Paying Markets For Writers

This is a list of paying markets for writers. Publishers who will pay writers for articles, submissions, fiction, non-fiction, poems, true stories, cookbooks, chicklit, romantic musings and more. Personally speaking, I have neither need nor time for pursuing publishers. That's a discreet way of saying that my writing is trash and I'm scared of putting my thoughts to paper and submitting it to publishers. Doesn't mean that I can't list these publishers.

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• AA Independent Press Guide - A free, online writer's resource, with detailed listings of over 2000 literary & genre magazines, and links to over 700 internet magazines.
  
• Absolute Markets - Paying market guidelines for freelance writers, writing contests, and interviews with editors, publishers, and agents.
  
• Avalanche of Jobs for Writers - Employment opportunities for writers and journalists in reporting, feature writing, reviewing, editing.
  
• Bonnie Mercure's Guide to Writers' Markets - Market listings for speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, mystery fiction. Divided into paying/non-paying markets and print magazines/ezines.
  
• The Critter's Workshop Market List - Market list from Critter's Workshop. Targets science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
  
• Duotrope's Digest of Fiction Fields - Free, searchable list of fiction markets (mainstream and genre). Also offers a calender of themed publication deadlines.
  
• Every Literary Magazine - A list of literary magazines, zines, and online publications. (Some link rot).
  
• Foreign Language Market List - Douglas Smith's market list for multilingual writers.
  
• Forwriters.com - This is an all-purpose site with links to such writer's resources as markets, agents, groups, conferences, forums, and workshops where writers can have their works critiqued.
  
• FTP Directory of the news.answers/writing Newsgroup - Contains a listing of market information under Resources.
  
• ITI's Literary Market Place.com - Searchable database of the book publishing industry. Search by subject, type of publication, city, state, zip, and even by number of publications issued in the past year.
  
• Just Markets - Markets from travel writing to freelance newspaper jobs. Subscribe for $9.95 a month.
  
• Kimberly Brown's Writing Page - Contains links to writing markets.
  
• Literary Magazines Reviewed for Writers - Short descriptions of literary magazines for prose writers: typical stories, story length, when to submit, typical contributor's background.
  
• The Market List - "A resource for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror."
  
• Mastheads.org - A website dedicated to updating hundreds of magazine mastheads, with information for freelancers on how to contact magazine editors.
  
• Media Bistro - A website connecting journalists and new media professionals to jobs and each other.
  
• Online Content UK: Jobs List - The job list of Online Content UK, the national organization for new media editorial professionals in the United Kingdom. Jobs cover editorial roles, including writing, editing and other content-related jobs.
  
• The Paper Journey Press - Links to writer's guidelines for various literary journals.
  
• Paula Fleming's Market List - List of markets for speculative fiction.
  
• Publisher Database - Offers a submission tracker, forums, and a member-maintained database of magazines looking for writers and poets.
  
• Ralan's Webstravaganza - Writing market listings by genre. Also a spec. fiction newsletter.
  
• The Rose & Thorn Writer's Market Info - Paying and non-paying market listings; links to other sites offering market listings; on- and offline contests and competitions; links to additional market sources.
  
• Sally Stuart - Market guide targeted to Christian writers, including periodical, book, greeting card, poetry, and specialty markets. Also links to conferences contests, and agents.
  
• SciFi Editor: Paying Markets - Paying markets for writers of science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror.
  
• Speculations - An online resource for writers who wish to break into or increase their presence within the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction subgenres. Subscribe for $20 a year.
  
• Speculative Fiction Markets - Paying markets for short science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction. Categorized by pay rate.
  
• Submitting to the Black Hole - Links to science fiction/ fantasy/ horror magazine and book publishers including market information. Site reports statistics on average response times for submitted manuscripts, the theory being that markets with very slow response times are akin to black holes. Only paying markets are tracked.
  
• Wooden Horse Publishing - A news and market resource site for nonfiction periodicals writers.
  
• Word Dragon - Markets for writers to send their work to.
  
• Worldwide Freelance Writer - Global directory of markets for freelance writers.
  
• The Write Market - Online writer's market list, containing listings for print magazines, book projects, contests, webzines, and publishers.
  
• Writerfind.com - Global freelance and telecommuting jobs for writers.
  
• The Writers' Desk - A service query desk which allows authors to send multiple queries, pitches, manuscripts, articles and screenplays to syndicates, agents, magazines and publishers.
  
• Writer's Digest - Writer's Digest features daily writing and publishing updates, writer's guidelines, ranking of places to get published, courses and contests.
  
• The Writers Place - Market database, Chicken Writer daily cartoon and a humour column. Home page of the Writing for Dollars newsletter.
  
• Writers Write: Paying Markets - List of paying markets and writer's guidelines from Writer's Write.
  
• WritersMarket: Market Watch - Searchable database of publishers and agents. Offers features such as the Submission Tracker, the Tips Library, Your Writer's Market, Web Resources, the Market Watch section, the Spotlight Market and the Ask the Agent column.
  
• WritersWeekly.com - Free listing of paying markets for freelance writers. Also includes links to various resources for writers.
  
• Writers@Work - Job board and market database.
  
• Zongoo - Writers submit their articles, publishers get their free content.
  
  

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Freelance Jobs 28th Dec

Here's the jobs, freelance, telecommute, work at home, sit on your butt and earn money:

New York, food, writing. Mix 'em up, throw in craigslist and a sprinkling of telework and what'd you have? A food writing gig in NYC. Click here.

Forum posters wanted for NYC forum. I know which forum the ad is talking about, but the very thought of posting there again sends cold shivers up my spine. Dead forum. Still, if you're a sucker for punishment, click here.

Got pipedreams of being a hot-shot journalist? Well, this may not be exactly what you had in mind, but it's a start. Specially if you're not willing to get up off that comfy chair. Click here ( news content writing job )

Love politics? Want to express your partisan rants? And get paid for it? Nope. This ain't a blogging gig. Political bloggers are totally unemployable. What these people need are real writers, who can write lengthy features, with facts and analysis and history lessons and quotes from famous politicians, analysts and regional experts. If you can do that, click here.

Ghost writer wanted. Click here.
Freelance copywriter wanted. Click here.
Teen weblog looking for freelance writers. Click here.
Uh...Parrot forum posters wanted. Click here.
Medical proof-reading gig. Work at home. Click here.
Freelance web copy writer. Click here.
PR firm looking for a freelance writer. Click here.
Marketing copy writer wanted. Telecommuting is A-Ok!! Click here.

From now on until the 2nd or 3rd of Jan, there won't any job postings. That's not because I'm going to be punch drunk ( well...maybe a bit...), but because the people who post the jobs on craigslist likely won't be around for the next few days. I will be posting, in the brief periods of clarity, when the haze of alcohol induced stupor lifts a bit and allows me to see one screen, instead of a couple. A happy new year to every useless scum of a writer and all the fine freelancers who visit this page!!!!

Write For Rights - Write-A-Thon

Want to write? Here's what you need. A central idea, a set of ideals, which propels the writer to a logical conclusion. The hero? Someone the reader wants to be. End of the day, it's a must that your words inspire change in the reader - Whether it be picking up some of the slang, a change in lifestyle or, in the best of circumstances, a transfer of ideas and ideals from paper to mind.

An example would be non-fiction writers who catalog human rights abuse. The writer has this feeling that he or she is fighting to correct some wrong. It's less about writing, and more about the subject matter. Meaning that you, the writer, are part of a crusade. And this gets transferred into paper and shows up as the central idea. Couple this with some moving and graphic pictures, detailed research and citing of facts and what you have is that the sense of fighting on behalf of the oppressed is transferred from the writer to paper and crawls into the reader's mind.

