Top Websites for Writers and Bloggers

Update - 2010

Even though I have this information listed elsewhere on A Blogger's Books, I’ve been planning to share it as a blog post for a very long time. According to my Live Traffic Feed (Feedjit), many of my readers leave via these sites after reading my posts, and I just wanted to give them an additional boost.

Maybe some of these will turn up some great writing tips for you. I’ve added the individual by-lines (if they have one) of sites to help you target your search. Here are the ones most visited by hundreds of readers on A Blogger’s Books in 2009.

• Websites For Writers An independent directory of online writing resources. (I've received quite a number of visits since being listed by them).


• Freelance Writing Jobs


• Brit Writers Find jobs, competitions, support.


• Association of Authors' Agents


• Roget's Thesaurus Find synonyms and antonyms.


• Freelance Market News An essential guide for writers since 1968.


• Writing For The Internet course 


• Poetry Workshop


• How To Write And Publish A Book How to Write a Fiction, Non-Fiction Book, or Novel, find a Publisher or Publishing Option, and Market Your Book for Free. Tips and Expert Advice.


• Freelance Writers Database  This site helps editors find freelance writers of any genre or speciality. The searchable database of writers and freelance journalists is available to everyone.


• Free dictionary


• Online Novels Get yours listed.


• Famous Birthdays


• Finding Free e-Books Your source for free, legal eFiction.


• Poetry Magic Poetry Magic is resource centre for the theory and craft of writing poetry.


• Guardian Books


• Hire a brilliant editor


• Blogger plugins


• Writers Market where and how to sell what you write.


• A Newbie's Guide To Publishing


• Read It, Swap It Bought a book and finished it? Don't know what to do with it? If you've Read It, Swap It!


• Blogger Templates


• Rare book room


• Free Stock Images


• ViperChill


• Lit Match Author Advance

 Let me know if I've missed your site.

Writing Opportunities

I've scoured the web and hard copy editions in the UK and elsewhere to find writing prospects so you don't have to do any of the hard work.



Subscribe to this blog to keep updated with this page. I'll be adding new writing/publishing opportunities every 2 weeks or so. Keep in mind that most of these prospects may be tiny, one-off writing jobs, but each small break is a chance to get your foot on the ladder. Each piece accepted is another chance to add 'published' work on your CV.





The opportunities below are grouped by countries, but you can email submissions to any of them regardless of where you live.



WRITING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE UK



PAID



Reader's Digest

Pays £100.00

For - short stories, jokes, anecdotes, It's Your Time You're Wasting, Laughter Is The Best Medicine, My Story etc.

email; excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk

Or post

Excerpts, Reader's Digest, 11 Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London, E14 4HE

Pays £200.00 for cartoons with captions

email: captions@readersdigest.co.uk

Or post 'Captions' to the above address.





The New Writer

http://www.thenewwriter.com/guidelines.htm

Pays for articles, features, short stories and poetry.





Knit Today

http://www.originpublishing.com/vacancylist.asp

A monthly magazine which is interested in work from freelance writers. If you can write about, create, or instruct in knitting and crochet, they want to hear from you. Great rates of pay: £250.00 for 1,500 words article with pictures.





Kiki Magazine

http://www.kikimag.com/submit/submitWriting.php

This is another craft magazine site that pays well for submissions. Approach them with your ideas.





Heat Magazine

Heat magazine pays £200.00 for unposed snapshots of readers with celebrities. Text your picture to snapped pictures 0784 350 0911. Or email them to (write 'heat snapped' in your subject line) snapped@heatmag.com with your name, address and daytime telephone number.





Full House

Earn £100.00 for your holiday stories. Send your story and photos to: features@fullhousemagazine.co.uk 





Smallholder

If you write about farming, agriculture or have a smallholding, you can submit work to Smallholder. You will be paid extra for pictures or for technical livestock-type articles. Contact them first for details of submission. 





Your Dog

A monthly magazine covering topics about caring for dogs. Send queries first if you have stories or articles you want to share. Payment is negotiable. 





UNPAID



The London Magazine

http://www.thelondonmagazine.net/default.aspx



Rough Guide To Presentation



Short stories, features, memoirs, critical articles No more than 2,500 words

Reviews Generally no longer than 1,800 words

Poetry No longer than 40 lines



Short stories, features, memoirs, critical articles No more than 2,500 words

Reviews Generally no longer than 1,800 words

Poetry No longer than 40 lines

Form of submission

They accept ideas for art reviews, memoir pieces, fiction, poetry and poetry reviews. They prefer e-mail, with the poems or stories to be sent in the body of the email, as well as in attachment.

Send submissions to admin@thelondonmagazine.net.  

All postal submissions must be accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope.

