Food Writing A Weekly Ezine
Volume VI, Issue 7 March 3, 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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"Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then
thrown out." - Samuel Johnson
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In This
Issue: 1. Editor's Note: New York City! 2. Sell Your Recipes...One at a Time by
Pamela White 3. How to Self Publish Your First Cookbook by Michael Senoff 4.
Food Writing Jobs and Markets
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THE ART OF
THE RESTAURANT REVIEW, THE ONLINE CLASS: A Six-Week Writing Course for All Who
Want to Add Restaurant Reviews to Their Portfolios
Begins Monday,
March 9, 2009 and runs for 6 weeks
To find out more, and to register
while there is still space, go to:
www.food-writing.com and scroll down.
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1.
Editor's Note New York City!
I lost a long time subscriber this
past week because she didn't like the articles on writing recipes and the craft
of writing. This made me quite sad. I certainly don't want to disappoint
anyone.
I really hope that most of you are okay with how I present the
information that I research for the ezine. Food Writing is a narrow niche of
writing, and while some of the advice I present is new, much of it is
information that is constantly changing and developing, and I do try to stay on
top of it.
Next week I am hopping a train with my daughter to visit my
other daughter in New York City. Today, as I was doing laundry (do we all keep
up constant chatter in our minds when doing simple chores?) I realized that the
last time I was in NYC was when I was newly pregnant with my second daughter,
who is now 20. It was cold, dirty, and we had little free time. I also felt
sick the whole time and didn't know why. It was only after getting home that I
realized another baby was on the way.
This time, I am so excited. I am
hoping for decent weather, and praying that my fashion designer daughter will
not look askance at my sneakers I absolutely have to wear for walking. And that
she will understand my longing to spend our days in museums instead of clothing
stores. Most of all, though, this will be my first trip in probably 8 years
that takes me further than 2 hours from home. Why has it taken me so long? I
have fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, that makes it difficult to get out
and around. I have found my own healing between writing and exercising and
eating well, and I am determined to love this short vacation, and of course, to
explore some eateries to see what's shaking there.
This week, I wrote
another article about recipes, offering advice on how to sell more of our
recipes, one or two at a time.
Keep in mind, the Art of the Restaurant
Review is starting Monday, March 9, so register today at
www.food-writing.com today!
AND if you haven't signed up yet for Ali Brown's teleseminar on "How to
Create Your Own Strong Economy This Year" please do so now. She's great with
ways to get yourself noticed online, and ways to create writing products that
will provide you with ongoing income. If you are already intrigued, you can go
here to sign up (and remember the teleseminar does not cost a dime. (By signing
up, you will also receive a recording of the teleseminar, so don't worry if you
cannot attend that day.) Sign up here:
http://www.netofficetoolbox.com/app/?af=91485
As always "CHEERS" Pam White
www.food-writing.com
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2. SELL YOUR RECIPES...ONE AT A TIME by
Pam White
A few weeks ago, we discussed how to find inspiration for
writing recipes. And by now I'm sure you've discovered how to write down your
recipes (right?) and not let them remain stored in your brain.
You've
learned the standardized way of writing the title, the list of ingredients in
the order that they are added to the preparation, description of step-by-step
mixing, sauteeing or baking, and suggestions on substitutions and how to serve
up your recipes.
Next step? Sell them to magazines.
Today,
when pitching to online magazines and print ones, you need to tell the story
behind the recipe. Make the editor understand why your recipe will speak to her
readers. Make sure you include who will eat your dish, when they will eat it
and what it means to you as the recipe developer when you write your query
letter.
But first you need to find out where you can sell your
recipes.
Look for magazines that accept fillers. Think about an easy
treat you can write up and pitch, or something seasonal like best
buffalo wings for Football season, blended fruit smoothies for summer, prepare
ahead after school snacks for the fall.
Check over the editorial
calendars (on magazines' websites). Use recipe fillers match the types of
planned articles.
Other types of magazines to consider are:
Children and Youth oriented magazines, Publications and Sites for teens and
college students Parenting magazines Travel periodicals Outdoor, hunting,
fishing, biking Home, gardening Local magazines Health, Nutrition and Fitness
Essays, fiction and contests
Expect to be paid between $25 and $300
per recipe. Why the large range? Many magazines pay just a little bit per
recipe because recipes that are used as fillers or that are sidebars to another
article are seen as additions, not the central attraction of the magazine or
the article itself. The higher paying ones are generally larger circulation
magazines that tend to pay over $1 a word for any type of submission.
If you feel the low pay in one magazine isn't to your advantage, try to
create a simple recipe or pull a well-worn and dearly loved recipe from your
collection.
