Mary Yerkes's Blog
Posted by Mary Yerkes
For those of you who enjoyed my recent articles featuring freelance magazine writer Linda Formichelli, check out today's blog post at The Golden Pencil. In it, Linda offers some great advice on query letters and letters of introduction.
For those of you unfamiliar with her work, Linda has written for more than 120 magazines, including Health, Woman’s Day, Writer’s Digest, USA Weekend, Oxygen, and Redbook.
Linda also teaches a query writing class through the Renegade Writer site and offers phone mentoring for writers. And she runs Creative Professionals for Animal Welfare.
To read Linda's interview in its entirety, visit The Golden Pencil.
Posted by Mary Yerkes
If you're a visual learner like me, you will appreciate this real-life query letter, posted on The Renegade Writer blog, that landed an assignment with Health magazine.
Here's a teaser to whet your appetite:
"The Query: By Alicia Potter
You’re in the middle of a do-or-die presentation and your throat gurgles. Loudly. Or maybe you’re leaning in for a romantic moment and your stomach growls (and growls …). Likewise, shoulder, knee, and hip joints crack and pop throughout the day. And nose whistles? The worst."
To read this query in its entirety, visit The Renegade Writer blog.
Cheers!
Mary
Posted by Mary Yerkes
Media Bistro's Avant Guild membership, priced at $59 a year, is a good investment for part- and full-time freelance magazine writers, even in today's cash-strapped economy.
I love its "How to Pitch" article series and bet that you will, too. Interested in pitching Family Circle? Gourmet? Guideposts? Get the inside scoop on what editors need, recent stories pitched and published, what not to pitch, and more. This alone is worth the membership fee!
Additional benefits of membership include, but are not limited to:
- Discounted LexisNexis access
- How to Pitch articles
- Professional Resources list
- Mastheads Database
- Freelance Marketplace discount
- Pitching an Agent articles
- Editorial Calendar Guide
This is one membership I'll be renewing for years to come!
To learn more about membership, visit mediabistro.com.
Mary
Posted by Mary Yerkes
According to WWD, Rodale announced a new editor in chief to Women's Health, Michele Promaulayko. An excerpt from the article is below:
"THE NEW GIRL: In September, David Zinczenko declared to WWD he had big plans for Women’s Health, one of the three magazines he oversees as editorial director at Rodale Inc. “I expect it to be a higher circulation than Men’s Health,” he said. Men’s Health, where Zinczenko is editor in chief, has a circulation of 1.9 million.
Now, after a three-month search, Rodale has tapped a new editor in chief for the women’s title: Michele Promaulayko, who was most recently executive editor of Cosmopolitan. Promaulayko worked for eight years as the number-two to Cosmo editor in chief Kate White, and oversaw several of the brand’s spin-offs. She edited Cosmopolitan Style & Beauty, a special issue dedicated to fashion and beauty, and edited this year’s book, “Cosmo’s Sexiest Beauty Secrets,” and edited “Cosmo’s Guide to Red-Hot Sex.”"
To read this article in its entirety, visit WWD.
Cheers,
Mary
Posted by Mary Yerkes
Queries, deadlines, interviews...oh my! Who has time for anything else?
Every writer struggles with time constraints and feels pulled in a thousand directions. Yet, we all know that insights and advice from other experienced writers can save us time and frustration. One way to profit from the experience of other experienced freelancers is to read their blogs.
A few of my favorites are below:
- The Golden Pencil
- Get Paid to Write Online
- The Well-Fed Writer Blog
- Copyblogger
- Write to Done
- The Renegade Writer
- Freelance Switch
- Inkthinker Blog
- The Writing Life
- PoeWar
- Writing the CyperHighway
- Men with Pens
- Freelance Parent
- Freelance Writing Jobs: Writing for a Living
- Confident Writing
What are some of yours?
Happy writing!
Mary
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Posted by Mary Yerkes
The next session of The Renegade Writer e-courses starts in January.
Courses include:
- Writing book proposals
- Travel writing
- Food writing
- Blogging
- Breaking into magazines (query letters)
- Building your freelance business
- Developing story ideas
- Magazine writing basics
- Writing for trade magazines
For full course descriptions, FAQ's, and instructor bios, visit The Renegade Writer.
Happy Writing!
Mary
P.S. Watch for my upcoming interview with Linda Formichelli, author of The Renegade Writer and magazine writer extraordinaire!
Posted by Mary Yerkes
Linda Formichelli has a wonderful interview with Bob Bly on her popular blog, The Renegade Writer. With dwindling freelance budgets at consumer and trade magazines, savvy writers are diversifying and supplementing their income with corporate writing.
Here's what Linda has to say:
"When I started out in corporate writing in 1997, I relied heavily on Bob Bly’s book Secrets of a Freelance Writer Now that I’m getting back into the field, I’m reading his book again. It’s brimming with useful information.
You can sign up for Bly’s free monthly e-newsletter called The Direct Response Letter and get a free marketing library worth over $100 at www.bly.com/reports
With the economy as crazy as it is, many writers are considering diversifying into corporate writing to boost their income. Here, Bly talks about the benefits of corporate writing and how magazine writers can break in."
To read Linda's inspiring interview with Bob Bly in its entirety, visit The Renegade Writer.
Happy Writing!
Mary
Posted by Mary Yerkes
Looking for editorial calendars, writer's guidelines, or reader demographics for consumer and trade magazines in the US and Canada? Check out one of my longtime favorites, Woodenhorse Magazine Database.
Annual subscriptions run $149, but shorter subscriptions are available as well. So, if you're not ready to make a long-term commitment, subscribe for just 24 hours for just $1.99 to check it out.
In addition to their magazine database, Woodenhorse also provides news about magazines and staff changes on their homepage, which is free. In addition, they publish a free magazine news ezine, which you can sign up for on their homepage, as well as products for magazine writers. Reports include: Calendar Queries: How to Line Up a Steady Stream of Assignments for the Next Year, Magazine Marketing Data: The Hidden Advantage for Savvy Writers--The Editorial Concept, and How to Send 50 Queries a Week.
The site is a worthy investment of time and money. I highly recommend it.
Happy writing!
Mary
Posted by Mary Yerkes
Welcome to the Magazine Publishing blog! I look forward to sharing my thoughts and hearing yours on magazine publishing.
To start, I'd like to offer a few words of advice to aspiring and novice magazine writers.
One thing that I find helpful is to subscribe to well-written magazines and to read them from cover to cover each month. I recommend The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic (formerly the Atlantic Monthly), Time, Newsweek, Writer's Digest, and a quality literary review like The Paris Review, to name a few.
But, let's be real. It costs money to subscribe to all those magazines! Many of the same benefits could be had by reading the articles online. But to gain the most from your reading experience, you may want to print out the articles that appeal to you so you can study them closely. While you're at it, scribble notes in the margin and file away copies of articles that speak to you.
Here's something that I've found very helpful in my writing education. Choose an article from one of the magazines listed above. Sit down at the computer and start to type the article, word for word. Notice how the words flow together, their rhythm and cadence. Is the sentence structure varied? What type of lead does the writer use? Does anything surprise you about the structure of the article?
Once you've typed the entire article, examine it closely. Review the process mentally. What did you learn? You'll be surprised at how much you'll glean from an exercise like this!
Do you have a tip you'd like to share with readers? What works for you?
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