“And The Plot Thickens” Weekend Novel Writing Workshop

Today we are excited to bring Freelance-Zone readers an up-close look at “And The Plot Thickens”, a novel writing workshop in Rhode Island taking place later this month…

1. How did the idea for the “And The Plot Thickens” workshop come about, and when is it?

‘And The Plot Thickens… How to develop a novel’ is held on August 28 & 29 2010.

The idea came about because we are passionate about the Arts. From the regular RISDA exhibitions we hold in our lobby, our series of arts inspired events and the local arts society we support, it shows in everything we do…We wanted to help people discover their own passion and writing their first novel is a dream that many of us have. We also realized that with people taking shorter weekends because of the economy, they wanted to do something more worthwhile with their time away – this workshop allows them to pursue their dream, share experiences and make new friends while spending the weekend in a wonderful hotel in a beautiful city.

2.  Who will be leading this workshop and what are that person’s qualifications?

Joanna Howard is a published author and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Denver, and MFA in fiction writing from Bowling Green State University. She currently teaches fiction at Brown University. Joanna is the author of ‘On the Winding Stair’ (Boa Editions, 2009) a collection of short stories which Publisher’s Weekly described as “14 tales of startling description and beauty.”  She is also the author of ‘In the Colorless Round’ (Noemi, 2007), a short collection of prose with artwork by Rikki Ducornet . Her publications also include numerous book reviews in Review of Contemporary Fiction and American Book Review, and she has worked as a co-translator on Marcel Cohen’s Walls (Black Square 2009) and on Frederic Boyer’s Cows (forthcoming from Noemi Press). Her stories appear in anthologies and journals including Conjunctions, The Chicago Review, Quarterly West, and American Letters and Commentary. Howard is a fiction editor for Tarpaulin Sky magazine, She has also edited for Denver Quarterly and other journals.

3. What will be covered in these two days?

Each day will be structured by a series of morning and afternoon sessions, which will include a range of writing exercises, workshops, and seminar style discussions.

Budding writers will learn practical skills for how to shape their ideas into a novel, discover how to create memorable characters and compelling narratives. They will examine their favorite novels and dissect what makes them great pieces of fiction. Reading-out exercises will give them the opportunity for feedback on material they have already written and advice on how to develop and shape their drafts. Joanna will share her experience and advice on how to talk about and present ideas to an audience and how to get that first novel published. … Continue Reading

Interview With…Tim Leffel, Travel Writer And Editor

Tim Leffel

1. Can you tell readers about your writing journey and how you came to be involved with travel writing?

I worked at RCA Records for seven years in marketing and did a lot of writing there as a part of my job. When my now-wife and I started preparing to go backpacking around the world long-term, the obvious money-making paths for me seemed to be teaching English and travel writing. So I did both. The stories I got published were just a trickle at first, but over time I got more assignments and eventually I was able to dispatch stories and hotel reviews from five different continents. I worked part-time for many, many years before I made the leap to this being a full-time job. For me, things really started to take off when I put out a book that sold well and started a blog to go with it. 

2. You have a new book coming out soon…would you share a bit about that with Freelance-Zone readers? 

It’s hitting the virtual shelves now, so you can get it at the usual online shops, at Booklocker.com, and soon at the Apple iBookstore. It’s called Travel Writing 2.0: Earning money from your travels in the new media landscape. This is the first guide I know of to address how to actually earn money at this in this time of transition between print and digital media. Besides my own hard-won advice, the book has lots of nuggets from 52 other travel writers and a group of editors and publishers.

3. In your opinion, what are the biggest mistakes writers make when it comes to travel writing?

Trying to publish broad stories about places instead of spending time finding unique angles that have not been covered before. Sure, you read plenty of ho-hum destination stories in magazines that follow a similar script, but what editors really want from new freelancers are unique angles, especially ones that can fit onto a page or less in the print world. The same concept applies to blogging as well: if what you’re writing is not noticeably different from everything else out there, why do readers need you? We’re already drowning in average prose from average writers.

The other big mistake is not having the long-term vision and persistence required to succeed at what is a very competitive field. It can take years to get established as a travel writer, whether on the old print path or a new digital one, so choose opportunities based on what it will do for you long-term, not how big that single check may or may not be.

4. Would you share a career highlight with us?

I can’t pick one because the highlights are two-fold. First, I’ve taken some mind-blowing, amazing trips that either paid for themselves from articles sold or were covered by someone else paying the expenses and to me that’s the real payoff of this job. Writing assignments have taken me to the Galapagos, Peru, Panama, Iceland, Botswana, Hungary, Nepal—and plenty more places. Winning a Grand Prize from the North American Travel Journalists Association was nice. Selling Italian rights to The World’s Cheapest Destinations was pretty cool. But probably the greatest highlight was being able to reach the point where I could pay the bills and support my family as a writer/editor/blogger. I’m proud that I’ve accomplished this mostly because of websites and blogs I’ve created myself from scratch, not from pleading with rotating gatekeepers over and over.

