Hello again and welcome to May’s issue.

Ah, some sunshine at last here in the UK. I hope it is sunny in your part of the world too! I find it brings me a sense of renewal, spring is finally here!  

We have lots of useful information in this month’s issue, starting with a huge dose of motivation in the form of two very exciting student stories. And keeping along the lines of success, just take a look at how well two of our ex-students have been doing too!

Christina Jones has been short-listed for the Melissa Nathan Awards for Comedy Romance 2008. Well done Christina and take heed all you budding writers…this is what you can achieve if you put your heart and soul into it!

Further details of Christina’s nomination can be found on our website.

And Sue Wilkes, who some of you know as your personal tutor, has just released a new book, “Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives” (Tempus, 2008). A short description by the author herself follows:

Working families in Victorian Lancashire had few choices. Work; starve; or face the workhouse and the break up of their family. Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives recreates everyday life for textile workers, canal boat families, coalminers, metal workers, navvies and glassblowers using contemporary eyewitness accounts and interviews. It depicts the dire state of towns and the dreadful hazards workers faced on a daily basis.
Who was the ‘knocker-upper’? Why did families eat ‘tommyrot’? Why couldn’t ‘Lump Lad’ sleep soundly in his bed?
Men, women and children endured incredibly long working hours in appalling conditions – but their toil helped make Britain ‘Great’.

If you want to learn more about Sue visit her website www.suewilkes.blogspot.com

Next is Simon Whaley’s informative article “Spot the Difference”, detailing how, as the name suggests, to spot the target market differences between two magazines covering the same subject areas.

This month’s Freelance Market News focuses on genealogy and writing your family history. So, if you have ever wanted to put on paper all those things you, and your family, might have done through the years for future generations, here’s your chance to get started. Of course, if you want to take it further, or you feel you need a little more guidance, you could always enrol on our “How to write Biographies, Memoirs and Family Histories” course, details at www.writing-course.co.uk

So, now that you can see what’s possible, I hope you’ll work extra hard this month at getting words down on paper and enjoying some success.

Enjoy!

Shelley

E-zee Special Offer

Click here to see how you can save £25 on a Novel and Short Story Writing Course. Offer ends 31st May 2008.

THE WRITERS BUREAU
STUDENT STORIES

Our first student story for this month is doubly exciting as Eileen’s book is out this month too, on  27th May to be exact!

“It was in February 2001 when I first embarked on a fully comprehensive course with the Writers Bureau. One of the reasons I chose this particular correspondence course, was because they guaranteed to refund my fee if I had not received the equivalent from my writing by the end of the course – so what had I to lose? “Though I really wanted to write fiction, I agreed to take the non-fiction part of the course first. The tutor assigned to me was Carol Anne Strange and I found her to be very helpful and most encouraging. Therefore you can imagine my delight when my first article, ‘The Changing Face of Tyneside’, was published in The Lady magazine in June of the same year. This was followed by ‘Lindisfarne – A Holy Island’, a couple of months later. By 27th September 2001 I had received more than the cost of my course fee, and the Writers Bureau Certificate of Competence proudly adorns the wall of my study. Since then my articles and short stories have appeared in several magazines. “However, my ambition was to write a novel and my debut novel, ‘The Trojan Project’, a thriller, is due to be published this summer. Believe me, it wasn’t easy finding a publisher; the large publishing houses didn’t want to know and one rejection slip after another fell onto my doormat. However, I was fortunate enough to stumble across Austin & Macauley, a small press publisher,  www.austinmacauley.com They read the manuscript and accepted my novel; even giving me a rather modest advance. They have produced a super cover for my book and have been with me every step of the way. Now I can only hope that when it appears, the readers enjoy the story. “Details of my novel and other selections of my published work can be found on my Website,  www.eileenthornton.co.uk “ Eileen Thornton, UK

Our second story comes from Lalitha in India:

