Writers Conferences

Writing conferences are a pain in the patootie.

First, you have to pony up way too much money to get your hands on an admission ticket.

Then you have to purchase an over-priced airline boarding pass, haul yourself to the airport, shoot a couple days traveling, then huddle in a cold conference room yearning for the moment you can stand and stretch.

If you're very lucky, your morning bowl of oatmeal won't cost over eight bucks.

Yup. Attending a writers' conference isn't for the faint of heart.

So, why do I attend so many of them?

Simple. I want to become the best writer in my field. I want to command the big fees the top guys get. And I'm well on my way to this lofty goal.

One way I can accomplish this is by stretching past my limits and mingle with my peers.

If it weren't for conferences I wouldn't have met any of my dear writing friends.

If it weren't for conferences I wouldn't have met the stellar marketers in this field, some of whom I consider friends.

If it weren't for conferences I would have missed out on some fantastic writing assignments.

And I'm not even mentioning all the great information I learn at these things... cutting edge stuff that propels my career so far ahead of the linger-at-homers I cringe every time I miss one of these long-winded beauties.

So yeah. I'm currently in Seattle at yet another conference.

And is it worth it? Absolutely. It's worth its weight in gold.

Talk later. I'm heading back into the main room again. Hope they turned off the air conditioner. :)

Beth

Even Farmers Are Getting Into The Act!

http://tinyurl.com/ltfy4

Freelance Farmers? Not sure I’m thrilled about this new label…

Hmmmmm.

Talk later,

Beth

Do you have a nagging freelance question?

I just might have an answer.

You see, twice a month (give or take) we send out a special issue of Writing Etc. totally devoted to answering your freelance questions.

These issues are not archived, you have to subscribe and read them online before they’re taken down.

Truth is, FilbertPublishing.com is getting so huge, that I simply can’t archive everything online any more. We’ve already got hundreds of pages of free freelance information and if I don’t monitor the site’s growth, it’ll get too huge for my little computer to upload.

But that’s beside the point.

If you’ve got a nagging freelance question, send it in. We’ll get to it and answer it ASAP.

Here’s the link:

http://tinyurl.com/pesp8

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Beth

Another independent house swallowed by conglomerate

http://www.authorlink.com/news/news.asp?id=1005

Hmmm… interesting.

Talk later,

Beth

Do you want to build your swipe file?

Surf here:

http://www.hardtofindads.com

Enjoy!

Beth

I Called Coke(r) Today

OK. I’m sound asleep. Alarm goes off and without warning, I’m assaulted with the most annoying commercial that I’ve heard in a very long time.

It began with the most irritating male voice barking at least three million male-dominated clichés designed to inject the product with pure, unadulterated testosterone.

My brows furrowed as hard-rock guitars screamed and the announcer growled ever increasing annoying sound bites.

About now, my dear son entered the room asking, “What on earth are you listening to?”

The ad ended by implying that “real” men eat meat and vegetarians are basically “girly-men.”

Well. That’s when I became very annoyed.

You see, I happen to live with two very male vegetarians. I happen to be one myself.

“What on earth were they advertising,” I asked my son.

“No idea,” he answered, “but talk about a dumb commercial.”

My day began and still I couldn’t forget that insipid commercial. Finally, I called the radio station, stating the exact time the commercial ran.

“What product were you pitching,” I asked.

“No idea, ma’am,” the DJ said, “Computer just says we ran an ad Coca Cola.

That’s all I needed to know.

After some quick research, I found the product and performed a quick Google search.

Turns out the advertising agency creating the spots for this product have managed to not only offend vegetarians, but they’ve also raised the ire of the Teamster’s Union with these no-thought-whatsoever-put-into-them ads.

Let’s do some quick math here:

Google tells me that we share our nation with around 5 million vegetarians. Google also tells me that the Teamster’s Union boasts around 8,000 members. Adding friends and family members to these numbers and we’re talking about a wide circle of influence.

This leads me to a couple questions: What’s the purpose of advertising? Do Teamster members drink soft drinks? What about vegetarians? After all, soft drinks are indeed vegetarian fare.

This is what led me to call the Coca Cola Company. I told them I found the commercial stupid and that they’d probably increase sales more effectively by spending their advertising budget on commercials that didn’t alienate large sections of the soft drink drinking community.

They thanked me for my opinion.

I ended my conversation by informing them that we plan on purchasing Pepsi products for my son’s Eagle Scout ceremony. We’ll do the same when he graduates.

As a vegetarian, I’m not all that offended. Heck, I’ve become accustomed to the sideways glances and diatribes starting with the sentence, “Where do you get your protein?” Political correctness is utterly boring and I enjoy an occasional spar.

However, as a practicing copywriter, this ad infuriated me.

I despise stupid advertising. It’s a waste of money. It’s offensive. To make matters worse, despite my quick research, I couldn’t tell you the exact product they were pitching.

Millions down the drain on forgettable “branding.”

