Sunday, January 11, 2009

Ten Writer Tips

In an effort to delay whatever, I'm posting some helpful writer tips. Hopefully, the following will be of interest:

1. For market research, sign up for free Publishers Lunch. The paid version is more intensive, but a tremendous amount of info is available on the freebie. Sign up at caderbooks.com

2. Mediabistro.com offers several freebies, collected info of all sorts. Their paid subscription at $49 is worth it, if you have the money, but the freebies do a nice job. My favorites are Galleycat and Revolving Door. Revolving Door is especially interesting, because if there is a new editor at a magazine, you need to keep up, or at a publisher, i.e. I just read where so many editors had been named at Little Brown in Childrens and Poppy. Research which division they're in and then use for query purposes.

3. Freelancewritinggigs.com offers job lists for those wanting jobs, really good resource and check out the sidebar for additional resources. It takes awhile to wander around their new format, but somewhere on there is regular job listings. Sunoasis.com is also good and woodenhorsepub.com is a paid version. Writerswrite.com offers extensive help.

4. For Romancers and others sometimes, Cindi Myers newsletter, available through her website, is an excellent offering.

5. For outlining and proposals, I'm really into PageFour Outliner now. Really worth the time on the TEST version, which gives you quite a bit, but I have the whole software pkg and am using it heavily. It saves in .rtf, but be sure to place the data in your Document MyFiles.

6. Which brings me to bitsdujour.com, where daily deals bring great savings and is where I purchased PageFour Outliner, after I knew it would really be good. One or two software pkgs are listed every day, heavily discounted for advertising purposes. I check on Bits frequently and have not been disappointed. Programs offered are varied, from programming to graphics to writers stuff and games, etc.

7. Site Spinner Pro as webware is terrific. I have to update to it to be able to use the small screen option, i.e. Blackberry, but am using their WebEngine now, which is excellent.

8. Bluehost.com has been a really good webhost for years now. Great support when needed, lots of free programs on their back pannel.

9. Agentquery.com is excellent. Use for research and their sample query letter is great.

10. iTunes.com for writers podcasts. Excellent interviews on the shows and you do NOT have to have an iPod to listen to them on your computer. I turn up the volume on my laptop so I can do whatever while listening. Paula B. is excellent, but you can catch her on her own website, TheWritingShow.com

That's it for now.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cait, these are wonderful tips, thank you so much. You are so right, the economic picture might be dreary, but we have to be pro-active with our careers and our promotion. Thanks again, Mary Kennedy

Amelia Picklewiggle said...

Hi Cait,

I am actually in groups, 1,2,3,4 and 9 and yes they are filled with quite a bit of information..Thanks for the helpful hints. Hi Mary nice to see you here!

Hugs,
AP Miller

Anonymous said...

THanks, Cait. I'm going to check out many of the sites you've suggested.

Dorothy Francis
www.dorothyfrancis.com

Nancy J. Cohen said...

This is useful info, thanks so much! Your blog site is very nicely done. Did you design it yourself?

Lois K. said...

Hi, Nancy. Yes, I designed all my blogs myself. I have 3, plus my website. For a blogger.com blog, go to freeskins.blogspot.com for my design. It has horses, but I got the red background from istockphoto.com

makenwords said...

Great ideas Cait! I'll have to try that Page Outliner.