Make sure you’re up-to-date
Whether you’re working on a short story, article or filler to send to a magazine, in order to ensure that you know exactly what the editor is looking for, you must analyse the publication carefully. An up-to-date copy is essential. It’s no good borrowing a two-year-old copy of one of Aunty Jean’s women’s weeklies. Slots come and go all the time. If you send work aimed at a section that’s no longer there, your offering will be rejected without even being read.
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I started on a Writers Bureau course with the non-fiction side. I had a few problems with my tutor and have put it on hold for the moment. The cost of buying in magazines for research can make it difficult to turn a profit, access at libraries certainly in our area is mainly online, few if any print copies being available. If you get a £20 fee for an article, four £5 copies bought for research make the exercise a complete waste of time. My preference is to write fiction but I wanted the discipline and research experience of writing non-fiction.
At the moment I am trying to work out a profitable strategy to deliver it.
Self-publishing certainly with fiction seems to be a way forward, The costs can be controlled far more easily. The experience gained in the process has helped those of us involved enormously.
I discovered when I was in business designing and making the product was only the start.
I was a former WB student so I know what you mean. I hope you feel able to resume your studies at some point. I found the course invaluable and it helped me to become a published writer and then to go on to be a WB tutor myself 🙂
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Amen to this! I always had an interest in getting published in The Sun. Getting a subscription was necessary to help me better understand the topics and style they prefer.
Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Check out this Bite Size Writing Tip in this post from Esther Chilton’s blog.
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Esther Chilton 
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