Look up a few articles and features written Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times, and you'll realize what I'm blabbering about. He's not a great writer. What he does have is an unshakable sense of conviction and a quixotic impulse to fight for the downtrodden. He doesn't play with words like say, David Brooks. I'd say that he's more of a human rights activist than a writer. Every other day, he's slam-bang in the middle of a new mess. He turns up in remote and oppressed parts of the world, and the local two-bit dictator starts quaking in his boots thinking about the backlash from a Kristof article in the NYT. Womens' rights in Pakistan, the Orange revolution in Ukraine, Rose revolution in Georgia, Darfur, call-girls in Cambodia....

You don't have to be a Kristof or an NYT columnist to be able to do this. You can sit on your butt in your parents' basement and write about it. By participating in Amnesty International's annual Global Write-a-thon. Every December, AI activists from countries all over the world write letters during the Global Write-a-thon. The letters and postcards they write effect powerful change in the lives of individuals, help stop violence against women and contribute to the release of Prisoners of Conscience around the world. "The candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who ''disappeared'. That is what the candle is for." - Peter Benenson ( Founder, Amnesty International )

End of the day, your writing is better because you care. And you become a better person because you write about things which concern you. Your writing holds you up to a certain standard, and it's difficult to run away from those standards. Alcohol helps, but there really is no escape. As a rule, writers are like water - Always looking for the path of least resistance. Write for rights, and you'll not only be a writer, but also a better person.

The American Title

No, this isn't another post about stealing titles for your doodling. This is about the American Idol for writers. The "American Title Contest". The Philly has the inside dope. "By winning American Title, the stay-at-home mom of three would get her romance novel published by Dorchester Publishing... 'Life interferes with my writing,' Fennell said." She's gonna win it, all right.

The film Freedom Writers is making waves, for all the right reasons. Normally, this kind of stuff would be inspiration fodder for budding writers to wring their hankies over, but by adding Hillary Swank to the cast, the film is headed for a far bigger audience share. The Republican has the details. "The film is an adaptation of Erin Gruwell's 1999 book, 'The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them.' "

I've often bloviated on the need to be a 'life writer'. Write about what you do, your life, your thoughts, your ideas, your mom, your cat....Beats writing about the vietnam war, when you have absolutely no clue how it feels to be hunted by a sniper in the Cambodian jungle. Anyway, Juanita Riedel a.k.a. "The Basket Lady" has a unique way to help writers stretch their imaginations.

Journalist? Nope. Holy Terror

"Just imagine a young journalist who knows how to write and has also studied forensic accounting. He or she would be a holy terror. Politicians and executives alike would quake in their boots at the mere mention of the reporter’s name. And when they hear who is in the waiting room, they’ll hide everything in sight. It would be like having a secret weapon in your pocket." - Attribution, Plagiarism and Lies - Part 2 - Hot Copy, by Del Marbrook

I like the thought of people quaking in their boots at the mere mention of my name. But as of speaking, my 4 year old nephew starts rolling on the floor with uncontrolled mirth whenever I'm the subject of discussion. So there's a bit of work to be done, before I can hope to become a holy terror. Moving away from navel gazing, I'll list a few scribes who do manage to induce a few beads of sweat:

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Bob Woodward : Nothing much to say about Woodward that hasn't been said, discussed and dissected on the net. Starting off with a navy career, Woodward moved over to reporting, broke the Watergate scandal, had a movie made about his exploits, regularly churns out best-selling and meticulously researched books. Has a great job with the Washington Post, which gives him a lot of freedom to write his books. His latest book was one of the turning points in the shaping of American opinion about the Iraq war. You can say that it started going downhill for the Bush administration after Woodward's book came out. In short, he's everything that defines the concept of a journalist as a 'holy terror'.

That said, there's something more about Woodward that needs to be said. He's a sellout. He cultivates friendships and flushes them down the loo when he's done. He has a long trail of bitter friendships, starting from Mark Felt to Carl Bernstein right up to President Bush. Modus operandi: Snuggle up to people, listen to what they have to say, flatter them, make use of their information and access and then shut the door in their face. He's done it all his life, and I don't see a shred of emotion or remorse in him. A real cold-blooded fish. Or a successful journalist and investigative reporter. Take your pick. I guess it means the same...

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Seymour Myron Hersh : Exploits? Investigative reporting on My Lai, the C.I.A.'s bombing of Cambodia, Henry Kissinger’s wiretapping, and the C.I.A.'s efforts against Chile's Salvador Allende, among other topics. In 2004, Hersh was responsible for exposing the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He then moved on to the Bush administrations plans to deal with Iran and with a single article effectively blew the bottom out of any Iran buzz.

Seymour Hersh's main assets include an unshakable conviction that as a reporter, he's entitled to the truth and a deep pipeline into the armed forces, which helps him dig up and write about the dark side of war and its ravages. If you're in the middle of a war, have something to hide and you find Hersh sniffing at your heels, it would be a good time to break out in a sweat.

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Matt Drudge : If you don't read the Drudge report, you're one news cycle behind anyone else who does. The secret of his strength is his unshakable reader base, which he cultivates with a very simple formula. Breaking news. If I'm following a story and expect some breaking news, there are only two sites I keep open - The NYT and Drudge. Every single time, it's either one of these that breaks the news first. And if you are the headline in Drudge, you would be well advised to go on a vacation, a long one.

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Flawed as they are, these are the representative icons of journalism and news reporting. Ultimately, they must be thanked for doing their job. Which is to break news and bring out the truth.

The Gift Of Hope - Bill Gates

Time may have made an astute marketing choice by nominating you as the 'person of the year', but I'd like to shine the spotlight on an unlikely candidate. Bill Gates. Anything the man does, was and is an unqualified success. He wants to be charitable. So he sets up the Bell & Melinda Gates foundation. Fine. Nothing special. World's richest guy. World's biggest charity. $30 billion. Usual stuff.

But then, with the Google boys nipping at his heels, Bill Gates decides he's had enough and turns his cold eye to really 'doing' charity. And this is where it gets interesting. He cons Warren Buffet ( Or maybe it was the other way around, as Alan Sloan brilliantly explains in Newsweek ) into handing out another $30 billion, which makes the foundation good for $60 billion. And that's just the simple math.

What Gates did in that one week of blanket media coverage was to turn philanthropy from something which Madonna and Angelina Jolie did into something which you and I can do. He made it fashionable, and cool, to give away a fortune. His actions and words are attracting talented graduates fresh out of college into the world of charity and non-profit research. A chance of getting a grant from the B & M Gates foundation is spurring non-profits and drug companies to venture into fields which they would normally avoid like the...like the...All right. This line was a mistake.

On this Christmas day, when Santa brings joy to millions of kids around the world, he has the King of the Geeks as a new intern. For bringing the gift of hope to those most in need of it, to those who have been forsaken by state and society, for lighting small sparks of charitable spirits in the hearts of millions, I give to you my 'Person of the Year 2006'. Bill Gates.

Addicted To Chaos

When normal people hit a roadblock in life, they put their heads down, struggle through the storm and then live happily ever after. When a writer bumps into tragedy, he breaks out the champaigne. Do writers invite tragedy and turmoil, consciously or otherwise, in order to be writers? I have here a collection of links, quotes and facts to shed more light on this affliction.

