Essay Online

Is it better to participate in content writing or write for magazine publication?

The above question is actually multifaceted and can help you determine the overall thrust of your freelance writing career.

It has been estimated that a writer will need to pen a million words before a publisher is likely to accept their first work. That means a lot of rejection slips.

So, does that imply that content writing is preferred to the crafting of a book or magazine article?

Well not exactly. Content writing is a means of addressing a short-term need. If the immediate need is cash, then content writing might provide the answer. However, if you are looking for a means of affecting long-term royalty payments or a greater flexibility in the ownership of your material you may look at other publishing options.

When you agree to write content for a client you are essentially providing a service for hire. Once you release the article or story to the client and they reciprocate with a payment you have no further interest in the article. You can’t use it again and you will gain no further payment for its ongoing use.

When you write a story for potential use in a book anthology, or a full manuscript for publication, you may have a variety of rights to consider.

If you are the author of a story, you can negotiate with a publisher for the rights you are willing to provide. You could provide First North American Rights, which would allow you to resell the story in the future as a second right, but you would also have the capability of selling first rights to someone else on an international basis. Nonexclusive rights allow you to continue selling the material with the same rights to as many publishers as are interested.

As we venture back to the original question it is important to understand that freelanced writing can and should be a balanced approach to writing. If it takes you a million words before you find publishing success why not make some of those words available to a paying content market to provide some skills-based writing while you work on other projects that are more personal and may have the potential to provide long-term residual payments.

A writer should always find time to write about the things they are passionate about, however the service of content writing provides a means of gaining some writing income while learning new skills and writing techniques while you are waiting for a publisher’s acceptance letter.

“[Henry David] Thoreau is a keen and delicate observer of nature - a genuine observer - which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness.” &ndash Nathaniel Hawthorne (Journal entry, September 1, 1842)

Most of the greatest poets were not recognized for their work until they had long been laid to rest. Many suffered great difficulties in their personal lives, which may have led the poet to the wellspring from which they drew their words.

It has been suggested that poetry was used in our long distant past as a creative means of passing along traditions and history simply because the poetic language was easy to memorize and enjoyable to recite. The bards in medieval times were renowned for their use of poetry.

From free verse to rhyme and meter, poetry remains a benchmark in the world of literature. The pursuit of poetic markets remains a positive way to further an ancient form of storytelling that requires a special gift while the poet’s emotions are largely exposed.

Poetry is the one element of writing that impacts the emotions of writers more than any other. The vulnerable feel of poetry allows a writer to explore circumstances and emotions in a way that is difficult to do in most writing genres.

Most poets craft their words as a stress release and rarely share them with the world at large, however, there may be markets available for poetry.

It is true that publishers of poetry are about as plentiful as wheat fields in the Arctic, but there are other avenues for your poetry that can allow you to publish your material in unique and memorable ways.

Greeting card publishers are always interested in new succinct poems to share with card buyers. Poems can also be artfully placed on a line of gift merchandise including mugs and artwork suitable for framing.

In our modern era you would be hard-pressed to find someone who is able to make a living writing poetry. However poetry can provide a source of writing income and is often a creative outlet for those who also write in other genres.

It is true there are those who have little appreciation for poetry, yet the poet’s work has brought about significant societal debate and ultimate change in our world. Perhaps this is because the reader is invited to share the writer’s perspective in an emotional way that allows a perspective to be heard with something other than ears.

There was a time when you needed to relocate if you wanted to become a successful writer. In essence you went where the work was.

The Internet has opened a whole new world for writers. The idea of telecommuting has become a welcome component to the mechanism of freelance.

Today you can sit in a kitchen in Iowa and write for a publication based in the heart of New York. You can write for a firm in Australia from the comfort of your home office in Ontario. You can also write for clients from any point on the globe while wearing your sweats.

There is still a need for local writers to cover local events, but freelancers tap into the human experience and pass that information along in a way that can defy time zones.

The truth is there is a growing acceptance of freelance writers for both print and cyber content. I suppose one of the primary reasons has to do with the cost-effective nature of relying on freelance writing. As publishing businesses have worked to streamline operations they have come to rely more on freelancers who can provide copy on an ‘as needed’ basis. For the freelancer this provides a sense of personal freedom and income. The benefit for the publisher is in not paying a full time writer when their may not be enough work to warrant their employment.

More Reasons to Hire a Freelance Writer

1) You don’t have to pay freelancers overtime.

2) You don’t have to pay freelancers sick leave.

3) You don’t have to provide benefits to freelancers.

4) You can pay a freelance writer well and still pay less than a full-time counterpart.

5) Most freelancers are eager to please and will likely provide their best work. If they don’t, you have the satisfaction of knowing there are many other freelancers available.

Reasons to Become a Freelance Writer

1) You set your own hours.

2) You can always refuse to work with a hard to please client.

3) You can work as much or little as you want.

4) A happy client not only returns, but they often bring referrals.

5) If you need time off, you only need to ask yourself.

The possibilities for a freelance writer seem to expand each day. The need for content from writers is huge and even the start of a part-time freelance business may provide a better income than you could have imagined. There’s no doubt that it’s hard work, but it’s also doing something you already love to do.

Many of the best stories in fiction have both an antagonist and a protagonist.

The protagonist is the main character or hero that we cheer on and hope conquers all.

The antagonist is the story’s villain. The best bad guys are the ones we love to hate. We don’t need to know why they are bad, we don’t need a play by play of the choices they made early in life, we simply recognize they are bad and we don’t want them to win.

A story can operate without an antagonist; however the use of an antagonist is the best way to demonstrate conflict within a storyline.

Conflict in a well executed work of fiction provides the friction that keep readers tuned in. In most cases the antagonist reigns supreme through the majority of storyline. The reader wants the forces of good to triumph, yet the villain remains in charge of the bulk of events that thread through your tale.

This combination of good versus evil creates suspense and causes your reader to wonder how exactly the protagonist will gain an advantage.

One of the primary benefits fictional conflict is the reader is often forced to consider how they might respond against such odds and in similar circumstances. In a best case scenario the story assists the reader in learning more about themselves.

Conflict can also be used to disrupt a normally predictable plot. By presenting conflict that is, in many ways, worse than the previous conflict you can instill a greater desire for evil to be defeated while keeping the reader guessing where the story may be headed next.

Ultimately the story must provide resolution. For the fiction writer of faith this resolution process often provides the simple message that good will triumph over evil although other threads of faith will likely work their way through your text &ndash sometimes without you being consciously aware of their presence.

If you allow the antagonist to loose the struggle too early in your story it becomes anti-climactic and the fire in the story is reduced to an ember that may leave your audience cold.

The use of a villain (may not be a human, could be an animal, ideal, political agenda, etc.) goes a long way in conveying a story with elements that emotionally involve your reader.