The London Magazine, Flat 5, 11 Queen's Gate, London, SW7 5EL.





Pick Me Up Magazine

http://www.pickmeupmagazine.co.uk/tip_offs/

Pays £25.00 for every tip, hint, how-to you send in.



WRITING OPPORTUNITIES ELSEWHERE



PAID



Wet Ink (Australia)

http://www.wetink.com.au/about.htm

They accept fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction, interviews, photography, book reviews and more, from new and established authors.

They publish:

• short fiction (including genre fiction)

• creative non-fiction

• poetry

• memoir

• essays

• opinion pieces



Women On Writing (USA)

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/contact.php

WOW! Writer's Guidelines

WOW! welcomes queries and submissions from its readers. Remember each issue focuses on Women, Writing and the monthly Theme.

Columns, Word Counts and Pay Rates:

Twenty Questions: $50

How 2 (1,500 - 2,000 Words): $75

Inspiration (1,500 - 2,000 Words): $75

Feature Interviews (up to 3,000 Words): $75

Feature Articles (up to 3,000 Words): $150





Apex (USA)

http://www.apexbookcompany.com/submissions/

A book company looking for dark/SF/fantasy/horror novels, short stories and poetry.

They pay a substantial advance and high royalty rates for novels. Best of all, they accept unsolicited material.





Blue Mountain Arts

http://www.sps.com/help/contact.html

Think you can write smart, funny, thoughtful greeting cards and get paid for them?





Poetry Magazine (USA)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/submissions.html

They say on their website: 

'Payment is made on publication at the rate of $10.00 per line (with a minimum payment of $300), and $150 per page of prose, for first serial rights. All rights will revert to the author upon publication. Authors will also receive two contributor copies of the issue in which their work appears.'



Riddle Fence (Canada)

http://riddlefence.com/submissions/

Get paid for your poems.





Thriving Family (Canada + USA)





This is a bi-monthly magazine which focuses on the family. They invite writers to submit articles about parenting and marriage relationships. They pay well and have a good ethos. 

The website is here: http://go.family.org/thrivingfamily/



The PDF writers' guidelines document is here:

http://www.family.org/sharedassets/correspondence/pdfs/GeneralInformation/TF_Writers_Guidelines.pdf





Horizon Air Magazine (Canada and the USA)

http://www.horizonairmagazine.com/contributor/writers.php





Have a look at their writers' guidelines before sending anything in. This is a monthly in-flight magazine for travellers in parts of the U.S and Canada. They pay $100.00 for short news articles (200 to 500 words) and $450.00 for features of up to 2,500 words. 

They ask to see a sample of your writing work.





MAD (USA)

http://www.dccomics.com/mad/?action=submissions





Their writers' guidelines page (above) tells you everything you need to know about submitting to MAD. They're a comedy magazine and are actively looking for new writers for their writing pool. They pay $500.00 per page. 

The link above tells you in detail what kind of material they publish and gives you the email link to send them to. 





JQ Greetings (USA)

http://www.jqgreetings.com/artists.php





They pay for art and verse submissions. You can find the guidelines on their site. Payment is by negotiation. 





Poetry (USA)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/submissions.html



This is a poetry magazine. You're able to sign up and create an account which allows you to track your submissions online. They pay $10.00 per line, ($150.00 per page) so not a bad investment for something you like doing. Their submissions' page is pretty comprehensive so read it thoroughly before submitting anything to them.





Cats and Kittens (USA)

http://www.petpublishing.com/catkit/

They accept submissions of educational and informative articles and stories about cats and how to care for them. They pay 10 cents per published word. Contact for details. 





Constant Content

Sell your original content on Constant Content. Get paid by PayPal. You need to read up their terms and conditions on the website to see if this is for you.





Lightspeed 

This is an online magazine which publishes science fiction. They mainly deal with fiction, but also publish a few non-fiction pieces every month. They pay very well at 5 cents a word (on acceptance). They accept pieces of up to 7,500 words! 

See the complete submission guidelines at this link.





The First Line (USA)

Another chance to be published in a American (hard copy) magazine. The First Line accepts short stories and poems. They pay $20.00 on publication and you can submit material by email. See their submissions page for full details.





Naval History Magazine

This is a monthly, American hard-copy magazine which accepts submissions from all over the world, based on naval and maritime history. If this is your speciality or if you know any stories related to this, you can submit your material to them. They also publish book reviews. Their payment (which is quite good) is tiered to suit your submission, so you'll have to look at their writers' page to see the details.





  

My All-Time Best BookMarked Articles For Writers and Bloggers

I have placed all these essential and helpful articles in one blog post. I have personally found these pieces entirely useful in my blogging/writing career. They’re simple and easy-to-follow without many of the jargon-filled tutorials out there. Here’s hoping you find one to help you do just the thing you’ve been meaning to get done for a while.