"It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going." - Carl Gustav Jung

Sharon K. West, writing for Suite101 ( Contract writers on Suite101 get paid based on page views, so I'm helping her out here by linking to her article ) lays out the facts.
"What do we know of the tragic afflictions of historical figures?
Some who have suffered from depression include Beethoven, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Judy Garland, Claude Monet, Norman Rockwell, and Edgar Allen Poe. Winston Churchill called depression his "little black dog."
Of course, depression is not the only tragic affliction. What of the afflictions of Joseph Merrick, also known as the "Elephant Man," or blind and deaf Helen Keller, or Franklin D. Roosevelt with polio?
We certainly would consider dyslexia to be a tragic affliction. Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and Albert Einstein had this affliction. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pablo Picasso had it as well."

Well, that rules out at least one thing. This affliction of the "tragic" can't be a co-incidence. Which means that someone, somewhere, probably has a study on this, or a thesis and has all kinds of statistics and data to back it up. Well? Uhh.....yeah. There is. "A portrait of the artist as a nutcase".
A perspective on the biological basis of aesthetic preferences from neuropsychological study of artistic creativity by Anna Lee Strachan.
Go figure...

And just when I was patting my back at this excellent analysis and dissection of writers, tragedy and creativity, I bump into the word "art therapy". Which basically means that I must flush my entire post down the loo. But no, I must hit 'publish', close blogger.com, shut down the computer, get drunk and try and forget about this tragedy of a post.

Nobel Prize Laureates Danced the Night Away in Night Club

Well...Not exactly. It's "Nobel prize laureates danced the night away in virtual night club".
"Live sounds and video were projected from the famous Club NEVERDIE into the physical night club, creating the illusion that the Nobel Laureates and the avatars were dancing and partying together" - Press release, Market Wire.
Ok. Bit wierd. Grumpy old gramps dancing to the flashing lights. Couple of questions. What happens if you link up a few night-clubs, and project the crowd in each into the others, creating the illusion of one massive night club? And secondly, why weren't the nobel winners projected out? But I'm pretty sure somebody must have thought about this already, and there must be nightclubs which share crowds virtually and I'm also sure there must be a lot more innovation to this than only sharing crowds. Definitely needs more looking into. But then, bloviating on this without pictures or a video is a bit pointless...


Ok. So I go over to check out Club Neverdie, and run smack bang into something even more wierd. Club Neverdie, it turns out, is a virtual space station, inside an online game called Entropia. Wierd part is, there's a big virtual universe inside the game, and hunders of thousands of registered members roaming and spending time in this universe. These players buy and sell parts of the world, with real money. Jon Jacobs, the guy who owns the club, brought the spaceship for $100,000. That's real money. And turns out there's a huge real estate boom in the Entropia universe. With players developing virtual property and selling it off.

Finally, the wierdest part is that the owners of these virtual properties, like Jacobs, are tying up with owners of real places, like the club the Nobel laureates ended up in, to mix up both worlds and produce cocktails of real and virtual worlds. This is getting just a little bit too close to the sci-fi movies and art and life symbiosis that I bloviated on in the previous post. Makes you kind of uncomfortable.

Art imitates life, and life imitates art

I wanted to write something about the symbiotic relationship of life and art. Guess what? There's 1,250,000 writers who have already explored this, as per google. In-depth. Make that a 1,250,000 + 1. So what's left for me to do? Link to them, of course.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates life - Oscar Wilde
A little detour here, if I may. The words writer, tragic and destined all come to mind when you say Oscar Wilde. While many would argue that he was horribly wronged, I would say that he breathed and lived and died the life and death of a writer. Envy him, if you will, but do not belittle his life and his writing with your pity.

"We try to live as art teaches. We express love in the ways of characters in stories. We speak in unfamiliar situations in ways that we've read characters speaking. We select the clothes we wear based upon an ideal determined by art (such as fashion photography). We take on the roles of characters we see in art, and judge others by those same characters." - Richard Nokes, Unlocked WordHoard
One more detour. By that standard, the concept of what a writer should be, what you need to write about, how you live and what is good writing would be called life imitating art. So any art you create, based on your life, is basically life imitating art, not art imitating life. And here I was thinking that you need to pour your life onto paper. Well, scratch that. You can skip a stage and directly write from the life of writers from the past. Uhh...All right. I'll say it one more time. Slowly. With bullet points.

• 1. You read about other writers and their books.
• 2. Over time, from these readings, you form an outline of what a writer should be, how you live, what you do and what you write about. You begin to follow these guidelines, and you become a writer.
• 3. Your writing sounds suspiciously similar to the stuff you were reading in the first place.

Forgive me for the rather batty detour. Just seemed like something worth exploring. Not so sure now, when I see what I just typed out. Anyway, let's move on to something a little less abstract....

"Imagine a gun that uses fingerprint scanning to prevent you from firing a shot...It's not science fiction, it is science fact....Scientists have taken many cues from what they have seen on screen....Artists are generally very good at reflecting human nature in the tenor of their times and sometimes that leads to very valuable insights....If you're not constrained by knowledge of things you can't do or think you can't do, I think you can come up with some really nice insights." - The Age, AU

Which means life, as the artist sees it, is the building block for the artist's depiction of the future, which in turn is the inspiration for real-life scientists to turn that art into reality. The cycle started with artists imitating life, and keeps going on simply because scientists watch films. If they used their own imagination instead, the art gets a boot in the rump. There's no way to turn this one around and say that life imitates art.

Life does imitate art, to the extent that we take inspiration for our lifestyle from art. The Jennifer Anniston and David Beckham haircuts are testament to this fact. But artists, and writers in particular, sorely need a reality check, if they think that their writing, or art, is any form of inspiration for life, or other writers and artists. It's just art inspiring more art. There is no life in there anywhere.

Books Which Sing And Dance

You're reading a book. Nice and quiet. Very peaceful. Lost in your own world. Just the book and you. A gentle breeze. Makes you sway left and right. Suddenly, you hear a voice, very close to you. He's saying exactly what you're reading on the page. You look around, startled, to see who else in the subway is reading the same book. Don't see anyone. But why is everyone looking at you? You have this sinking feeling low in your stomach. It's the audio in your book. Technology integration now allows you to publish books with music, games and video.

Kimberly Maul, writing for TheBookstandard.com, has an article about this. "Authors Add Music, Games and More To Their Books". Punch line? "So as authors grab their guitars, bust out the glue gun or get creative with games, look for even more multimedia book experiences to come out in 2007."

I think it was the books whch were supposed to sing and dance. Not the writers. Now they want the writers to do it. I thought grovelling at a publishers feet was enough.

In a related development, your book can now be an mp3 file played on a single-play mp3 player. Don't even think about asking me how that works. Besides, I have only question. You think bookstores across the UK might need something more than mere police protection if JK Rowling were to release the 7th Harry Potter book in her own voice along with the book?

Freelance Jobs 23rd Dec

Here's today's freelance jobs:

Seeking web content writer. Click here.
Translation project. Freelance translators wanted. Click here.
Writing and internet research for book project. Click here.
Transcription gig. Click here.

Uhh....Want to help someone else find a writing job online? Click here. This is getting ridiculous. Now they waht to pay people to help them find jobs online. There's literally thousands of blogs online which do the same as this blog, i.e. find and list online and freelance writing jobs. Why would you want to pay someone?

Men’s lifestyle magazine looking for writers. Click here.
Telecommuting industrial reporter wanted. Click here.
HR blogger wanted. Click here.
Ad agency looking for a freelance copywriter. Click here.
Entertainment mag looking for freelance writers. Click here. ( take a look at the email first )
SEO web content writer wanted. Click here.
Transcription gig. Click here.
$150 per article. Magazine calling for submissions. Click here.

Indie filmmaker video reviews wanted. Video blogger? Click here. The videos on youtube and other user-submittede video content sites are 'supposed' to be reviews. Now they want to do reviews of these reviews....