“I had put my ambitions of becoming a well-known writer on the back burner for a long time due to other commitments, but when I joined Writers Bureau my tutor, Elizabeth, brought back the smile to my lips and the pen to my hand. My very second assignment, in which I had written about ‘Mehndi Designing’ was accepted for publication by a reputed woman’s magazine called 4ThD Woman. I did two travel features for the same magazine at their behest. With expert guidance from my tutor, I then wrote a query letter to a travel magazine, and I was assigned to write a story on in-flight deaths and their possible causes. “The same magazine Discover India then assigned me a story on 'Shopping in Mumbai'. This was published as part of their cover story dealing with shopping in various cities in India. I was thrilled. “In the meantime, my course at Writers Bureau had meandered its way to the fiction segment. As part of my assignment I wrote a short story which my tutor liked very much. She suggested that I submit it for publication. I sent it in with some trepidation as I had not written fiction before. Imagine my surprise, when I received an acceptance letter. My tutor's words of encouragement that "It would be really nice if you could be published in fiction and non-fiction categories" seemed to be coming true.  “I am now writing for an education website www.educationtimes.com on a regular basis. I am also writing features for a health magazine called Complete Wellbeing. I am in the midst of writing a children's novel in the mystery genre as well as a non fiction book on ‘Kerala: A traveller's Paradise’. I am learning that writing for children is very different from writing for adults. I am also learning that writing a non-fiction travel book involves a lot of personal research. Photographs too have to be really exquisite and breathtaking in order to capture the attention of the reader." “All this would definitely not have happened but for my association with Writers Bureau and my tutor, Elizabeth. Thank you Writers Bureau and thank you Elizabeth!” Lalitha Balasubramariàn, India

If you would like a prospectus for the courses studied by Eileen or Lalitha email us here with your full name and postal address.

Or, to share your success stories with others, just send an email to ezeewriter@writersbureau.com with 'Success Story' in the subject line.

FREELANCE MARKET NEWS
an essential guide for freelance writers

For up-to-date market information, Freelance Market News is invaluable.

Issued 11 times a year it's packed with information on markets in Britain and around the globe, plus you get all the latest news and views on the publishing world.

Every subscription comes with FREE membership of The Association of Freelance Writers. Your membership also entitles you to discounts on books and competitions, a free appraisal worth over £30 and a Membership Card which confirms your status as a Freelance Writer.

FREE sample markets are available to view at the website, along with more details about the magazine and how you can subscribe.

www.freelancemarketnews.com

IN THIS MONTH'S ISSUE OF FMN:

Genealogies and family histories - help for those of you who want to document your life for posterity!

Spot the Difference!

Writing for magazines is child’s play isn’t it? All you need to do is:

Play the “what if?” game to think of an idea.
Begin with “Once upon a time” and write your article or short story.
Walk into a newsagent to play ‘SNAP’ and pick up all the magazines that cover the same subject.
Then lay the magazines out on a table, singing “Eenie Meenee Minee Mo” to decide which magazine to send your article to.

No! If that’s what you really think then stay behind after school for detention!

More writers are rejected because they have targeted the wrong magazine, rather than because their writing fails to reach a publishable standard. All too often, students tell me that their work is aimed at the “Women’s Weeklies”, “Gardening” or “Short Story” magazines. To increase your chances of publication, you need to know exactly which magazine you are going to write your article for, before you have written a single word. To do this you need to take the normal market analysis process one step further. Instead of knowing who a magazine’s readers are, you need to know how one magazine’s readership differs from another. It’s time to play spot the difference.

Go and buy three or four magazines that cover the same subject. You can pick gardening titles, walking magazines, short story collections, home and living titles, photography magazines. In fact, it can be anything you like, as long as they cover the same subject area.

First, carry out a normal market analysis of one magazine to identify who the reader is and therefore, what type of material the editor is looking for. (For tips on how to do this, read Lorraine Mace’s article from the September 2005 issue of Ezee Writer.) Then, pick up your next magazine and do exactly the same, but this time look for the differences between this magazine and the others that you’ve analysed. You will spot them. In particular, focus on:

DIFFERENCE 1 - Advertising – Advertisers spend fortunes getting their message across to the right people, so you won’t find products advertised in a magazine which are of no interest to a large section of the readership. The upmarket retailer Waitrose will not advertise in a woman’s weekly magazine read by pensioners on a tight budget. Therefore, will your article giving top tips for dinner parties at less that £2 per head, be of interest to readers of a magazine that Waitrose advertises in?

BBC Gardener’s World magazine contains adverts for large conservatories and ride-on lawnmowers; whereas BBC Easy Gardening magazine contains adverts for seed catalogues and special offers on gardening tools from large garden centre chain stores. Which reader has more money (and more land) to spend on your article idea of creating a wild flower meadow? They are both gardening magazines, but they are not both the right market for your idea.

DIFFERENCE 2 - Straplines – Does the magazine have a statement or phrase encapsulating the essence of its ethos? This may be on the front cover near the title, or on the magazine’s spine. Country Living magazine is full of articles and pictures of an idyllic lifestyle living in a rural area, but along its spine is the strapline “When your heart is in the country.” How revealing is that? The reader’s heart may be in the country, but where do they actually live? Most of Country Living’s readers are city dwellers who either aspire to live in the country, or who have second weekend homes in the country, but yearn to live there full time.