Let's face it. As food writers, most of us spend time
taking recipes and recreating them, or just finding a new ingredient and
building a meal around it, creating a brand new way to enjoy that vegetable or
cut of meat. If you develop recipes on a regular basis, then why not explore
earning some extra cash by selling them to a wide variety of magazines.
Your readers will be the richer for it.
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ADVERTISEMENT
In 1998, I was
hired to write a weekly food column for a newspaper. In 2000, I was hired to
write a monthly column about food and family. In 2002 I was handed an
assignment to write a monthly fiction and food column. Oh, I was also writing a
bi-weekly column on writing as a parent of teens and tweens.
For each
column, I wrote ONE pitch. That's it! One pitch turned into years of writing
assignments, beaucoup de bucks.
Find out how you can turn your one
idea into years of $$$:
http://www.food-writing.com/welcometofoodwriting/pitchcolumn.html
For only $7 per week, you can take a one-on-one, six-week email course
on developing, pitching and selling your column idea to websites, newspapers
and magazines.
Why should YOU want to write a column?
* You
will build up published clips like crazy. By the time I resigned from my weekly
column I had amassed over 300 published clips.
* You will never run
out of inspiration. Once you know what you will be writing about, you will find
ideas, experts, and readers with questions popping up in your life.
*
You will be a celebrity. You know you want it! Go for it. Accept the
compliments that will come with being a columnist.
* You can use your
column as a springboard to book publishing and public speaking success.
Can't wait to get started?
You won't have to! Register today and
receive the first lesson (of six) next Monday. That's right, the course will
begin for YOU the Monday following your registration.
Each lesson
includes an assignment; send in your work and I'll review it and offer my
insights and comments on each piece. All lessons and work is sent by email.
After I receive notification of your payment, I will send a welcome
letter reminding you how the course works. Any questions? You can email me at
pwhite05@twcny.rr.com The
total cost of Pitch that Column is $43 and six weeks of your time!
Register NOW; start pitching your column next month.
http://www.food-writing.com/welcometofoodwriting
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3. HOW TO SELF
PUBLISH YOUR FIRST COOKBOOK by Michael Senoff
Here's how one man made
millions of dollars from publishing a cookbook... Cookbooks always sell.
They're always number one sellers. People buy hundreds of cookbooks. It seems
like anybody who comes out with a cookbook sells it. Before he wrote his book,
he had not known much about the cookbook market, has just read something that
said cookbooks always sell well.
He was thinking of the "hungry"
market and at the same time, his love for science fiction movies. He says of
his idea that he was "driving down the street. My twisted brain put these two
ideas together, science fiction and cooking, special effects and cooking." This
was back in 1990. He thought of what a great idea this could be for him: a
special effects cookbook; how to create recipes that move and smoke and sing
and glow in the dark and puff, and snap, crackle and pop and so on.
And so immediately, he went home and created his first recipe: a smoking
dragon cake. This was a cake in the shape of a dragon that actually blew out
safe, mysterious smoke. Because of his inventing spirit he was able to figure
out how to do this on his own, and then from there, just created another one
and another one and another one. It took him about two months to create 50
recipes and put them in a book.
He also decided to self publish, and
with this sold 500,000 copies at a profit of $10 a piece. That's five million
dollars, straight into his pocket, just by self-publishing! Do you have the
makings of a good quality book? Here are a few hints for you. Unless you're a
very well versed in desktop publishing or you're a good artist, I would hire it
done.
In the cookbook, he wrote all the recipes out in longhand and
did some rough sketches. He actually had a good friend who was a cartoonist and
did the hand drawings that he for the cover of the book. He then just took it
down to the print shop and cranked out 20 books. They were all soft cover, and
had no photographs.
He didn't even have a formal copyright; just went
ahead and printed copyright 1990. His plan was to sell this by space ads, but
didn't have enough money to do it right, so did some publicity instead.
And this is another thing I think a lot of marketers don't pay enough
attention to is getting publicity for their products, especially books. Books
are hard to sell. If you go to a publisher and have them agree to publish your
book, they're still not going to advertise it. He had never even considered
going to a publisher with the cookbook. Instead, he always considered
self-publishing to maintain complete control over the product.
If
you've been collecting recipes or have a unique idea for a cookbook, self
publishing with a sound marketing plan is a great recipe for success.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Sennoff is a sought after Internet marketer,
interviewer and business coach with more than 50,000 studnets on four
continents. For limited time, he is giving away over 120 hours of in-depth
audio interviews with some of the richest and most successful marketers,
copywriters and business experts in the world at his website:
http://hardtofindseminars.com .