HACK/SLASH VS. CHUCKY - I'm a little pressed for time, but I still read it a couple of times before giving up. Anyone want to tell me what it's all about?

D. W. O'Dell, writing for Mediablvd.com, has a nice article which taught me a couple of things. One of them being 'Auteur Theory' and the other being 'Schreiber Theory'.

The Irving Wallace School Of Writing

The ultimate compliment you can give a writer is to want to live the life of his characters. Romance writers may not have much trouble accomplishing said feat. For other genres, it's very, very difficult to come up one, let alone more than one book where the reader starts thinking about being in the characters' shoes. One such author, who consistently bottles lightning, is Irving Wallace.

The Prize, By Irving Wallace : The hero, writer Andrew Craig, a flawed character, who is fighting innner demons caused by the death of his wife. Drowning in booze, he wins the Nobel prize, and the entire book weaves his personal struggles and those of the other nobel laurates with the machinations of the Nobel foundation. Overflowing with anectodes and facts about the workings of the Nobel foundation and the history of the prize, this book represents Irving Wallace at his best. Sadly, the only copy of the book I had was missing it's last few pages, so I never found the end. Which may be why I still remember every small detail about the book. The Swedish writer Gunnar Gottling, the wise old Count Jacobsson, the blonde Lilly Hedquist and even the place of her employment - Nordiska Kompaniet.

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The Hotel, by Aurthur Hailey : The story revolves around a hotel in New Orleans, The St. Gregory, again featuring a flawed hero, Peter McDermott, who is trying to banish the memory of a past mistake and redeem his career. Again, the entire book has expansive details about the inner workings of a hotel woven skillfully around the life of the characters. The high pressure work environment of the cooks, the use of brass or copper for frying pans, the inter-racial overtones and tensions in New Orleans, all push the reader, ever so gently, into the daily world of a hotel and its employees. Great research, great characters and a great yarn, all said and done.

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What are the common strands in these two best-sellers? A flawed hero, who starts off hiding or running from his past. Authetic and in-depth research into the entire profession of the protagonists. A challenge and a wrenching change in the life of the hero, followed by the fleshing out of the other characters. Ending in the redemption of the hero. One important thing to note is that while there are sad and twisted characters in both books, there is no villian. It is just the hero fighting against circumstance and for the betterment of his own life. Much closer to reality and something which readers can emphatize with. That is the Irving Wallace school of thought.

What's In A Title?

Which one would you rather click on : "Electric sheep invade Google" or "Installations in Google and Willow Garage". I rest my case.

For any of you abnormal netizens who didn't rush off to check out the invading hordes of electric sheep, a title will not sell your writing. It will only help sell your writing. It is, however, the main reason why a prospective buyer will pick up your book off a shelf or a search engine user click on your link. So, before you start writing that epic, pick a great title. Give it as much time as needed. The title tells the reader a great deal about the content. Think about the idea behind the book, or article, or blog post. Ok. So you've agonized over the title for your masterpiece. Now head over to google, search for the top 100 best-sellers which fall under the same category as yours, and write down their titles. Read the whole list from top to bottom. Now go agonize some more.

I agonized over the title for this post. "A Perfect Title"? Nah - Gives away too much about the contents of the post. If the title tells you everything that's in the post, why would you want to read the whole thing? So I nixed that one. And it was really tempting to use the electric sheep, but they really had nothing to do with titles, so I let them go by, albeit reluctantly. So I went over to google. Wrote down a big list of books for writers, which stress titles. Then I agonized some more. Finally, I came up with "What's In A Title?" Rushed over to Google to find a 118 million people already using said title. Aaargh.

Anyway, once you think have the perfect title, head over to the Lulu Titlescorer and have your title analyzed to see if it's going to hit the NYT best-sellers list. There's a 70% chance that what they say will be true. And the results of the analysis will indeed confirm your worst fears - Your book is going to be read only by your family, that too only if you promise them all sorts of goodies in return.

Writers - Desperate, Wretched and Drunk

It's a known fact that great writers are more appreciated after they pass on into the ether. The problem, as I see it, is that people want the writing, but not the writer. But I digress. I'm posting excerpts from articles written by drunk or loony writers. These articles are about drunk or loony writers. And I'm a drunk and loony writer. So if you're not a drunk or loony writer, it's probably best to quit while you're ahead.

Glenn F. Bunting, writing for CalenderLive.com, has an excellent piece on Clive Cussler, who had wide discretion over the movie script for his novel "Sahara." Now, after many costly revisions, he's suing over what did hit the screen. The best line? "I've worked with a lot of live authors," Hart testified. "The dead ones are easier to deal with."

NPR has an even better history lesson featuring drunk writers titled "Great American Writers and Their Cocktails". Money quote? "Alcohol is like love," he said. "The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off." - Raymond Chandler, as quoted in NPR

"They’re generally a desperate, upset bunch, writers. Stephen Kings and Danielle Steeles aside, the overwhelming majority of them do not earn their living from writing alone. Most have to teach or work at day jobs they despise, take journalism assignments they have no feeling for, or write copy for the back of DVD or cereal boxes" - Writers on film: Drunk, crazy and sexy - By Dave White, writing for Slate

"Crack out the violins. Proffer those hankies. I am now going to discuss why, by and large, writers are treated like scum. (Of course, you could argue that it's because writers are scum, but you have to get your own column to do that.)" - PeterDavid.net

"One little known thing about the legendary drunk writers of the world is that they did most of their writing while stone-cold sober. Hunter S. Thompson wrote Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas on the straight and narrow (I know someone who wanted to go to a Hunter S. Thompson reading just to heckle the author; personally, I think that heckling someone who owns more than 20-30 firearms is a bit, perhaps, unwise). The problem with writing under the influence is that it makes it very difficult to concentrate on what you want to say. Or even remember what you want to say" - Upon Silence, PaulFrankenstein.org

"Friends, it is time to get drunk and type. NaDruWriNi - National Drunk Writing Night. Best goddamn idea I’ve heard in a while. I mean, commemorating it is a good idea. I’m not saying you need an excuse to drink and write. I’m not saying I need one, anyway...There is a big difference between a writer who drinks and a drunk who writes..." - Byrneunit.com

"In 1994 I started writing a novel. By this I mean I created a word document named 'My Novel', hit save and then got drunk with friends. The next day, terrified as I was to return, I created a second document, called 'My Novel - notes'. And in there I wrote down every idea that came to me about what might be in the novel. Only had one at first (“The narrator gets drunk. And then…well…hmmm")..." - Writing hacks (hacks for writing) - Part 1: Starting, By Scott Berkun, Scottberkun.com

"Fortunately for you, fat and drunk are practically two prerequisites for writing success. The difference between Ernest Hemingway and you is that he used his limited hours of coherency to write classic American fiction, while you spend your time touching yourself and ogling the showcase models on The Price is Right.
So, get your hands off the goodies and onto the keyboard, and you'll be on your way to lasting fame and a violent death by your own hand, just what every writer wishes for!" - John Warner, Mcsweeneys.net

And can we forget the all-knowing wikipedia? Has an excellent collection of "Iconic Drinkers" and their quotes. "In an appraisal of Lowry's masterpiece Under the Volcano, British novelist Martin Amis comments that, "To make a real success of being an alcoholic you need to be...shifty, unfastidious, solopsistic, insecure and indefatigable. Lowry was additionally equipped with an extra-small penis, which really seemed to help". - Wikipedia"

Ok. Nuff said. If you're not drunk, now would be a good time to hit the bottle.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Speaking in broad terms, what do Jewish readers want from books? Do they want images of themselves? Do they desire to take stock, to see where we are now and where we came from. Or are Jewish readers concerned with a quality of reassurance – that is, Jewish books that assert Jewish worth and attest to Jewish survival?" - A conversation with Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) about the meaning and destiny of jewish literature ( By Rabbi William Berkowitz )

Issac Bashevis Singer, born in Radzymin near Warsaw, emigrated 1935 to USA. He died in 1991. He won the nobel prize in literature in 1978. He has written many novels and short stories, including The Slave, Short Friday and Other Stories, and Enemies: A Love Story, Shosha, The Manor, The Penitent, and The Death of Methuselah.