Truly sad. Inanely stupid.

Talk later,

Beth
FilbertPublishing.com

The Power of Writing For A Niche

http://tinyurl.com/mqk6x

Enjoy!

Beth
http://FilbertPublishing.com

Does Writing About This Four-Letter Word Make You Uncomfortable?

http://tinyurl.com/g56lq

Hmmmm....

Talk later,

Beth

Queries, Queries, and More Queries

Yeah. I promised more about queries.

It’s been crazy here at the Filbert offices. Haven’t posted a while so I figured I’d finish the query discussion right here, right now.

So here we go… the last of the query tips in their entirety:

The Secrets of Rejections Revealed
By Beth Ann Erickson

Rejection is a part of every freelancer’s life. We all hate it, but it’s a reality we need to face.

However, now that I’ve sat on both sides of the writing desk, that of freelance writer and editor, I view at rejection differently than I used to.

Quick note: although I make a point to not read too many Filbert Publishing queries anymore I recently spoke to the person who has taken over that task for me. Things haven’t changed much in the six months since Elizabeth become our first line of defense in filtering appropriate projects toward the correct people in our tiny organization.

Here’s what she tells me:

Nineteen out of twenty queries she receives are for works of fiction. Unfortunately we aren’t accepting any new fiction until 2007… probably later. Sad fact is, fiction doesn’t sell very well. Fiction that doesn’t sell doesn’t pay our bills. When we don’t pay our bills we don’t stay in business.

We mention that we aren’t accepting fiction in our online writer’s guidelines, but evidently many writers don’t check online guidelines before querying.

So… Query Tip #1 – Check your market’s most current online guidelines if you can. The Writer’s Market often lists publisher’s website URLs so take that little extra step to give you a big edge when it comes to your queries.

Next, Liz tells me of the remaining queries, three-quarters of those do will not appeal to our audience. Nope. We don’t publish dog books. We don’t publish political diatribes. We don’t publish astrology either. We publish books that freelance writers would find interesting but rarely receive queries that match that description.

Query Tip #2 – Make sure your query is appropriate for the market you’re querying. If they don’t publish books on fish, don’t send them a fish proposal.

One day Liz called me breathless. “Listen to this,” she gasped restraining laughter, “This one says, ‘Dear Bart and Mary…’”

Sigh.

Actually, our names are Beth and Maury. We’re probably picky here, but an author who gets our names wrong really doesn’t need to work with us. “Dear Editor” is a little better but not much.

Query Tip #3 – Send your query to an actual person, and be sure to get their name right.

“We’ve queried you three times and you haven’t responded!” Liz digs through the envelope and wouldn’t you know… no self addressed stamped envelope (SASE). She immediately tosses the query into the recycling bin.

Without a SASE you will not receive a response. We receive hundreds of queries every month. If we were to provide a stamp for every one of them our postage expenses would absolutely skyrocket.

Query Tip #4 – Always include a SASE.

We occasionally receive a rude e-mail demanding to know the status of a query.

Now, here’s the thing about e-mail: we occasionally have trouble receiving e-mail. I don’t know what the deal is, but for some reason or another I’ve come to realize that we’re not receiving all the e-mail we’re supposed to receive.

It could be our sp*m filter. After all we receive hundreds of sp am messages daily and our filter automatically deletes a lot of it. Perhaps your query got lost in there. Sometimes when I’m downloading e-mail I’ll notice the server said, “downloading five messages” and I’ll receive two in my in-box. Where did the other three go? Only heaven knows…

Query tip #5 – Don’t rely solely on e-mail for your queries. If you’ve sent an e-mail query, don’t assume your recipient received it. A lot can happen between your computer and theirs. If you’ve sent an e-mail query and feel you’ve waited long enough for a response, either move on or send a courteous follow-up.

Liz is a fantastic person. She and her husband of 40+ years walk to the post office daily to pick up the queries. One day Liz stopped by the office with a mammoth package. “You requested this?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

We opened the package and inside was the longest double-spaced novel I’ve ever seen. Musta used an entire ream of paper. We didn’t ask for the manuscript. The author didn’t include a SASE. So there we were with a huge package and nothing to do with it. We recycled it.

Query tip #6 – Don’t send your entire manuscript unless the publisher asks for it. (And if you do decide to do this, please include a SASE.)

Finally… Liz called one day saying, “I’m not sure I like this job anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” she answered, “I’ve got this query here and it’s a novel about a frustrated author who puts poison on the glue of her SASEs.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “and now I don’t want to lick envelopes anymore.”

“You were licking them?”

“Not anymore,” she shot back.

Query tip #7 – Don’t freak out your potential publisher. It’s just not a good thing.

These seven simple query tips are easy to implement and won’t cost a cent. Plus, by following tips, you’ll better target your queries and reduce the number of rejections you’ll receive. Perhaps you’ll even hit pay dirt and wind up selling your work for a tidy profit.

Talk later,

Beth