Category Archives: Writing Tips

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Journo Portfolio for Writers

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Here’s a Journo Portfolio review for freelance writers who’d like to quickly and easily create an online portfolio:

Authors wanting to create an online portfolio showcasing their writing may find this helpful. In my case, I needed one place to round up posts (from three different blogs), articles archived online at publishers’ websites, and magazine article clips (in PDF) from 32 years of writing! Journo Portfolio seems to do the trick.

You may also find this helpful if as a freelance writer you have written for a variety of publications, and on many topics. It can help literary agents or editors see the full scope of your writing career.

How to upload blog posts or articles archived at publisher websites to your own portfolio:

Since I just started my page at Journo Portfolio yesterday, so far I’ve only had a chance to upload my blog posts and a few magazine articles archived online. It was very fast and easy. I uploaded links to 35 posts in about 3 hours. It would have taken half that time (or less) if I hadn’t opted to tweak the post descriptions.

If you want to create your own, it’s free to start with 10 article links, then $5 for a month for unlimited. For a few other features you can go to the $10 month plan. (And no, I’m not a spokesperson for them, just a random author who found this site helpful so want to pass on a few things I learned so far about using it.)

As for starting your own: first create a login, choose a banner, upload your photo, and name your portfolio (you can start with the free version). Then you’ll see a giant plus sign, at the bottom left of your page. (See example below.)

Click that, and at the home button (picture of a house) you can see your dashboard.

When you click Articles + it’s simple: just copy and paste the link from the website and it will import the link with a photo and some text from the article. It will automatically import to your Home page unless you have already set up other pages.

NOTE: if you want to start out simple, you can just skip creating other pages for now, and all articles will automatically upload to your Home page. The upload will already include the article photo and the first few paragraphs in the description. Bam! Done!

But I do think it prettier to make link descriptions shorter, sort a lot of articles by tabs/pages, and add tags for Google to find your portfolio more easily. So here’s how to do that if you want to go deeper:

How to add pages to your portfolio to sort articles by topics or magazines:

If you want to create tabs (other pages) on your site for different article topics or names of publications you’ve written for, create a new Page. The tab is automatically auto-created. This bumped me at first because I expected it to be more difficult!

You can see in my first image the tabs are Home, 1920s Historical Memoir, Writing Tips, Parenting, and Books. I may change that as time goes along. I found it easiest to first upload links to my Home page, as that has links to all articles in chronological order.

After importing my history-related posts, then creating a new tab for those, I did have to designate they show on both the Home and 1920s History Memoir pages. (See below, “Blocks to display on”).

Note in the image below, where it says “Search blocks” it’s simply searching for the pages/tabs you created. (“Blocks” means pages in this case.) If you don’t indicate a page, it won’t show on any, so at least choose one block for your link to show in. (But as I said, if Home is your only page, you don’t have to mess with this.)

Note above the Text Excerpt field. Journo Portfolio with automatically grab the first few paragraphs, but I chose to shorten those, usually to the subheading in my original article. (The example above is from my post A Sure-footed Dhurzee & a Sly Cook.)

By the way, you can also set Journo Portfolio up to continuously import a feed or all articles from your own blog site. I can’t decide if this is a good option. When I elected that option after I uploaded some links, a few were duplicated.

Also, since a portfolio seems to be public from the time it’s created, I didn’t want a bunch of links posting without my handcrafting the descriptions first and checking the photos. Some photos at my old sites are not so great and I’d like to update those and possibly even the articles themselves before adding them to my new portfolio. (Some old articles contain now-irrelevant links.)

Also, a feed to automatically import new articles is not necessary; it’s a cinch to add the links yourself, and update the descriptions to be sure they looks good.

Also, in the settings area you can add tags. That will be a little additional work, but wise so that Google grabs the new portfolio when people do relevant searches.

By the way: to find website links to your old material, insert your author name in quotes in Google Search. (It’s quite revealing what Google does find. Do you know it shows your last three tweets, if you are on Twitter? Tweet conscientiously!) Google Search is how I found a few of my old archived articles.