How to Change The Font On Your Blog

From: The Cutest Blog on the Block





The Easy Way To Put 'Top Comments' Widget On Your Blog

From: Reach Beyond Limits





How To Insert A Custom Signature In 'Blogger' Posts 

From: Isabella Snow





How To Add A Retweet Button On Your Blog 

From: Rose DesRochers – World Outside my Window





Essential HTML Skills For Article Authors  

From: Christopher Knight – Ezine Articles





Collection Of Essential Articles For Bloggers/Writers

From: Social @ Blogging Tracker



How To Display Your Content On A Blog's Front Page

From: Web Designer Depot





8 Simple Ways To Make Google Love Your Site

From: Daily SEO Blog





How To Place Photos Side By Side In 'Blogger'

From: Isabella Snow - Hub pages





What Does Blogger 'NavBar' Do? 

From: The Relationship Supermarket.com





How To Find Your Blog's RSS Feed URL 

From: Athlyn Green’s Hub pages





Vital Start-Up Tutorials For New Writers Of Online Content  

From: A Blogger's Books



10 Blogging Attitudes You Could Learn From American Idols  

From: Social @ Blogging Tracker





101 Ways To Promote A New Blog  

From: DailyBlogTips





How To Establish A Writing Platform  

From: Sunday’s Child Lives At Annie’s House





The Most Important Blogging Analysis Ever 

From: ViperChill





The Practical Way To Improve Your Ranking

From Search Optimization





How To Find A Literary Agent 

From: Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent





How To Create Your Own Handwritten Signature

From Wandering Thought





10 Commandments For Aspiring Writers

From: The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes





How To Write A Successful e-Book

From ViperChill





5 Ways To Gain Agents' Attention

From Jody Hedlund





10 Photoshop Video Tutorials

From Tech Milieu.com





How To Embed YouTube Videos Into Blogger

From Blogger Tricks





How To Make A Publisher Say 'Yes' 

From: Help I need a Publisher!





How To Really Build Backlinks And Dominate Google

From ViperChill





How To Get A Feedburner Account For Your Blog

From Wandering Thought





Market Your Smashwords e-Book: The Definitive Guide

From Mark Coker





5 Ways To Get Your Blog Indexed By Google in 24 Hours

From ProBlogger





A Simple Way To Clear Your StumbleUpon New Shares

From Tech Milieu.com





Blogging Attitudes You Could Learn From American Idols

From Social @ Blogging Tracker





Put a Facebook 'Like' Button On Your Blog





In Defense Of Print

From: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing

TweetBrand

Twitter is one of the main social networking sites used by bloggers and site owners to share their work for web traffic. Usually, when you post your updates to Twitter, no matter which of the popular applications you use, the links you share are always giving traffic to someone else - giving back-links to their website.



Unless you’re always posting your own links – in which case, you’re a spammer – you don’t get anything out of the free advertisements you give away to other people.





While it’s great to make friends, maintain your relationship to your online colleagues, and have genuine internet connections with other people in cyberspace, it’s also fantastic to be able to leave some of your own identification with each of the thousands of twitter updates you make every month.





Recently, there’s been the introduction of something called, TweetBrand  In a matter of five minutes you could start branding your tweets with your name, and insert a link back to your own website with every post you make. Isn’t that fabulous? But the best thing is, there's an easy, step-by-step, free guide.



image source for above picture

Top Websites for Writers and Bloggers

Even though I have this information listed elsewhere on A Blogger's Books, I’ve been planning to share it as a blog post for a very long time. According to my Live Traffic Feed (Feedjit), many of my readers leave via these sites after reading my posts, and I just wanted to give them an additional boost.



Maybe some of these will turn up some great writing tips for you. I’ve added the individual by-lines (if they have one) of sites to help you target your search. Here are the ones most visited by hundreds of readers on A Blogger’s Books in 2009.

• Websites For Writers An independent directory of online writing resources. (I've received quite a number of visits since being listed by them).


• Freelance Writing Jobs


• Brit Writers Find jobs, competitions, support.


• Association of Authors' Agents


• Roget's Thesaurus Find synonyms and antonyms.


• Freelance Market News An essential guide for writers since 1968.


• Writing For The Internet course 


• Poetry Workshop


• How To Write And Publish A Book How to Write a Fiction, Non-Fiction Book, or Novel, find a Publisher or Publishing Option, and Market Your Book for Free. Tips and Expert Advice.


• Freelance Writers Database  This site helps editors find freelance writers of any genre or speciality. The searchable database of writers and freelance journalists is available to everyone.


• Free dictionary


• Online Novels Get yours listed.


• Famous Birthdays


• Finding Free e-Books Your source for free, legal eFiction.