" In one of his more light-hearted books, Isaac Bashevis Singer depicts his childhood in one of the over-populated poor quarters of Warsaw, a Jewish quarter, just before and during the First World War. The book, called In My Father's Court (1966), is sustained by a redeeming, melancholy sense of humour and a clear-sightedness free of illusion."
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993

Singer lived in a time of wrenching change, uncertainity, fear, acts of great courage, pain of seperation and the stripping away of the veneer and facade of civilization. Rich material for a writer. So of all the writers who contributed to Jewish literature after the end of World war II, what is that made Singer a great writer and a nobel prize winner?

I read through the entire interview, I read through the nobel biography, and then went back to the interview and re-read the whole thing, trying to find a thread, some common principle which finds it's way into all his books, something which I could use to grasp and define.

"BERKOWITZ: Here are two statements you have made that seem to contradict each other. First: "I write about Jews. It is not that I think that they are special, but that I know them best." And yet you also say in a very beautiful passage: "I do think that as a philosophy, Judaism has unrevealed treasures which no other religion has, and it has never before happened in history that a nation has been exiled for two thousand years, then come back and formed a country. This proves that the Almighty has a purpose for the Jewish people."

SINGER: I meant this idea of Jews as topics for writing, the idea that writing about Jews will create better literature than writing about other people. In this respect I think we are not special. A great writer will always write great books, and a bad writer will write bad books, even if his people were ten times as special. So this is the reason there is no contradiction. When I said special, I meant special as far as literature is concerned, and there are people who are special for literature." - A conversation with Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) about the meaning and destiny of jewish literature ( By Rabbi William Berkowitz )

He writes about what he knows best, what he has personally experienced. Secondly, Singer did not try to impulsively inject greatness, as a reaction to the persecution, in his books, about the Jewish people. Third, he believes the greatness of the Jewish people, as a rich and endless source of material for writing, and he is thankful for that, for being born a Jew. It is this balance, this anchor in reality, while maintaining a pride in his Jewishness, that catapulted Issac Bashevis Singer from being just another Jewish writer into a great writer.

Bad Internet Journalists! Bad!

I was torn between the current title and this one ' Festival of the cubicles', which refers to Julius Caesar, office holiday parties, drinking, gambling, feasting, masters and slaves swapping roles and "singing naked". You can read the tantalizing tidbits here.

Anyway, there's this great article by Chud.com writer Devin Faraci, which goes a long way in clarifying the roles played by and relationships between online journalists and the print media.
"You know whose names Ryan should be listing? The people who come to junkets and don’t ask questions. The stringers who are sent by big magazines to sit there with a tape recorder and bring back the answers to the questions I asked and then get paid more money for it than I do. I have seen answers to my questions turn up in major magazines and newspapers again and again. I see many print folks at junkets who never speak, and then go back to the newsroom, write up a piece based on my work, and pay off their mortgage." - By Devin Faraci, writing for Chud.com

True. True. A lot of the time, I feel I could do a much better job than most of the bloviators who sit on their perches in the big MSM mags and churn out columns, which, if written by me, would probably be greeted with hoots of derision. I mean, other than the real reporting articles which contain interviews and facts assembled through 'real' journalism, the opinion columns are basically a big pile of rubbish.

I urge Devin Faraci and other like-minded internet journalists to stage a putsch and take over the print media jobs. If these bloviators in the MSM start feeling the rug being pulled out from under their feet, that would accomplish two things. More respect for internet journalism and better columns by the print media, who will be forced to do some real work, to keep their jobs. Sad part is, in order to do this, a few good people will have to quit internet journalism and get print media jobs. But I'm sure they'll be willing to sacrifice themselves and get a job in Time or the NY Post, for the betterment of internet journalism.

Freelance Jobs 21st Dec

Here's today's freelance jobs:

Freelance writers wanted to write articles about freelance writing. 'Nuff said. Click here.

Got an idea for a business book, but too lazy to write it? Or maybe you're just not good enough a writer. All right. All right. Click here.

Web 2.0 blogger wanted. Click here.
News organisation looking for freelance writers. Click here.
Online writers needed for blog and forum posting. Click here.
Ghost writer wanted for blog artiles. Click here.
Looking for a freelance writer for art project. Click here.
Music fan? Can you review bands? Click here.
Script readers wanted. $10 per. Click here.
Websavvy copywriter for female oriented social website. Click here.

NYC company looking for a freelance copy writer. Telecommuting ok! Swell. Great gig, if you can get it. But something tells me that half of the millions of blogs featuring work at home jobs for writers will be posting this gig. Anyway, Click here.

Freelance writers needed. Click here.

Comedy writer wanted. Someone, a cyber celebrity,uhh...ok, wants help to spruce up his speaking with a few rib-ticklers. Don't want to give away too much here, but if you check out the email of the poster on google, you'll find this is something entirely different. The word "hustler" comes to mind. Click here.

Been doing too much writing lately. Fingers are starting to crack under the strain. Maybe I need some botox treatment. I'm serious. BBC has an article out on how Botox could help writers cramp. "The toxin is usually used to treat wrinkles, but the Dutch research suggests it can also stop muscles in the arms, hands or fingers seizing up." The English are a crazy lot. These are the guys who popularized lunch-time breast enlargement treatments.

Finally, if you want to launch a freelance writing career in 2007, click here.

With the holidays here already, in case this is your last visit here before Christmas, wish all of you and yours a Merry Christmas.

A reluctant author of bestsellers

I write a lot on the net. For myself, for clients, for websites. Anything for a few bucks. Most of it is ghostwriting. Meaning I don't get the credit. Only the money. What happens if something you ghostwrote becomes famous and a best-seller? Well, I just read the story of Leslie McFarlane, better known by the pseudonym, Franklin W. Dixon, author of the Hardy Boys novels. He only got money for ghostwriting. $100 per book, books which sold and are still selling millions of copies across the world.

"During that time, he saw an advertisement for a children's book ghostwriter, placed by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Among other best-selling series, it produced the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew and Tom Swift.

Under the pen name Roy Rockwood, McFarlane subsequently produced seven novels in the syndicate's Dave Fearless series, then moved on to write more than 20 Hardy Boys novels.

For most of these, he was paid a flat fee of $100 per book and, although the novels sold many millions of copies and were translated into 50 languages, he earned no royalties.

"In his diaries," Brian McFarlane said in an interview last week, "my father talks about having to write another of those cursed books, in order to earn another $100 to buy coal for the furnace." " - Globeandmail.com

Absolutely heart-breaking. Especially if you're a writer. A ghostwriter. Just think about it. Millions of dollars, all that fame. And he can't say or do anything about it because he was given a 100 bucks for each book.

It would take an especially kindhearted and gentle soul not to harbor any bitterness over such deals. Until today, I was kindof proud whenever I saw my writing on the web. Not this blog, but things I've ghost-written. Gave me a secret pleasure that the site owner was posing as an expert on the subject, and it was me that wrote it. Not anymore. Now I know that it's ok to be a good ghostwriter. But it's not ok to be a great ghostwriter.

