often find
those writer's guidelines for any magazine by using the name of the magazine and "writer's
guidelines" in your search terms. You'll often get several hits, but your best bet is to
go straight to the magazine itself to discover what the editors there are looking for. You
can identify what those are by looking at the web address in the hit.
Not every magazine has its writer's guidelines online, though. Let's look for
the writer's guidelines for People magazine. They're not out there. That's because People
doesn't buy from freelance writers—freelancers are people like you and me. Freelancers are
people who work independently. They're not employees of the magazine; they're not staff
writers who write exclusively for one publisher.
Instead of looking up magazines individually, however, I use references or databases like
the ones I'm about to show you. These databases contain more information than I might be able
to find by accident or in a single afternoon.
Let's go first to Writersmarket.com. If you'll remember from the audiolecture this week,
Writer's Market is a fat volume of publishers, or markets for your writing. You'll need the
username and password for our account, and you'll find those in red above the video in
this learning item. asab50; babeth50
Our access to Writersmarket.com is an account established by our JCTC Shelby campus library.
When you log in, you'll see, "Hello, Ann!" Well, Ann Sabetta is our librarian at the
Shelby campus library. You can thumb through this database by selection the genre of writing
you're interested in: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children's, or scriptwriting. We're
going to use Writer's Market to find consumer magazines--Let's take a look at nonfiction
consumer magazines. In that specialized search, we can select a topic, and the results will list places we can submit
our work to and instructions for submitting it. When available, each entry also contains
the magazine's webpage. If you find a potential outlet that you've not heard of before, you'll
want to check out what sorts of information or articles the magazine currently accepts
so that you're not submitting work that has no chance of being published.
Next let's look at the poets and writers guild. The home page is pw.org. The Poets and Writers
Guild is a literary organization that maintains a database of possible places you can submit
your work. We're going to "Tools for Writers," and from there, you can see that the Poets
and Writers guild offers several helpful resources for aspiring and established writers. We'll
want to look at literary magazines to access the database. The link I've given you goes
straight here. In this area, select a genre and a subgenre to discover some possible outlets.
Let's say I want to write poetry...love poetry. I'll filter my search and see what I get.
When I click on any of these in the resulting list, I'll get more information about what
the magazine is looking for, what it pays, where I submit, and if available, a website
that will let me investigate the magazine a little more before I decide if it's the
right sort of outlet for my poetry.
Third, we're going to the Communications Consortium Media Center. ccmc.org. You're looking at
their homepage. CCMC maintains a list of the top 100 newspapers in the United States by
circulation, with information about where to submit and who to submit to. The link I've
given you this week, however takes you straight to
a pdf document that contains this information.
A fourth possible outlet for your work is unique to our school: jctcstudent.worpress.com. This
website is just for you—and it's a place you can submit your story about what it's
like to be a JCTC student or what your dreams are for after you finish school. You'll want
to take a look at "A Bit on How to Submit" in order to find the guidelines for this outlet.
JCTC gives a monthly cash prize of $100 to the writer of the best submission. I recommend
this one for you in this module because your odds of winning and of publication are very
good. If you do choose this one, though, note that the submission deadline is November 30,
and that's a little sooner than the due date for this writing assignment, so you'd have
to work a little more quickly, but already knowing your topic will save you some time,
and the timeframe is certainly do-able.
So those four resources are available to you for selecting what you want your final writing
assignment to be: Writer's Market
Poets and Writers Guild CCMC list of national newspapers
JCTC Student monthly writing contest
Do you like writing nonfiction? Look for consumer magazines in Writer's Market. Do you like
writing poetry or fiction? Consider using the Poets and Writers Guild database to find
literary magazines that would be receptive to your work. Do you like to write opinion
essays? Consider writing an op-ed piece for a national newspaper, or even a local one—the
Courier-Journal. Do you want to write a personal story about your college experience? Then
JCTCStudent might be the right pursuit for you.
You'll want to follow the editorial submission guidelines for any of these choices. And we'll
talk next week about what a cover letter should contain. For right now, think about what you'd
like to write, and investigate the resources here to discover how you can use them to find
a possible market for your work.
I'll e-see you on the discussion boards.
For now, this is Lee Ann, signing off.