Is There Any Work Left for Writers?
Here's what you need to do...
Hi Writing Family! Kelly Eden here.
I’ve been helping a few people with their writing pitches this week, as well as sending out some of my own. In fact, I’m on a pitching spree! So far I’ve had three positive replies which answers a question I’ve been wondering recently:
Is there any work left?
I lost my main magazine gig at the start of the pandemic and my editor has now confirmed the writers budget has been cut to….wait for it…
A Big Fat $0
What???
The entire magazine will now be filled with advertising disguised as articles. When the news was announced, my editor promptly quit.
I’d heard of other writers having the same struggle.
Even though many magazines are cutting their writer’s budgets, there is still plenty of work out there. You just need to go after it. It won’t come without a fight!
Most would-be writers give up after the first handful of failures. They let rejection get to them. We can’t be like that if we want to be published!
If you’re on this newsletter list, you’re already 10 steps ahead of the others because you’re investing in your writing. You’ve bothered to sign up and read something to learn more about your craft.
That puts you in the top percentage of writers as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t let rejection or lack of confidence stop you getting your writing published. You’ve got this!
Talking about pitching…
Do you remember Jimmy Harney, the writer I mentioned last week? In my chat with him we talked about pitching. He’s a new writer but in his day job as a music publicist he pitches labels constantly. Rejection doesn’t worry him at all. He took that confidence, pitched New York Times, and it payed off.
Here’s the Jimmy Harney interview I shared a snippet of last week!
He Never Expected The New York Times to Be One of His First Publications
(Here’s the friend link if you need it)
If you’re pitching, you need to be writing regularly. That in itself is a struggle. Good news…
There’s an App to help you get motivated!
If you’re struggling to get into a writing routine, I’ve been seeing some good things about Cowriters App.
I haven’t used it myself but it motivates you with writing streaks and graphs. If you’ve used it I’d love to hear how you found it.
What You Missed This Month
In the Creative Nonfiction Academy this month we covered:
Defining Creative Nonfiction (did you know it includes personal essays, history writing, nature writing and more?)
Public vs. Personal Writing: Does it always need to be about you?
Clarity and Readability
And next week we’ll discuss how to start an essay well.
Sign up for $20 per month and get:
A lesson sent every Monday. This week it was “Readability and Clarity
Weekly curated Creative Non-Fiction readings and featured publisher to sell your work.
Individual feedback on 250 words of your writing. (Also an option for 1000 words)
If you enjoy it and want to do more, you can learn for as many weeks as you like.
What students are saying so far: “Thank you for creating this course. I've already found it incredibly useful.”