Free Blogs, Free Money - Come and Get It

Frank Sennett, correspondent for SpokesmanReview.com, writes about the new free blog 'OpenServing' project from Wikia Inc.

"Bloggers who sign up at OpenServing.com receive free bandwidth, storage and software — plus 100 percent of ad payments generated by their sites. The service will "allow people to create news, opinion and communities on any topic they want," Wikia CEO Gil Penchina said at the conference."

Ok. So how is any of this different from blogger? Which, by the way, has an update:
"The new version of Blogger in beta is dead! Long live the new version of Blogger!
P.S. The old version of Blogger is not dead, but it would like to retire for a little while... maybe go to Hawaii or play World of Warcraft all day? It begs you to let it play World of Warcraft all day."

That's the message I see when I log into blogger. I think Google has too many nerds and geeks working for them. Google needs to throw all these bums out on their butt at least twice a year, maybe for a month or so, and let them roam around in the real world. Might give them a fresh perspective when they enter the Google world again. Not to mention that it would make them a lot less loony.

And since everyone has a blog, it figures that Santa would want one too. "'Karen told me you had a blog like the rest of us,' wrote contributor Poopie in a post. 'I have ALWAYS believed, even when that little twit in first grade said you weren't real.'"

And there's some new blogging terminology to remember from the Sydney Morning Herald : Blog streaking - "Revealing secrets or personal information online which for everybody's sake would be best kept private."

Uhh...I have a cold, I wipe my nose with my finger, and rub off that greenish mucky thing on my finger under the table. Does that qualify as blog streaking?

The Chosen One

In the last two weeks, there's been tons and tons of ink spilled all the way from DC to New Hampshire, to Chicago. Barack Obama, the subject of endless bloviating by both left and right pundits. Is he going to run for the Presidency? Will he win? No he won't. Why not?....On the other hand maybe he will win. Why? ..... Hillary will destroy him. And if by a miracle he does survive, the right-wing is loading up their cannons to take him down. And oh yes..Those big ears. It's a viral epidemic on the blogs about Obama's ears.

Newsweek even has a few polls and stats to back up their point of view. They spout the Bradley effect and what not, to argue about whether white male voters will, in fact, vote for Obama. Ok. All right. Here's my suggestion to all the bloviators. Take a step back. Close your eyes. Head back a little in time and go over to Chicago, Illinois. What happened? Both his primary opponent and his Republican opponent in the general election went belly-up and threw out a red-carpet for Obama to walk over from Chicago to Washington. Then he goes to the Democratic convention in 2004 and suddenly the next day the whole world knows who Barack Obama is. In 2006, he goes to New Hampshire for the first time and a roomful of hardboiled political operatives swoon over him.

The sea is being parted to allow Obama to pass. Name one senate campaign where a challenger wins without a struggle. It doesn't happen. Yet it happened - For Obama. Now there were at least half a dozen candidates on the Democratic side vying for the nomination. Obama decides he wants to take a crack, and what happens? Kerry shoots off his mouth, Mark Warner cites family and withdraws, Evan Bayh throws in the towel, Russ Feingold says he's happier in the Senate, Al Gore simply dissapeared out of the picture, which leaves Hillary against Obama. And believe me, it will be the last man standing. Not the last woman. On the other side, just in time for Obama's candidacy, after twelve years in power, the Republicans self-destruct, lose both the Senate and the House and are in for one more massive thumpin in 2008. So Obama won't be counting chads in Florida or checking the exit polls in Ohio.

In case you think I'm batty, think about this. The Presidency chooses the President. John McCain can change his colors as many times as he wants, and Al Gore could become one of the most respected statesmen in the world, but one thing they will never be, is President of the U.S.A. If you take a straw poll today asking people to choose a candidate between George Bush, John McCain and Al Gore, how many people do you think would vote for Bush? Even his own father would probably vote for McCain. That, however, does not change the fact that George Bush is the President. What I'm trying to say here, is that, Barack Obama is going to be the President, regardless of any pros or cons, not because he wants to be one, or because he's capable of being one, but because he's been chosen by the Presidency to be the next one.

NOLA Writers - Post Katrina

Along with the entire city, Katrina also washed out a lot of literary history and inspiration for writers. Of course, that was less of a loss than the houses which the writers lost. And what's left in New Orleans for writers to write about? Katrina, of course. The literary output of NOLA writers now has a single-minded laser like focus on non-fiction accounts of the devastation and the tragedy of a city drowned and a culture lost.

Jason Berry, writing for NPR has a column which is an excellent place to start an exploration into the life of Katrina, the hurricane: "Jed Horne's Breach of Faith has been praised as one of the best books about Katrina so far. A veteran editor of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, Horne delivers pathos in the survivor stories, and shows a shrewd eye for detail." - Katrina Books Shed New Light on Disaster

This article in Slate, New Orleans writers pen city's rebirth story, discusses how "Katrina is an unavoidable touchstone for New Orleans writers as they get back to their craft. Since the disaster, it's been largely a subject of nonfiction, such as Douglas Brinkley's tome "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" and "The Five People You Meet In Hell: Surviving Katrina," Smallwood's tale of French Quarter denizens who stayed put while most citizens evacuated."

There's one thing I have been wanting to let out of my chest for a long time. On the day that Katrina struck, I was glued to my screen. Alternating between the weather reports and trying to find updates on the net, I knew about The Times Picayune's staffers bravely struggling on inspite of the power outage and breaking glass.

I knew about the levee breaches a few hours after they happened, from the Bayoubuzz blog. I can't find the link right now, but as the next few days unfolded and I watched with growing anger the administration's claims that they had no way of knowing about the levee breaches in time, the one thing that kept hitting me again and again was "How could I, sitting thousands of miles away, in front of a computer screen, know about the levee breaches in a few hours, and the entire official machinery not know about it for a full day?" I still don't know and probably never will. Maybe I will, if I were to read a few in-depth books about Katrina by writers who were in New Orleans, and have first hand accounts of exactly what happened.

Saatchi Gallery - Do You Stuart?

Here's what The Independant, UK has to say about Stuart
( http://saatchi-gallery.co.uk/stuart ) :

" Charles Saatchi created a sensation in the art world by putting the work of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and the Chapman Brothers on display. Now he's looking to find the next generation of talent with 'Stuart', a non-profit online gallery for students with something to show. In its first week, 600 have signed up - and the website has attracted 20 million hits. Watch this space"

And this is one time I can't say anything bad about an NYT article. In fact, I don't even want to. "The brainchild of the London-based advertising magnate and collector Charles Saatchi, this social networking outlet - a kind of MySpace knockoff for artists - is causing something of a sensation, boosting traffic at the gallery's Web site overall to more than three million hits a day....
"I've done a couple of commissions, but this is my first sale," Ms. Murphy said. Yet what she likes best about Stuart is not so much the commercial rewards as the ability to gain access to other students and their work." - New York Times

I know a winner, as well as any other netizen, when I see it. Stuart has all the ingredients necessary to hit the stratosphere in internet marketing and traffic - An untapped visitor base, hype, free publicity from major MSM outlets and perfect timing. Every year, there's a new winner in the internet traffic wars. Myspace, friendster, youtube...Stuart? You tell me.

I have a feeling about this one. It's supposed to be for artists, but tell me, can you resist the urge to create something and upload it? It's the same urge that Youtube brought out among internet users and changed a lot of things about the internet. It's not just about video sharing anymore. It's about an outlet for your creativity without all the agony which artists face. It's an outlet for citizen journalism. And Stuart is taking it one step further by mixing up art, multimedia and the internet. The only problem is the hosting. On a high speed broadband connection, their pages crawl and groan before loading. Understandable, considering the tremendous pressure an NYT article can bring, but still no excuse.