5. What is the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?

One of my high school English teachers told me not to use 20 words when 10 will say it just as well—or better. What’s made me a good writer, more than anything I think, is being good at brutal self-editing.

BIO: Tim Leffel is a full-time freelance writer and the author of several books, including the new Travel Writing 2.0 and The World’s Cheapest Destinations, now in its third edition. He is the editor of the narrative webzine Perceptive Travel, the CheapestDestinations Blog, and the Practical Travel Gear Blog.

No Time For Social Media, But Lots Of Time To Waste On Email

Freelance-Zone.com reached out to Joan Stewart, a speaker, trainer and consultant who blogs at Publicity Hound and My Social Media Solution and she shared a great tip on time management in terms of how to find space in your day to utilize social media…

One of our customers told me this morning how frustrated she is that she doesn’t have enough time to spend on social media.

I suggested that she set aside a block of time twice a day, say as soon as she starts work in the morning and again before she closes the office for the day, to blog, post to her Facebook and Twitter profiles and do what needs to be done on LinkedIn.

When she hemmed and hawed about how difficult it would be to find the time, I asked her, “”How much time do you spend on email each day?”

“A lot,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s a way for me to check in with my clients and other people who I like to hear from,” she said.

“How profitable is answering email?” I asked. … Continue Reading

How to Publish a Children’s Book

by Erin Dalpini

Think back to when you were five years old: coloring and make-believe filled up your days, naptime was a daily requirement rather than a luxury, and if you were anything like me, you probably listened to (and soon read) a lot of children’s stories. As a budding young writer, perhaps you even made up some of your own. And maybe, deep down, you’ve had this itch to write a children’s book, but never had the chance to publish due to fear of rejection, rejection or repeated rejection. (Ugh!)

Now there’s a way to realize that dream, thanks to BigDifBooks.com, an online publishing company that is changing the way kids’ books are published. Freelance-Zone caught up with Tom Watson, the founder of BigDifBooks, to find out what makes his company so special.

Freelance-Zone: What is BigDifBooks?

Tom Watson: We’re an online publisher of children’s books with two specific goals: we want to provide really inexpensive–sometimes even free–original stories for kids, and we want to provide writers a chance to share a children’s story without jumping through the hoops of the traditional publishing world. … Continue Reading

Freelancing With the Apple iPad

Transparency: Nobody at Freelance-Zone.com has gotten a hands-on with the new Apple iPad. The information we’re presenting here is based on other people’s hands-on experiences with the 10-inch tablet, not our own. But even secondhand information is most helpful in deciding whether to become an early adopter or to wait for the inevitable price cut and major upgrade of the next version.

Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad on Wednesday, showing off its web browsing, e-book and gaming potential. Rather than do a complete rehash of what’s already available at Wired.com, we’ll cut right to the chase and discuss the iPad’s impact on the freelance community.

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Thanks for a GREAT 2009

From all of us at Freelance-Zone.com, thank you VERY much for an excellent 2009. We’re really glad you’ve been with us this year, we appreciate your reading, your comments and support. 2010 is already shaping up to be an excellent year for Freelance-Zone.com and we hope you’ll be part of that. Stay tuned for more advice, editorial, gear and resources. HAPPY NEW YEAR! We’ll be back  on Monday January 4, 2010. Have a safe and fun New Year’s holiday.

Holiday Guilt?

Yo Prinzel wrote a great blog entry aimed at all of us who felt slightly guilty for taking a glorious four-day weekend off for the holidays. Adding my own two cents to this blog post, I’ll just say that one way you can offset the guilts for taking time off to stuff your face full of turkey is to pre-position some content or work for submission during your down time. If you’re running a blog or a for-pay website and have content that shows up over the holidays, you can feel confident that you’re feeding the audience while still giving yourself some much-needed down time.
… Continue Reading

TweetMyJobs Changes the Game

Freelance job sites like eLance and other for-a-fee providers, quake in your boots. TweetMyJobs has just changed your landscape probably forever with what its marketing hype calls “the largest Twitter job board in the world”. Pretty bold stuff for a company that didn’t exist this time last year, but that’s how things move in the Twitter world–it wasn’t three years ago Twitter wasn’t even a player in the game, now they rule a massive chunk of the online market.

I used TweetMyJobs for the first time yesterday to see what the fuss was about, and I can tell you that the for-pay sites are in trouble. Subscriber-based job sites have reached the end of their usefulness thanks to TweetMyJobs, and unless this fails to catch on with the folks posting the jobs themselves, FREElance is about to be FREE once again. … Continue Reading

5 Steps to Guide an E-Mail Interview

E-mail interviews are, for many, something to be avoided at all costs. The answers frequently return with nothing but self-serving crap that nobody wants to read.

