CornerScribe

Archive for July, 2007

You’re a writer, but you’re also interested in making a few bucks (or more than a few) from your writing. Here are a few paying markets.

Tales of the Talisman is looking for sci-fi, fantasy and horror. $10 per story. Up to 6000 words.

Leading Edge is looking for science fiction and fantasy. They also take longer works of up to 15,000 words. Pay is .01 per word.

Necrology Magazine is looking for fantasy, horror and sci-fi. They take stories up to 15,000 words and pay $10-$25. I have a story submitted to them now, in fact. They prefer Lovecraftian horror, so if you’re a fan like me, this may be a market to look at.

On the Premises is a contest based magazine. You’ll need to check the site for the current premise. First prize is $130.

Greatest Uncommon Denominator takes a wide variety of genre and literary fiction. I’m not sure I quite follow their payment setup, but they do give you a cut of what they make.

Okay, so none of these will make you rich. In fact, given the time it takes to put together a good story, you’re not even looking at minimum wage, or anything close to it. However, it is rewarding to get a little payment from your work, even if it is very little. Having a few published short stories is also a terrific way to build up your credentials before approaching agents and publishers for a book.

I hope the market listings are useful. I’ll put something together next time for the non-fiction writers out there. If you enjoy this type of post, let me know, and I’ll try to make it a weekly feature. I’ll also try to mix it up a bit so there are a variety of market listings to choose from.

In less than 30 days I’ve moved my Alexa ranking from over 4 million to a little over 600,000. In this article, I’ll tell you how I did it.

First off, a quick reminder as to what an Alexa rank is, and why you should care. Alexa ranks are calculated via the Alexa toolbar. For everyone who has the toolbar installed, Alexa tracks her web surfing and calculates the popularity of web sites based on that.

Alexa ranks are used by many companies to sell advertising on your blog. One I use, text link ads, uses Alexa ranks as part of how they price and sell ad space on your site. If you’re interested, click the link above, and you’ll be directed to their site, and I’ll get a bonus for referring you.

If you think about it, there’s an obvious problem with Alexa rankings. Alexa counts only traffic for those people with the toolbar installed. You may have hundreds, even thousands, of visitors who don’t have it installed.

So, step one is to ask your readers to install the toolbar. You should install it yourself if you haven’t already. Once again, the link is Alexa toolbar download. It’s available for IE and Firefox.

Step two is to promote your blog. I’ve been participating in blog carnivals for a while, so that’s a good step to take if you haven’t already. If you aren’t familiar with carnivals, then read my post about it.

Another great way to promote is to participate in writing projects and contests on others’ blogs. I participated in two this month, Daily Blog Tips and EMoms at Home. You can read my entries here.

Daily Blog Tips: Three Essential Steps to Great Blog Posts

EMoms at Home: Write Outstanding Titles and Openings for your Blog

The one at Daily Blog Tips got an honorable mention, which wasn’t bad out of 115 entries. Both have generated quite a lot of extra traffic.

I recently spent a lot of time putting together character creation worksheets for those readers who write fiction. I’ve been a little disappointed in the amount of traffic it’s drawing, so I’m continuing to promote it. As a part of that, I leave notes on forums mentioning that it’s available. I’m also emailing other bloggers who I think might find it useful.

Step three, link to your own posts. Link to your own relevant posts, as I have in this post. Also, post an occasional list of your most popular posts. These interior links will often give even older posts new life.

I realize that an Alexa rank of 600,000 + doesn’t exactly make me an A-list blogger, but it’s a huge improvement, especially considering it took me less than 30 days to pull it off. The lesson I’ve learned? Spend more time promoting! No matter how much great content you’re writing, you still need to help people find it, and that’s where good promotion comes in.

Thanks to Taosbound for the post about the contest. Also, I’ve opened up commenting so you don’t have to register on the site first. Thanks! I didn’t realize that.

Update:

It seems that the theme is the problem. Wordpress is set to accept comments without registration, but the theme isn’t cooperating. One more reason to update!

If you’d rather e-mail me your suggestions, then that’s fine too. Use cs AT cornerscribe DOT com. Put theme contest in your subject line so I don’t miss it.

