Food Writing
A Weekly
Ezine
Volume VI, Issue 18
June 30, 2009
www.food-writing.com
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For writers who love
food and food lovers who write. Subscribe and Unsubscribe instructions are
found at the end of the e-zine. Our subscribers' privacy is important, I will
not sell or share e-mail addresses or names with other businesses or
publishers. This newsletter, in its entirety, may be shared via e-mail and on
lists. Thank you!
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"Maybe a person's time would be as well spent raising food as raising money
to buy food.." - Frank A. Clark
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In This Issue:
1. Editor's Note: New Support for Food Writers On the
Way
2. FINDING EXPERTS, SOURCES AND CONTACTS by Pamela White
3. TWITTER
FOR FREELANCE WRITERS – TWEET WITH A PLAN by Angela Booth
4. Food
Writing Jobs and Markets
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VISIT
WWW.FOOD-WRITING.COM FOR EMAIL COURSES,
EBOOKS, AND MORE
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1. Ed Notes:
Each day it feels as if new ideas and opportunities
are opening up in front of me. I hope you are having a similar experience. The
joy of feeling excitement about my writing time, and the thrill of inspiration
has brought me great satisfaction.
One of my brainstorming sessions
opened my desire to create a mentoring/coaching group for food writers. Of
course, much of the information can also help writers in all genres, but we all
know where my heart is!
To introduce this new program, I am creating a
series of three teleseminars on different aspects of the writing life. There is
no cost to attend these teleseminars, and each one will be recorded, so if you
cannot attend at the time they take place, you will receive a link to download
the recording.
The FIRST teleseminar is coming up quickly – it
will be on Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 7 p.m. EST. To register for this
teleseminar (and you will also be alerted to the follow-up teleseminars via
email), please go the Food Writing home page (
www.food-writing.com) to sign up.
You will really want to join us for the first teleseminar "Don't Feel Like
the Lone Ranger," when I will tell you WHY I named it that, and why and how you
can find like-minded food writers who are willing to share what they've learned
with you.
Remember, you know me! I always give more than expected,
it's free and the recording will be available to all who register. If you've
wondered about joining a writing group, finding community with writers, or how
to find a mentor, you can't miss this evening of learning. There will be a Q
& A at the end of it, and I will do my best to get everyone's questions
answered.
Cheers,
Pam
P.S. Don't forget to check out the
Restaurant Review class that will begin in July. It's not too late to register!
(
http://www.food-writing.com/welcometofoodwriting/restaurantreviewcourse.html
)
Go to
www.food-writing.com for other upcoming
events and special deals on ebooks.
**********************************************
Make Money as a Food
Writer
Available at Amazon.com here:
http://tinyurl.com/kl4lfp
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If you've always
wanted a way to get your food writing revved up for ONLYL $40, this is THE time
to go to:
http://www.food-writing.com/welcometofoodwriting/eatdrinkcourse.html
You'll find list after list of the information you need to know and
that is
included in this ebook/self-guided course. Not only is this ebook
for sale right now, if you purchase it, you will also receive TWO bonus ebooks
that will also support you in your work as a writer.
You have nothing
to lose. I guarantee each purchase for 60 days. Read more about the guarantee
and LOTS more about what you are getting for your money at the link above.
Really, this is my best offer, and I can't wait to share it.
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2. FINDING
EXPERTS, SOURCES AND CONTACTS by Pamela White
I was asked to write an
article on a short deadline. No problem, I thought. Then I got the article
specifications which included quoting several experts in the article.
Instead of giving up, I got online and within 12 hours had more experts
than I needed and a finished article.
Breaking into a new writing
niche is both exciting and stressful. Old contacts may not be able to help you
out when you switch from parenting to nutrition, or from health to health
foods. There are several options you can try, depending on the time you have to
write your article.
- Ask your editor for contacts. Many times they
can refer you to someone they know that is available for interviews.
-
Check out listservs and message boards. Do searches on Yahoo Groups (
http://groups.yahoo.com/, search a message
board host like Yuku (
www.yuku.com) or use a search engine (
www.google.com) to look for other message
boards or groups on individual websites that offer you the opportunity to find
interview subjects. Google has its own groups as well, and that may be another
place to get started with your research. Read past messages, post some
questions, and see what happens.