Check, too, for alternate spellings of your name. Some sites may have listed your byline without your middle name, or with your middle initial, or using your maiden name (if that was formerly your author name).

Uploading scanned magazine article clips in PDF to your author portfolio:

Next up for me will be a bigger project: scanning my old articles (tearsheets from print magazines) into PDF. If you already have yours scanned, kudos to you! You can get rolling with that right away!

Some of the print magazines are still going strong, for example Writer’s Digest, but don’t have all articles digitally archived (that I could find yet). Other magazines I wrote for have gone entirely out of print or may have articles archived under a new company name with a digital website.

For example, I was formerly was a contributing editor (continuous writer) for Christian Parenting Today (CPT) print magazine (1989-2005), which had about 300,000 readers at its peak. CPT was a sister publication to Virtue and Today’s Christian Woman magazines. All were stellar print publications taken over by Christianity Today (founded by Billy Graham). A few of my parenting articles with them are archived now at the Christianity Today site.

Most of my CPT articles I’ll have to take a day to scan and upload. But I do want to include them in my portfolio, as it shows the range of topics I’ve written about, and most of the parenting articles offer perennial advice.

I didn’t thoroughly explore any other portfolio creation sites, so have none to compare them to. I saw Journo Portfolio recommended by The Write Life blog, so I simply dived in I’m pleased so far.

Do feel free to comment if you have any questions or thoughts about this!

Write on!

Laurie

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Writing for Chicken Soup for the Soul

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Authors, one way to get your true personal stories published is through Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC. Here’s a list of benefits in writing for that company, plus details about a few prolific Chicken Soup story writers.

Chicken Soup for the Soul books with stories by Laurie Winslow Sargent

A Chicken Soup for the Soul story is an inspirational, true story about ordinary people having extraordinary experiences. It is a story that opens the heart and rekindles the spirit. ”  ~ chickensoup.com

I recently was published for the fifth time by this company, including back when the imprint was HCI (Health Communications, Inc.) with Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield. Now CCS (Chicken Soup for the Soul, Inc.) is headed up by Amy Newmark.

However, I “ain’t nuthin’ ” compared to other prolific Chicken Soup writers in my one small North Carolina critique group. Our group has so many published stories (29 stories, so far, with more in the works) our group has been dubbed “The Chicken Coop”.

The decided winner so far, in number of published stories from our group, is Nancy Emmick Panko with 14 CSS stories. The other 15 stories are spread out among five more of us: Terry Hans, Barbara Bennett, Dea Irby, JoAnne Check, and myself. (I’ll share a list of their stories in a moment and links to books they were in.) But part of that success is our group’s familiarity with what “makes” a Chicken Soup story, and what doesn’t.

Be sure to read at the chickensoup.com website their writer’s guidelines for submission. They receive so many submissions, competition can be tough. In our group we’ve also submitted other stories that didn’t make it. Only 101 stories are chosen per book, after many other submissions are weeded out so it’s truly an honor to be included. The stories go through selection rounds until it gets down to the final 101.

Here are some advantages to writing for this publisher:

  • It’s a great way to be in a book without having to write a whole book, and you get into print fairly quickly.
  • Author bios at the end of the book are generous, and can include author book titles and contact info.
  • Payment is nice: $200 for stories (up to 1200 words long). They also currently send 10 free copies of the book, plus discounts on more to sell if you like.
  • The company is great about suggesting ways to promote the books and engaging their authors in that. One current way is through Twitter parties. The also have a digest just for their authors to spotlight how some are helping promote the books.
  • It’s a great way to get a story of yours visible by many more readers than one of your own books might generate — stories you want to encourage as many people as possible. (This has been my favorite benefit, because I love to share stories about amazing ways God has answered prayers.)
  • It builds your author credits and helps readers become familiar with your author name.

How to submit to Chicken Soup for the Soul:

Check out Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Possible Book Topics page with current titles the publisher is seeking submissions for. It’s kept updated, with deadlines and usually has 3-5 books in the works. There’s an additional tab to submit your story right there online. (Edit it first –maybe with your own critique group!)