Showcase your creativity. Explore a virtual gallery of art. Make friends, learn more. All the things that artists do. Without having to live the life of an artist. Do you Stuart?

Freelance Jobs 19th Dec

Here's today's freelance jobs:

NLP copywriter wanted. Click here. Whoa! Hold on. What the heck is NLP? Afraid I had to look it up. NLP is 'Neuro Linguistic Programming'. If you want to know more about NLP copywriting, this is the best document on the entire www :
"NLP isn't a replacement for good copywriting. It's a turbo boost. Meeting a person on his or her own level by using familiar words puts YOU in control of the communication almost immediately....Here is the basic principle of NLP as I understand it. There is no mental resistance to an idea you perceive as your own. And whenever any of us engages our imagination, we think we came up with the idea ourselves. So it must be great!!! It aligns with our own beliefs so it's unconsciously accepted as being the truth and you act as if it's true. So NLP always prefers to presuppose that changes can be made quickly and automatically." - The Raw Truth About Persuasion and Copywriting

Green blogger wanted here.
World Social Forum researcher wanted. Click here.
Freelance writer for pregnancy / parenting wanted here.

Seeking feminist bloggers. I thought feminism was so yesterday. It's quite fashionable for women to want to quit a career and be a full-time work at home mom. best of both worlds. Still, if you're hung up on standing up for some percieved or otherwise rights, click here

Is there even one freelance job here which is not just for women???? Here you are:

I've always believed that writing scripts for Hollywood was a fool's errand. You waste your time and energy. Burn your creativity and at the end of the day, you have to go and sit in some greaseball's office and beg for him to take one look, just one look at your script. I believe, though, that this one job combines the best of both worlds. Click here for a script writing job without the hassles.

Freelance writer? How do you afford healthcare coverage? If you do know, click here. Well, at least he ain't on welfare...

Looking for SEO article writers. Click here.
Looking for submissions ( $10 per 5000 words and $5 per poem ). Click here.
Copy writer needed for IT company. Click here.
Website participants wanted to provide content. $30 for 5 topics. Click here.

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Update on a job I posted in the last freelance jobs post for 16th December. Searchsays.com is looking for a lot of online writers. They pay 0.75 cents per 500 characters and here's how you start:

1.) Register for an account and sign in - http://www.searchsays.com/trn/womsearch.php
2.) Sign the Freelance Agreement online (you can only get there when you're logged in) - http://www.searchsays.com/jobs/fwcontract.php
3.) Make sure you read over the guidelines - http://www.searchsays.com/jobs/freelance.php

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Time Magazine Person Of The Year? You

"Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you." - Time

Cool. Nobody ever nominated me for anything before. Suddenly I'm on the cover of Time, as the Person of the Year? I told my mom blogging outta the basement was gonna be a sure hit one day. And here we are. Time needs to be given kudos for being the first MSM mag to publicly acknowledge, without a snide reference, the growing importance of blogging and new media.

And pretty slick marketing. Write this down. This one cover issue is going to ignite and re-ignite the debate about the importance of blogs and the Time article will be endlessly quoted and linked to, by both the MSM and by the blogs. It'll probably end up as Time's most famous selection, ever. Sheer marketing genius.

Update: Google news now has 387 news links writing about this. So far. Here's the few choice selections:
Time's Person Of 2006: "You" As In YouTube ( Playfuls.com )
You're on the cover of Time! ( CNN-IBN )
TIME'S 2006 'PERSON' BLOGS ON ( NY Post )
You ought to be congratulated ( The Age )
Do-it-yourself heroes ( Melbourne Herald Sun )
Person of year? Look in mirror ( Chicago Sun-Times )

And while I have no idea what Steve Young is babbling about, it's still more fodder for the Time publicity machine.

Britney Spears - The Lesbian Chronicles

Book reviews, scandals, uproar. The best kind of books are the ones which generate the most heated debate. If you were to name one person whose very name triggers heated, or hot, discussions, that would be Britney Spears. And her gold-digging ex-husband, KFed, is doing just that. He wants to publish a tell-all book about Britney's lesbian interludes. Wow! Must read.

Jimmy Carter's new mideast book has the pro Israel lobby up in arms. "Jewish groups have expressed outrage at the book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," arguing its comparison of Israel to the racist South African regime could undermine the perception of Israel's legitimacy." - Reuters

And the biggest ruckus, which is still sending out after-shocks, was raised by the ill-fated O.J. Simpson confessional. Seems the publisher, Judith Regan, was just sacked by HarperCollins. "Judith Regan's employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately," Jane Friedman, chief executive of the News Corp-owned imprint, said. "The Regan publishing programme and staff will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group."" - The Independant, UK

What's the common factor involving all three afore mentioned books? The authors writing them are celebs. If the same books had been written by some semi-famous, but respected authors or journalists or experts, they would not be generating half the noise that we see now. Which only underlines the importance of the writer, rather than the book. Wish it were not this way, but that's reality for you.

Adopt-a-Writer

First up, if anyone wants to adapt me, hit me up. I'm starving, my dog is starving and we're desperate. FYI, my dog used to blog with me, but he gave up blogging in favor of pointless, incessant barking.

"The contest will be run through the AllFreelancing forum, where freelance writers can enter by posting in the announcement thread. The writers will be narrowed down over the course of several weeks, until a winner is chosen.

The winner will be “adopted” by the Six Figure Challenge writers, who will work personally with them personally to help them set and achieve their writing goals for 2007, including helping them to improve their skills, teaching them how to break into new markets, and showing them how they can earn a higher income from their writing. The contest is targeted towards new freelance writers or those in low-paying markets who wish to break out beyond them." - www.sixfigurewriters.com

The field will be narrowed until "a" winner is chosen. Then the challenge writers will work with "them"?? Am I missing something here? How many winners are there going to be? One or more? And please don't tell me it was a typing mistake. These people are supposed to teach others how to write. Well, I suppose they could teach me how to make money by writing press releases, but I doubt the rest of it. Call me a cynic, but seems more like a money making stunt, than real altruistic intent.

This leads to something which I have been thinking of lately. Reality vs. writing.
What's the reality? That you and me are hack writers, and we'll write anything a customer wants, so long as we get paid for it. That's reality. There is absolutely no artistic element to hack writing. You optimise sentences to appeal to search engines and sell products. Is the product any good? Who gives a shit? That's reality.

And writing? See the Orhan Pamuk post. That's writing. How do you reconcile these two? Show me a site which features nothing but great writing - writing for the love of writing - and which is making money. I promise you, heart and soul, me and my dog will give up hack writing. Meantime, though, you can still adapt this writer.

Update here: As you can see in the comments to this post below, there's been some clearing of the air. On my side, I would like to stuff my hat into my mouth, hang my head in shame and apologise unreservedly for my mean and nasty nitpicking. Apologies to all parties concerned. It was wrong of me to make an accusation without cross-checking with the source. I've said before that blog writers have to behave like proper journalists, as far as possible, if they want to be taken as seriously as readers take print and MSM scribes. I forgot or ignored that rule. I wish the writers of www.sixfigurewriters.com the best in their efforts.

Freelance Jobs 16th Dec

Here's todays freelance jobs:

Flexible writing opportunity. 0.75 cents per 500 characters from www.searchsays.com. Seems genuine, though I have my doubts about whether it's going to 'take-off'. What the heck, money's money. So long as they're paying, write for em and pocket the dough. The minute they turn belly-up, move on to the next internet wannabe.

Art categorizer contractor needed for art search engine. Nice gig. If you know about the arts...Or whatever that is. Click here.