- Email or call members of writers'
groups you're associated with. While some writers keep their contacts under
wraps, nearly all the writers I've worked with online and in person are happy
to share professional contacts or at least offer some suggestions as to how you
might find success with your current project.
- Visit Profnet or HARO
to find experts to interview in all areas imaginable.
https://profnet.prnewswire.com/ is
an online venue that connects journalists with sources. There is no fee to
journalists, but the site is used heavily by publicity firms and my experience
has been that the PR pros are more excited about their clients getting press
than their clients are. In other words, I've been left with a phone bill of
unreturned calls. Conversely, if you want to promote your business, book or
self, you can sign up (for a fee) to receive the journalists' requests for
information. There is also a speaker's bureau online.
A second place
to find experts is to sign up at HARO or Help A Reporter Out (
http://www.helpareporter.com/ ) Emails
for request for interviews are sent out regularly and you are highly likely to
get responses from eager and valuable subjects.
- Pull out your Yellow
pages and look up physicians, attorneys, dietitians, hospital administrators,
and accountants to call for information and quotes.
- Read magazines.
If you find a name and job title that fits what you need, call the firm where
your potential interviewee works. You already know he is willing to be
interviewed.
- Do a search at online bookstores for books that speak
to your article's topic. Authors need to get their names in print to sell their
books. Many have websites with contact information for members of the press.
- Use public relations firms and departments. Call the public
relations department at a hospital to find a nutritionist, cardiologist,
administrator, emergency technician. The PR department will know which staff
members make good subjects for interviews and may be able to suggest related
topics to include in your article or as a sidebar. The PR department at a
culinary institute may be able to connect you with a celebrity chef alumna.
- There are other places to look for help. Prweb.com sends out press
releases, and has them accessible on the website. IdeaMarketers.com is only one
place where writers can place articles for publishers to read. Both of these
sources allow writers to look for experts through their press releases and
articles.
It may take a while for any of these methods to work. You
may get calls and emails from experts that don't fit a particular article. Save
their contact information anyway, along with all experts you interview and
quote. Build your own database of experts for future articles and each new
assignment will find you better connected to the experts you need to reach.
******************************************
Make Money as a Food
Writer
Available at Amazon.com here:
http://tinyurl.com/kl4lfp
*********************************************
3. TWITTER FOR
FREELANCE WRITERS – TWEET WITH A PLAN by Angela Booth
The world
of freelance writing is changing fast; Twitter, the micro-blogging platform, is
a great way to keep up to date with the changes. But beware: if you're using
Twitter, tweet with a plan -- otherwise Twitter can be a fun time-sink and much
less useful for your career than it should be.
Here are four tips to
help you to build your writing success with Twitter.
1. Use Separate
Accounts for Business and Personal Tweets
Did you know that you can
have as many Twitter accounts as you wish? Make use of this facility. You need
to separate purely personal tweets for your family and friends, from business
tweets.
On your personal Twitter account, tweet away on your shopping, the
music you're listening to, and the sandwich you just ate. On your business
account, make useful contacts, network with other writers, and get writing
jobs.
2. Set Goals and Achieve Them
Once you've separated
business and purely personal, it's time to set a goal for what you want to
achieve. You can set as many goals as you wish, but each goal should have a
deadline, and once the deadline has passed, take a few minutes to write a short
report on your success, or failure.
A word about "failures": I'm a big
fan of failures, simply because with any goal worth achieving, you'll FAIL your
way to success... there's no other way to achieve success than by shooting at a
goal and missing.
You can set goals for anything, but let's say you've
found a Web site or magazine you love, and for which you think you could write.
On your business account, tweet using hash tags to enquire about the company
(more on hash tags below.)
Usually you'll get a tweet back within
moments, often from someone in the company asking how they can help you. This
is much more effective than writing a query email or letter.