• Poetry Magic Poetry Magic is resource centre for the theory and craft of writing poetry.


• Guardian Books


• Hire a brilliant editor


• Blogger plugins


• Writers Market where and how to sell what you write.


• A Newbie's Guide To Publishing


• Read It, Swap It Bought a book and finished it? Don't know what to do with it? If you've Read It, Swap It!


• Blogger Templates


• Rare book room


• Free Stock Images


• ViperChill


• Lit Match Author Advance

 Let me know if I've missed your site.

My Favourite Christmas Book

image source



How The Grinch Stole Christmas! is my favourite christmas story ever. I read it to my kids several times in the run-up to the christmas holidays. I adore the repetitions and the fact that Dr. Seuss dared use 'mouses' for the plural of mouse. 

It shows that we can all choose our own way of writing, inject our personality into our text, and still come up with a fantastic, workable product.



Next year I resolve to stop worrying about old writing rules and stick to what I know best - writing as me!



MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

New Wellness Book in Hard Copy

As promised, my healthy weight book called, A Model's Guide to Losing Weight Without Dieting is now available in hard copy here.

‘A Model’s Guide to Losing Weight’ is a workable solution to banish nagging weight issues and keep them gone for good.



It’s a powerful, new guide. It hands over responsibility to the readers by inspiring them to attempt the lifestyle changes even before they’re introduced, and gives them the option to move at their own pace.



This innovative weight-loss programme teaches a way of life, not a diet. It coaches readers on issues of portion control, a new system of mind-training, and sustainable physical activities, with no strenuous exercises.



This is a clear, easy-to-follow, step-by-step plan with solid psychological reinforcements. It offers the readers the option to personalise the steps for individual tastes.

My Follow Friday - Lulu Blog

Lulu is an online printing/publishing company that publishes novels, calendars, cook-books, picture albums and a number of other print paraphernalia. If you wanted one copy of a personal calendar professionally printed as a gift for someone else, or you required 200 copies of your carefully edited novel, Lulu will print and supply these for you. The print on demand service means that anything from hard copy novels to picture books can be printed at a relatively affordable price.







Even though Lulu is not a personal blog it’s a fantastic resource for writers and publishers. It concentrates on authors’ advancement. Obviously the more a writer/publisher sells, the better it is for Lulu’s status and financial prosperity.





If you’re a writer interested in writing contests, how to market your work, self-publishing advice, or author tips and tricks, log into this blog and have a look at the tags on the front page. There are literally hundreds of advice pages for writers.





Get stuck in!

How to Save on Family Entertainment

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One of the areas in which we’ve had to cut down our spending has been entertainment for the family. The current economic situation has signalled a shift in the amount we previously spent on our social lives. Many people are currently looking to find more traditional ways of spending time with their spouses and kids. The value of the ‘quality time’ (as opposed to the hefty cost of the treat) can now be stressed. Below are some helpful ways of cutting the entertainment costs within the family. My book ‘How to Spend Less’ addresses these points in more detail.

1. Do some research to find enjoyable games that you can personally set up and play at your kids’ parties instead of hiring a DJ/face painter/juggler. This is terribly easy to do even if you’ve never done it before. Design and print your own invitations. Play your own music. Assign tasks to various family members, and get all the work done for free.





2. Get together with your kids’ friends’ parents and plan a car share system for travelling to clubs, school, swimming, trips and other activities. One parent picks up, the other drops off. Save time, energy, costs and carbon emissions.





3. Book your foreign holidays in University cities. Universities rent out students’ accommodation during school breaks. These go for half the price of hotel rooms. Check before you go, as based on the size of the individual rooms, this plan may not be suitable for families with more than one child.





4. Plan an affordable and green wedding to control your spending. Find the entire article at Beyond Jane. It’s called, ‘How to Have a Green, Affordable Wedding; The Definitive Guide.’





5. There is no need to stop going out for a meal with your partner entirely. If you eat out, check newspapers for two-for-one deals particularly during the winter when custom is slow. Do lunch instead of dinner. It’s a lot cheaper, especially if you order the set menu and the house wine, and pass on the coffee at the end.





6. Remember that if you wish to go to a bowling complex or activities’ centre, you can get significant discounts if you’re part of a group. Getting together a few of your kids’ friends and their families for these outings is an idea to consider.





7. A perfect day out camping in the back garden and surviving on just what you packed in your overnight bag is a great experience to have with your kids. All of this comes for free and the only thing spent would be time and effort.





8. If you would like to take your child to visit interesting venues but can’t afford it, offer yourself as a volunteer on a few of his/her school trips. They’re all free for parent volunteers and give you an opportunity to get to know your child’s friends and teachers.



My book, 'How to Sp£nd L€$$' is now available in hard copy on Lulu.