The Sunday Times Travel Magazine says, “Be informed, be inspired, be there”. These readers clearly want ideas about exciting destinations and then practical advice on how to get there. These are not armchair travellers, like many of National Geographic’s readers. Both are travel magazines, but which one will be more interested in your ten-step guide to fishing for Piranhas in Peru?

DIFFERENCE 3 - Pictures – Most magazines are visual these days, so scrutinise the pictures. Who’s in them and what are they doing? An issue of Dogs Monthly had images of owners putting their dogs through their paces at Crufts and pictures of professional trainers and vets interacting with dogs. This suggests the readership are serious dog owners, possibly breeders. A flick through Your Dog magazine produced images of dogs in a family environment, particularly with children. This is clearly aimed at owners who treat their dog as one of the family! Again, these are both dog magazines, but which one is your article about canine birthday parties better targeted at?

DIFFERENCE 4 - Language – read the words. How technical is the magazine that you’re analysing and how clued up are the readers? BBC Gardener’s World, for example, will use Latin names to identify plants, whereas BBC Easy Gardening will use common English names. If you want to write a gardening article, there is no point filling it with Latin names if you are going to send it to BBC Easy Gardening.

DIFFERENCE 5 – Characters’ Names and Occupations – Magazine analysis is just as important for the short story writer too. In the UK, the biggest short story markets include Take a Break’s Fiction Feast, Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special, and People’s Friend, with many other weekly publications containing numerous stories too. However, their readership differs, so you need to change your story to suit that readership.

The latest issue of Fiction Feast has stories with characters called Sally, Ricky, Gary, Carol, Becky, Hayley, Tracey, Cheryl and Anna. These are short, modern names of young characters who work in supermarkets, garages, clothes stores and estate agents. In contrast, Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special story names include Doreen, Maureen, Jack, Laura, Eileen, Bea, Gemma and Cissy. Some of these characters worked in charity shops, were retired, ran guesthouses or were on a cruise. So which magazine is your story about Jock and Maureen who run an antiques shop, best suited to? Technically, your story may be perfect, but Fiction Feast would probably reject it because their readers are younger (hence the younger names), whereas Woman’s Weekly may be interested.

Analysing a market is important, but to gain a true understanding of who the reader is, analyse two or three different magazines that cover the same subject. Often, the differences are more revealing than the analysis itself.

TOP TIPS...

For Generating New Ideas

1. Probably the most obvious – read as widely as you can.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a newspaper, novels, non-fiction books or magazines.  They all contain information that might spark new ideas.  We’re always amazed when would-be writers tell us that they don’t read other people’s work!
   
   
2. As Heather Cooke pointed out in last month’s issue, song lyrics and titles can be a great source of ideas.  And it means you can combine work with pleasure.
   
   
3. Listen to other people’s conversations in bars, cafés and restaurants, or on the bus, train or tube.  You’ll be surprised how frank people can be when talking to friends and what interesting snippets you can pick up.
   
   
4. Travel really does broaden the mind.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an exotic holiday or a day out at the seaside.  Not only will you be seeing new sights and having new experiences but the change from daily routine will boost your creativity.
   
   
5. Dare we say it… but watching TV and films can be useful.  There’s lots of rubbish out there but you might just see something that gets you thinking and writing.  You can’t pinch plots and storylines but you can use basic ideas and then give them a new twist.
   
   
6. Talk to people – and listen to what they are saying.  Too many people are so interested in talking about themselves that they don’t listen to what they are being told.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s face-to-face or in an Internet chat room – but you’ll get all kinds of different views on the world that you might be able to turn into copy.
   
   
7. Browse the Internet and let yourself roam from link to link, going where your enthusiasm takes you.  But it may help to put a time limit on this kind of general surfing or you could find yourself with no time left to write.
   
   
8. People watch.  Look at their body language and mannerisms; how they are reacting to the people they are with; whether they look confident or are worried and uneasy if they are on their own.  Put two and two together and make five! You might not get a story out of it but you could get some great descriptions for your characters.
   
   
9. Give yourself some personal space.  Clear your mind and allow yourself to day-dream (if it was good enough for Wordsworth, who are we to argue?)  Do whatever it takes to make yourself relax.  Stop writing shopping lists in your head or thinking about picking up the kids from school – just let your mind wander and see where it takes you.
   
   
10. And don’t forget to network.  Think about joining a writers’ group (or a reading group if the former makes you feel nervous).  Go to writers’ conferences and literary events.  You’ll hear professionals talk about their work and may even get a chance to chat to them.  Even if it doesn’t bring immediate results it may make you feel less isolated as a writer and inspire you to continue.

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