How do you avoid getting such responses? Sometimes it’s inevitable no matter what you do, but an interviewer can at least try to pass on some guidelines to keep them from going totally mad when fielding the answers:

… Continue Reading

What I Learned About Freelance Marketing from Flashback Weekend

October means the harvest, Halloween season, and best of all there are a massive load of horror movie conventions all over the country celebrating the scariest time of the year. I’m attending Chicago’s legendary Flashback Weekend this weekend (Oct 23-25 ‘09) to promote my vinyl collector/DJ blog Turntabling.net, and wouldn’t you know it, I found a way to tie it in to Freelance-Zone.

I like to take lessons on the freelance game wherever I find ‘em, and this morning while Googling directions to the event (at the Wyndham Hotel in Rosemont) I noticed that the official site for Flashback didn’t have the hours listed in a prominent place. In fact, I wasted several minutes searching for the hours (I finally located them buried deep on the schedule page–it’s too early in the morning for such a bug-hunt).

Here’s a lesson in marketing freelancers can learn:

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Myspace 2.0 Customization Tutorial for Freelancers

by Joe Wallace

Do freelance writers actually USE MySpace? I gave up on it ages ago, but I am very curious about what others are doing and what the general (?) consensus is among freelance writers about the usefulness of Myspace.

The one thing Myspace has going for it is the Bulletin feature, but it’s so abused and overused that it would be tough to get a real message out there among all the clutter. But I digress. … Continue Reading

How to Deal With Unreasonable Freelance Clients

An interesting article at FreelanceFolder by Laura Spencer got me thinking about how to avoid getting stuck with what Spencer calls a “vampire client”. Spencer’s advice was sound, but how do you avoid getting to the stage where you need to take her advice at all?

What the article defines as a vampire client is someone who keeps demanding revisions and is seemingly unable to be pleased–and all that after demanding a reduction in your usual fee. Sounds unreasonable to us!

The first thing you can do to protect yourself from an unreasonable client is to build in some parameters into your work agreement. What’s that? You don’t have a work agreement with your clients? Change that immediately.

In your agreement, build in a standard fee (which you can change to offer discounts for your valuable clients). Don’t accept less than your standard fee without a good reason, but when you do, be sure you add some additional consideration for yourself into the deal. That consideration could come as a more forgiving (and convenient for you) deadline or other concessions. … Continue Reading

What You Might Not Know About Self Employment Taxes

by Joe Wallace

It’s nowhere near April 15th, so why am I writing about tax issues for freelancers now? Because if you track your figures all through the year, you’ll know when you might need to take a deduction or how much to contribute to your SEP IRA by the end of the contribution period to avoid a nasty surprise on your income taxes for next year.

Didn’t know you could do that? Then you probably don’t know about these little issues, either…lucky for you we’re watching your financial back, eh? Don’t take any of this as advice from US, this information comes directly from the IRS official site:

Self-employment taxes break down like this:  self-employed people pay 15.3% until your income pushes you into a higher bracket. The rate is in two parts–you pay 12.4% for social security plus 2.9% for Medicare.

Did you know you can deduct half your self-employment tax for the purpose of figuring your adjusted gross income? But you can ONLY take that deduction from your income tax, not your Self Employed tax. Are you confused yet?

Who pays Self Employment tax? Anybody who earns more than $400 from self employment activities. Also, any church employee who earned more than $108.28 must also pay SE tax.
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Twitter 101 Business Guide

by Joe Wallace

One of my favorite new media commentators is Dave Allen, of Gang of Four fame. In addition to a very busy speaking and traveling schedule, he’s got a few going concerns on the web, one of which is the ever-relevant Social Cache.  Check out the recent post on the Twitter 101 for Business guide, now available as a free download from Social Cache (hosted from Allen’s other site Pampelmoose.com).

If you’re still trying to figure out what this Twitter thing is all about and why you should be paying attention, try this free download courtesy of Social Cache and get yourself schooled. (Please note this is a link to the post, not the PDF itself–that’s located within the post itself.)

If you’re not familiar with Social Cache, have a look around the site…it’s definitely worth your time.

Even MORE Freelance Writing Secrets: Talking Back to Your Editor

by Joe Wallace

A lot of editors–myself included–write advice columns for writers talking about how you need to keep the editor happy, be dependable, on deadline, and essentially kiss the rings of the keepers of publishing power.

But we rarely write advice for freelancers about what to do when the editor is unreasonable, takes you for granted, or doesn’t respect what it takes to turn in a good piece.

I’m just as guilty as any other editor on both fronts–it’s easy to get caught up in the deadlines, forget what writers go through to get the stories in on time, and do quality work. We just assume stuff.

AND I’m guilty of not writing a lot about how to put an editor back in touch with reality, so here are a few secrets you can use to bring an editor back down to earth:

… Continue Reading