Once I'd made this decision, I needed to decide what I wanted to write, and what type of markets I wanted to target. While I had a few ideas for some fiction I would like to tackle (more on that in a future article), I knew that a novel was something that would take time. I needed something in the meantime with a bit more potential for being lucrative.
I starting contributing content for several websites, but the drawback of this is that online publication is often very low-paying, or doesn't pay at all. One market that has the potential to be higher-paying is magazines; but, how does one break into this field? When I saw Lisa-Anne Sanderson's Suite101 course, Magazine Writing, I thought it might be just the thing to get me started.
Let me just begin by saying I was not disappointed. The course, which I took as a quick course (there is no instructor feedback or access to the course discussions), is split into four lessons. The first two were probably the most helpful for me.
Lesson One deals with figuring out what you want to write. I know from personal experience this is perhaps the most difficult aspect. Coming up with ideas is not always easy. Sanderson explains that the old adage, "Write what you know," may be a good starting point, but writers shouldn't restrict themselves to this. It is very easy to say, "I can't write about that ... I know nothing about it!" However, with easy access to the Internet, almost any topic can be researched. I recently wrote two articles about telephones and satellites for a website. I knew nothing about how telephones or satellites worked before researching the articles, yet I was able to write informative articles suitable for publication with just a little bit of research.
Lesson Two covers a topic I really knew nothing about: writing query letters. As Sanderson explains, many magazine editors prefer freelancers to submit queries, rather than complete articles. This saves both the editor and the writer time if the magazine has no use for a piece. Sanderson explains, step-by-step, the proper format of most queries, as well as when they should be used. This information will be very useful when I begin submitting some of my ideas.
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