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This Week's Help for Writers
Discover how
to "Become a Food Writer" today:
http://www.FabJob.com/foodwriter.asp?affiliate=246
Discover how to "Become a Travel Writer" today:
www.FabJob.com/travelwriter.asp?affiliate=246
Discover how to "Become a Book Editor" today:
www.FabJob.com/bookeditor.asp?affiliate=246
Discover how to "Become a Published Writer" Today:
www.FabJob.com/publishedwriter.asp?affiliate=246
Discover how to "Become a Technical Writer" today:
www.FabJob.com/technicalwriter.asp?affiliate=246
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4. JOBS FOR WRITERS
FOOD WRITING is now a paying market for writers. We plan to purchase
between 12 and 24 articles per year. We will pay $20 per article, each should
run between 450 and 700 words.
Topics that we are particularly
interested in:
How to create, and create a following for, a food blog.
Personal experiences working with agents and or publishers. Tell us what you
learned, the mistakes you will avoid next time, how you found your
agent/publisher, etc.
Tried and true ways to keep on top of trends, to
learn more about food, health, diet, nutrition, etc. issues. Include
publications that you know would be of interest to Food Writing readers,
whether the publications hire writers, buy articles, or are great for
reference.
Personal success stories of how you EARNED money from your
food writing, or writing that is somewhat related to food or food writing
travel writing, food styling and photography, teaching cooking or
baking, publishing your own book or magazine and how you make it pay off.
Recently I received an email from a subscriber saying she was streamlining
her reading material and keeping up with ONLY those publications that were
bringing her income through these types of articles. This is what we ALL want
to know these days how can we work more efficiently, earn more money,
and keep connected to what is going on in the magazine, newspaper, online, and
journalism world.
Query first or send the entire article either
is fine. Give me a week or more to respond to emailed queries and articles.
Payment can be through paypal or by check. Submission of article does not
guarantee publication. In the same vein, a "no" about one idea you have does
not mean you should stop trying to pitch your ideas.
Email
queries/articles to
Pwhite05@twcny.rr.com Thanks, Pam White
MARKETS
Markets
FARMING MAGAZINE Farming Magazine?PO
Box 85?Mt. Hope, OH 44660
www.farmingmagazine.net email :
farmingplc@farmingmagazine.net
Guidelines:
http://www.farmingmagazine.net/submitarticle.htm
Pays more for longer articles, query first to make sure they are interested in
your idea. Accepts recipes.
FOOD AND WINE ONLINE
www.foodandwine.com The website
for the print magazine Food and Wine accepts queries. The editorial department
is now trying to attract younger readers with a more casual approach. The
magazine is on top of trends, includes personalities in articles, wants to be
seen as fun. Only 'hot,' topical, newer-than-new ideas should be pitched by
writers. They don't have guidelines, but do work with freelance writers. The
site continues the Food and Wine tradition of celebrating American food,
restaurants and chefs so think All-American! They look for writers with
experience writing for a national magazine, and they like to use regular
contributing writers for ideas developed in-house. $1 per word; exclusive
rights for 6 months.
To make sure your query gets to the right editor
check the masthead (and double check by calling the phone number) here:
http://www.foodandwine.com/contact/
OUTDOOR CANADA online magazine
Think outdoor fun and food.
Get familiar with the webzine and pitch to the right editor. U.S. authors
welcome. Articles online so there is plenty of reading you can do to give the
editors what they want.
www.outdoorcanada.ca
Guidelines:
http://articles.outdoorcanada.ca/Mochasofa/client/en/homepage/
(copy and past into browser)
JOBS
Marketing Director for
Taste of Home, NYC
http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings/jobview_custom.asp?joid=87795&page=1
Health Writer/Producer, San Francisco
http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings/jobview.asp?joid=87782&page=2
Associate Food Editor, Good Housekeeping
http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings/jobview.asp?joid=87717&page=3
Restaurant Reviewer, Sauce Magazine, St. Louis, MO
http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1025971
Freelancer Needed, Arlington, VA, agricultural issues
http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1021207
Communications/PR, Natural Food Producer, Palmyra, WA
http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1026339
Food Blogger needed, Village Voice, NYC
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wri/1053336898.html
Food Writer, NYC
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wrg/1048967110.html
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"I will not eat
anything that walks, runs, skips, hops or crawls. God knows that I've crawled
on occasion, and I'm glad that no one ate me." - Alex Poulos
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Food Writing is copyrighted
by Pamela White, 2009
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