Daily Writing Tips has a fun article about proofreading. I’ve covered several of the common mistakes in my Writing Helper series. Can you find all the mistakes?

If you’re looking for some writing software, WhizFolders is one to consider. I downloaded the trial a couple days ago, and I’m strongly considering buying it. You have notes, which can contain text and links. Each note can be moved around, set as child or parent to other notes, and grouped and printed with other notes. If you treat each note as a scene or chapter, it would make re-arranging your writing much simpler. You can download a 30-day trial, or buy it for $40.

Paperback Writer has a novel notebook for download. If you haven’t checked out her site, then you should. Her material is always worth a look. While you’re at it, remember to download my character creation worksheets too.

Pick the Brain has put together a list of 101 self improvement resources. Wow, that’s a LOT of improvement, but some very interesting sites.

If you’ve ever considered publishing your fiction on your blog, then you’ll want to read this article at BellaOnline. Check out the Squidoo article as well.

I’m having some serious difficulty choosing a new Wordpress theme, so I thought I might turn it into a contest. And no, you don’t have to create a theme to enter.

What I want…

1. A theme that’s valid (html, css, etc.)
2. Widget and plug-in ready
3. Professional but not plain. Something with a touch of “artsy-ness” is what I’m looking for, but I’m at a loss to describe it better. I want it to look like a writer’s site, not a business site.
4. Three-column layout preferred. However, if the theme is otherwise terrific, then I’d take two-column.

What would you suggest as a prize for the person who recommends the winner? I’m leaning toward an Amazon gift certificate ($25), but I’m open to other suggestions. If you’re the winner and really want a gift certificate to somewhere else, let me know and we can probably work it out.

Rules:

1. Submit no more than 3 themes.
2. If more than one person submits the same theme, and it’s the winner, then the first person to submit will get the prize.
3. To submit a theme (or themes), leave a comment in this post, a trackback, or a link to an article on your site where you talk about your picks.
4. The contest will end August 15th.

Any questions? Post them here in the comments. I’m looking forward to seeing your suggestions!

These are often confused, possibly because two of them are relatively rarely used.

Cite means to refer to a source, as when you write a research paper.

Site refers to a specific place or location, as in a building site.

Sight refers to seeing, as in vision.

Examples:

• You need to cite more sources for your research.
• The accident caused him to lose his sight.
• We need to choose a site for the picnic.

I’m going to be working on installing a new theme, so you may see the site doing some funny things through the evening. I don’t expect it to become unavailable, unless things go terribly awry, but my talented hubby is here to help me get through the changes.

Please let me know what you think about the new theme.

Obviously, the new theme hasn’t materialized. I noticed a problem with the one I had chosen, and I haven’t found another yet. Any suggestions for a theme? 

These are some commonly confused words. I rarely hear them mixed up, but I see it in people’s writing all the time.

Breath and Breathe

Breathe is a verb. The ea sounds like eat or easy.

Breath is a noun. Here, the ea sounds like egg or death.

Examples:

He took a slow breath before answering.

She gasped, barely able to breathe.

Bath and Bathe

Bath and Bathe follow the same basic pattern.

Bathe is a verb. The a sounds like able or ate.

Bath is a noun. The a sounds like cat.

Examples:

I want to take a relaxing bubble bath.

Whew! You need to bathe.

I see that a several of the Writing Helper posts remain some of my most popular. Even though they’re short, I’m not surprised. When I taught English, my students usually appreciated this type of lesson much more than standard grammar.

Enjoy!

The results of the Daily Blog Tips contest are in.

No, I didn’t win one of the 3 $100 prizes, but I did get an honorable mention for my entry. Since there were 115 entries, I was very pleased to have placed that highly.

Thanks to all who voted for me. I think I left thank you comments on everyone’s blog, but if I missed you, please accept my apologies!

If you haven’t yet read my entry or those of the winners, you may want to head on over and do that.

Welcome to everyone from emom’s at home. I recently had an article included in her group research project. There are some really good articles there, so I’d recommend checking them out.

My entry was Write outstanding Titles and Openings for your Blog.

Please let me know what you think.