But WAIT! Bookmark this page so you can check out these Chicken Soup titles, some you may already own, and read stories by my group members who I’m so proud of.

By the way, another book, The Ultimate Dog Lover (2008) was a spin-off book by HCI, so not technically a Chicken Soup book. It’s worth mentioning because another terrific thing this publisher does is send requests to their existing authors for more material. Sometimes that’s an email with more detail about needs for upcoming books. However, in this case, it was a request for photos. My beloved dog Nikki earned a full-page in the book; her photo happened to be on my computer desktop the day I got the email request. Very serendipitous.

You might enjoy our joint Bio at the end of that book, which became its own story:

Laurie Winslow Sargent is an author specializing in family play–including play with her four-year-old miniature American Eskimo Mix, Nikki. Nikki loves soccer (catching the ball in the air with her front paws, dribbling, and blocking on command) and bounce-passing a basketball. She wipes her feet on a mat (for a treat!) and hops into her crate when she hears the AOL “Good-bye!”. Best of all, when her family returns from work or school, Nikki greets them with and excited “Hi!” The sound initially occurred as a yawn, that coincidentally sounded like the word.

That AOL reference is a clue to how long we ladies have been writing!

Your turn! Write On.

Laurie Winslow Sargent

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Starting Small: Writing Your First Magazine Article

Getting started may be easier than you think.

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Do you have an urge to write, but have not yet started  — and can only imagine writing a whole book someday? Someday when you are less busy? Or when you know more about writing?

Try Nonfiction Article Writing

Think smaller, and you can start writing earlier than later.  Perhaps not as early as the author in this photo (my brilliant 8-month-old Grandbaby Lu). But earlier, as in NOW.

The key is to write something short and sweet: a magazine article, for example. Nonfiction articles (which can include true personal experience stories) are a great way to dip into the writing world. Articles can also produce income for the long haul. One can be sold more than once, included in book material later, then used as a book excerpt to help promote that book. With one article you can reach hundreds of thousands of readers at one time, unlike most books.

Granted, it does take three things: finding one great idea, finding the right audience & magazine, and writing your article well.

As for finding an idea, I’m willing to bet you’ve had one stirring about in your mind, but haven’t been sure what to do with it. Most people who want to write have some idea they are wrestling with already. What shape could that take? An inspirational or dramatic Chicken Soup style story? A how-to article? An interview or investigative piece?

Finding the right audience and magazine in which to be published requires some exploration. Laurie’s Lessons  can help. In blog posts at SellYourNonfiction.com I share some information I’ve taught for decades through writing workshops at community colleges and writers conferences.  Those posts explain a bit about how the magazine writing world works, including how to find and contact editors, how much articles pay, etc.

As for writing well: that’s an ongoing process. If you struggle with grammar, you will obviously need to get a leg up on that before trying to write professionally. But if you are reasonably proficient with words and willing to be a continuous learner, a writing critique group can help tremendously. There  are also great books and magazines available through Writer’s Digest addressing all aspects of the writing process.

The nice thing about starting small, with perhaps a single article, is that you can learn about the entire publishing process in a nutshell. You will learn how to write an article proposal, acquire and meet a deadline, work with editors, then get to see the finished piece in print, which for a first-time author is a thrill. That whole process might take a few months or a year, depending on the publication.

Just don’t let little Lu beat you in getting published; she has a good head start on you!

Laurie

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Freelance Awakening and Article Sale Dances : Writing for Magazines

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Wonder how to start writing  for magazines? Here’s my story:

excited woman imageI still recall, back in 1988 when my son was a toddler, the moment I heard that anybody who put their mind to it could write for magazines. Even me?  It was quite a revelation – for some reason, I’d thought all magazines were staff written. Or at least written by famous writers. What an eye-opener the truth was! I picked up magazines on newsstands with a fresh eye.

Of course, my next question was, “How?”

How do you know what content magazine editors want?  How do you approach them in a professional way? How would I learn to write well enough? And of course: What do they pay?”