Writing about design and art. Articles for the 'Arts'. Looks like there's a baby-boomlet in the 'Arts'. Click here.

World class copy writer? Click here.
Calling magazine writers. 10 cents per word. Click me.
Transcription job. Transcript recorded audio into pdf. Click here.
Another transciption job. Click here.
Fragrance and beauty writers, reviewers, bloggers needed. Click here.
Proofreader needed. Click here.

Articles, content and blogs needed ( SEO writers ). And the subjects? The environment, recyling, and elephants. Hmm...Anyone know of a connection between these three? I mean, environment and recycling is okay. Whre does the elephant fir in? Should send him an email, just to find out. Click here.

Wanna research the life and times of an architect? $10 per hour. Click here.
Love politics, blogging and satire? Click here. Note of warning : The afore-mentioned topics never, ever end up as paying gigs. Still worth it, though.

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The Wall Street Journal ( subscription required ) has a section on "A Half-Century of Writers Thinking Out Loud"
"Why do we read author interviews? Is it not enough that a writer has told a story well, moving us or making us laugh? Must we also go snooping into his private life, interrogating him, picking over his 'stuff'..."

Yeah. Too right. Leave writers alone. BTW, the piece above in the WSJ was written by one John Freeman. He's president of the National Book Critics Circle. Has written a book or two...And this, "No hugging please" is one of his um.., famous book reviews. Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha. Sorry, Mr. Freeman. You're too juicy a target with your bloviating about leaving writers alone.

Mary Christmas

Article in OregonLive.com headlined "The Conspiracy of lesbian writers". The featured writer? Mary Christmas. C'mon. Santa's already limbering up for his annual moment of glory. It was too good to pass up.

"Is Mary Christmas really Mary McAllister, aka DJ Hotpants, and loving cohabitant to the famed Dr. Dresch? Or is she another of the queer music and club gaggle that adorn the PDX scene throwing us off with her clever pseudonym?"

You tell me. It's a fascinating mystery.

Also, this blog, for and by writers of horror stories and books, has an interview with Deborah LeBlanc, president of the Horror Writers Asociation (HWA).
"I think readers help define genres, especially genre subcategories. Take paranormal romance for example. Many romance readers prefer to stick to that particular genre and if asked, would probably say they don’t read much, if any, ‘horror.’ But somewhere between Anne Rice and Laurel K. Hamilton romance and horror mated, thus creating paranormal romance, something most readers of both genres enjoy."

Tell me about it. I could possibly write a romantic horror compilation of short stories based on my dates.

Here's another example of why it's necessary to live the story, i.e. to use the landscape of your mind, in order to put some heart and soul into your writing. Writers' block leads to Vietnam vet. What exactly is that you gain by writing about a subject without knowing squat about how it feels to be in the same situation? You live a situation, and if it's worth writing about, the book comes out.

The Hungarian writers' association is broke. Seems the Hungarian government, umm...forgot to throw out the annual scraps to keep the HWA alive. Read the sad story here.
"..the state did not pay the subsidy necessary for the association's operation until December, and did not even send a contract about it."
Tsk.Tsk. Hey! HWA - Horror writers' association. HWA - Hungarian writers' association. But judging from the sad state of affairs of Hungarian writers, it could well mean the same, huh?

Freelance Jobs 13th Dec

Been busy fiddling with the blog template. If it works in firefox, internet explorer has a problem, and if I get it working for internet explorer, firefox has fits. Why can't we all just get along together? Why does it have to be like "You're with me or against me"? Anyway, here's today's freelance jobs before this post turns into a political rant.

Need writer to publish pageant article. What the ad poster really needs is a writer cum publishing agent. Click here.
Creative copywriter needed for ad and content. Click here.
Chick-lit writer? Click here. $50 per story and $25 per review.
research and writing gig. Click here.
Tech writer? Can you write short articles, based on geeky stuff? Like the latest and ultra cool must-have gadget? Which will probably be outdated by tomorrow morning. Click here.
Research gig. Looks like a brilliant con job to screw some unsuspecting rural folks out of their money. Anyway, click here for the conjob, uh...job.

Finally. A real blogger job. Every time I see a bloggers wanted ad, I know for sure there's going to be some catch. Either it's revenue share, or pay based on performance, or some shit like that. Not this one. Pure and simple video blogging. Get paid per video blog post. Cool, huh? Click here.
Freelance magazine writer needed for article. How do I apply? Click here.
Ghost writer needed. Click here.
Another ghost writer needed. So click here too.
The Vagrant Literary Quarterly looking for submissions ( short stories ). Click here.
Copywriter extraordinaire needed. Huh? I thought the use of French was considered 'uncool' after French fries became freedom fries. Seems there's a revivalist movement going on. or maybe this giy just woke up...Click here.

In news for writers and freelancers, here's a few which caught my eye:

Womanhood, between the covers. To be honest, I didn't read the piece, but great title.
Spy writers say Litvinenko case stranger than fiction. True. True. And you ain't seen nothing yet. It's going to get a lot stranger before it starts making sense. Best to churn out a book now, while it's still nonsense...
Fox hiring freelance fact checker.
"Publication or Company: Fox News Channel
Job Requirements: Freelance Fact Writer"
Amazing what losing one election can do to alter your perception of reality, huh?

Words Without Borders

"Words Without Borders undertakes to promote international communication through translation of the world's best writing—selected and translated by a distinguished group of writers, translators, and publishing professionals—and publishing and promoting these works (or excerpts) on the web. We also serve as an advocacy organization for literature in translation, producing events that feature the work of foreign writers and connecting these writers to universities and to print and broadcast media." - www.wordswithoutborders.org

Very noble. Only one question. Do they hire translators? So I click on their search button. Turns out their search is meant for literature which they already fed through the translation machine. Has options for search based on the orginal writer, the translator, the title....Hold on. I thought I'd check up on the titles, to see if there's any famous works of art here. And this is what I get:

"I am like an offer"
"I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left"
"I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf"
"Big breasts & wide hips by Mo Yan"
"Ahem"
"Ahlem"
"Five poems"
"Four poems"

All right. All right. I'll spare you the agony. To see the full list, click here, and browse through the full list under "search by title".

Fun and games apart, they do have a point. "Today, 50% of all the books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6% are translated into English."

What this means is that the western world is living in a bubble. Struggling and talented writers in the non-english speaking world languish in obscurity despite producing magnificient literature. If you're white, female, blonde, attractive and you run away from your own wedding, that's a sure lock on a million dollar book deal.

Orhan Pamuk - My Father's Suitcase

• October 12, 2006 - Orhan Pamuk is awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature.
• December 7th 2006 - Pamuk gives his nobel lecture called Babamın vavulu ( in Turkish ) meaning My Father's Suitcase.
• Books by Orhan Pamuk - 'My Name is Red', 'Snow', 'The White Castle', 'The Black Book', 'The New Life' and 'Istanbul: Memories and the City'. Click here for the full list of Orhan Pamuk's books.

Following is an excerpt from the english translation of My Father's Suitcase by Maureen Freely.

"As you know, the question we writers are asked most often, the favourite question, is; why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can’t do normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. I write because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you, so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all of life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but – just as in a dream – I can’t quite get there. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy." - Hurriyet, Turkey ( Emphasis mine )

Why did I make bold that one line from a speech full of great lines from a great writer? Because Orhan Pamuk deserves another Nobel just for that one line. I'll write it again, just to seperate it from all the others. "I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story."

What does it mean? He does not write with the intention of having a finished book in his hands. He writes to enjoy and cherish the minutes and hours that he spends writing the book. That's like going out onto the water just for the joy of fishing, and not for the fish. This is why Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel. He loves writing, every minute and every second of it.