3. Use
Hash Tags to Attract Attention from Your Target Audience
Hash tags are a
way to tag your tweets, so that your tweets can be indexed and found. Tagging
is simple, just prefix your topic/ tag with the hash sign: #.
Here are
some examples:
You want to tag a tweet about Twitter: #Twitter
You want
to tag a tweet about writing: #writing
You want to tag a freelance tweet:
#freelance
4. Measure Your Success
It's easy to waste time on
sites like Twitter, for minimal results.
For example, I've chatted with
several writers who were thrilled that their follower count was increasing day
by day. But when I asked: "How's that helping you?" they didn't have an answer.
Building a big follower count can be useful if that's a goal which
will serve a purpose for you. Often however, follower counts are only used as a
measure because they're highly visible.
It's much more useful to
measure your success by the goals you've achieved -- research you've found,
sources who contacted you, writers with whom you've formed a relationship,
editors who've contacted you... Twitter can help you to achieve your writing
goals, as long as you tweet with a plan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Want to
make money writing? Discover how easy it is to make money as a Web writer with
Angela Booth's "Sell Your Writing Online NOW" Training Program at
http://sellwritingnow.com/Home/training.html.
The program is fun and profitable too. There's a full year of lessons and
assignments: "Sell Your Writing Online NOW" helps you to earn while you learn,
even as a brand new writer.
For free weekly writing information, subscribe
to Angela's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine at
http://www.freelancewritingezine.com/
and receive a free 33-page report , "Freelance Writing for Beginners: Great
Opportunities to Make Money Today", immediately.
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4. JOBS and
MARKETS FOR WRITERS
JOBS
Food bloggers, telecommute, *no pay
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/wri/1244428755.html
Freelance food writers, FL
http://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/wri/1237848515.html
Restaurant Critic, Palm Beach area, FL
http://miami.craigslist.org/brw/wri/1229813262.html
Agriculture Reporter, Congressional Quarterly, Wash, DC
http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1057244
Restaurant Critic, Full time, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1062223
AOL Editor for AOL FOOD, NYC
http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings/jobview.asp?joid=90324&page=1
Food Network.com, Online Site Director, NYC
http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings/jobview.asp?joid=90207&page=1
MARKETS
HEMISPHERES
www.hemispheresmagazine.com 68
Jay Street, Ste. 315
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Contact: Mike Guy,
Executive Editor
Mike.Guy@Inkpublishing.com
This magazine is 70 percent freelance written and has a strong online
presence with unique articles. It is published monthly and is the in-flight
magazine for United Airlines. Readers have money and leisure time.
Not
looking for just travel stories, but are moving into more interesting stories
told well about places where United Airlines flies.
Pitch an idea with
samples of your best writing. Often the editors have the idea and are looking
for strong writers. All ideas should be ones that would fit into a general
interest magazine, i.e., interesting tales, articles covering fascinating
businesses. Avoid destination stories that have no angle, no tale to tell.
Query by email, and include URL's of where you clips can be found.
Pay
is up to $1 per word; buys all rights. Sample articles are online, plus they
offer a free email newsletter. Sign up and you can see what they accept.
GIRLS LIFE
www.girlslife.com/ 4529 Harford Road
Baltimore, Maryland 21214
Contact: Associate Editor, Katie Abbondanza
KatieA@Girlslife.com This
bi-monthly publications with a strong online presence is all about the 'stuff'
that tweens and teens dream about. To get ideas for articles, look through
several issues and notice the advertisers and what they are trying to sell. Can
you find a way to write about food that eases monthly discomfort? Offer better
snacks packed with nutrition. Think creatively, keep is simple, and pitch ideas
that will make a 'girls life' better. Read the magazine and/or website to
understand the voice they use. Most sections are open to freelance writers.
Also, the editors like quizzes.
Features can run around 850 words in
the front of the book, other features run between 1200 and 1500 words.
Pay
is variable, at least $350 for shorter pieces, more for features.
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"As I ate the
oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that
the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent
texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down
with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be
happy and to make plans." - Ernest Hemingway, "A Moveable Feast"
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Food Writing is
copyrighted by Pamela White, 2009
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