I read market listings in the Writer’s Market (updated annually, usually available in library reference areas, but also available from Writers Digest Books). What a marvel! I found — under each magazine title — what editor to contact, best contact method, and pay rates: 10 cents to a dollar a word, depending on publication and author experience. (Sorry to say, rates haven’t changed much in two decades. But they still pay better than free blog posts, right?)  Some publications give clues about content they need most.

The Writer’s Market is a great tool for finding publications currently purchasing articles. Listings include editors’ names, contact info, themes, and pay rates for articles. The Kindle version may be a good start for you, but if you want to keep up with updates to listings, I recommend the book+online edition. Bear in mind the WM is written the year before publication, so do check to be sure info is current. It helps to visit a publication’s website to verify their current writer’s guidelines.

 

Still I wondered: although anyone could submit, what were my chances of publication? Some writer’s guidelines tell you your odds of getting in if you are a newbie or mention short sections in their magazines that are most open to less experienced writers.

I was excited to learn that you usually don’t usually submit an article – you submit a query (article proposal), then write the article after you get a contract for it, with a deadline date and expected word count.

Some magazines pay on publication (which could be up to a year after you send in your finished article, but is often four months or so). Others pay after the editors have accepted your article.  A few, if they decide not to use your article after all, pay a “kill fee” giving your rights back. (It’s a merciful death, at least with a consolation prize. And not really a death at all, because you can sell first rights to the article again.)

I tried my hand first at a personal experience story about an answered prayer, and submitted it to Power for Living. I still remember the day I pushed my son in his stroller to the post office in our tiny town, opened up our PO box, and in it was a check! For a whopping $100! I was so thrilled, I jumped up and down screeching. My son shouted “Yay!” too, although he had no idea what had gotten Mommy so excited.

I wrote more queries.  Bombed out a few times. Overshot to big publications with a lot of competition. Got some standard, generic, rejection slips. Ouch. THAT wasn’t fun.

But I think I handled it better than most, because I’d run a different kind of business for the previous dozen years. As a crafts-person, I had created and sold a thousand of my off-loom weavings, to art galleries and via art shows. I’d learned not everyone had the same tastes, and that was OK. So I tried to look at my writing as a product, not an extension of my personality. A product I could improve on, but might not fit every publication or season or theme.

Here’s one analogy: some customers loved my weavings, but ordered colors and designs different from my samples. I figured some magazines might like my writing style, but prefer a different topic or treatment of the topic, or the timing might not be right.

So I pressed on.

I kept hearing from writing sources to “write what you know”. To me, that included what I had learned or was in the process of learning from others. One frustration for me at that time was that my toddler son was outgrowing his clothes WAY too rapidly (within months). I realized it was due to the styles I’d chosen or had been given as gifts. So I informally interviewed other moms to figure out what styles a child could wear for the longest periods of time. I fired off a query to Baby Talk, telling them what I was researching and how I’d present the results. I just figured that if I as a mom had questions, so might other moms.

I was right! And ecstatic when a contract arrived in the mail, offering me a nice per-word rate and a deadline. I had an idea for a second article at the same time, and Baby Talk decided to run them together, in the same issue. The day that glossy magazine arrived in the mail, with my articles illustrated and my own byline, I was over the moon!

I’m a bit sad to say I miss those moments when I danced with excitement on having articles accepted. I must be getting a bit jaded now that I’ve been honored to have 100+ articles sold over the years. I opened an envelope recently with a check for $1100 from one magazine, and shame on me, I just breathed “Whew.” I was just glad it had arrived in time to pay off a bill. I did not dance in the least.

So excuse me.  I need to take a moment to relive that moment. To think about how hard it still can be to make those sales, and …

JUMP FOR JOY!

Have you had a recent success in writing for magazines that made you burst with excitement? Tell us about it in a comment, below! Give some hope to all those new freelancers looking forward to the day they can dance at the mailbox.

 

[Image courtesy of stockimages/freedigitalphotos.net]