The Writing Life: An Often Forgotten Strategy for Authors

As writers, if you are going to be published, one of your consistent actions must be pitching editors and other decision makers in the industry. You can certainly blog and other actions on your own websites but in this article, I want to emphasize an often forgotten strategy for every author. I encourage you to write for other people's sites and platforms.

For many years, I've written and posted an article each week on this blog about The Writing Life. My blog began in 2008 but I have been consistent week after week posting an article. The result is over 1500 articles in this single location (and I will include more details toward the end of this article).

Besides creating new articles for my own blog, each month I have a number of other writing deadlines which have come over the years. I'm a part of a small group of contributors at Writers on the Move. I write one article a month published on the 22^nd each month. Here's the most recent link to my article, Some Good News for Writers.

Also I've started writing one article a month for the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference blog. My most recent article posted last week, Why Do Writers Need to Build an Audience?

Several times a year, I have been submitting an article for the Suite T blog. My most recent article was Do Editors Fix All My Mistakes? This title is a variation of a chapter in my 10 Publishing Myths book.

Also earlier this year, New York Times bestselling author Jerry B. Jenkins interviewed me for his Jenkins Writers Guild. We spoke for about 35 minutes about many different writing topics. After it was over, I asked for a copy of the interview. When I received it, I asked if I could also post the article on my blog. From the reaction, I suspect few of the people Jerry has interviewed have asked for this question. It involved several emails and negotiating an exclusive time period for the Jenkins Guild before I could release it. That time has passed and you can watch the interview here.

Since September 2011, I have written monthly column for The Wordsmith Journal called The Proactive Author. For many of these articles, I rewrite some of my blog articles but I have been consistently published in this publication for years.

These articles and places are a number of the locations where I am writing outside of my blog on a regular basis. If you look at these articles through following the various links, you will notice each article includes at least one link to a free resource the reader can get from me (if they give me their email address and first name). I have planned to add names and emails to my mailing list through appearing on these websites. I do deliver value in each case to these locations and my “payment” for this effort is to be able to give away free resources. I hope you can see the strategy and planning I have built into each of these efforts.

How can you take similar steps with your writing? Can you find these opportunties for your writing? I believe they are out there. It will take effort to find them but I encourage you to make this effort.

Tell Other Writers

Are you one of my email subscribers to this blog? If you aren't I encourage you to use this link and begin receiving these entries each week in your email. Also I encourage you to pass this link on to other writers and encourage them to subscribe as well. In advance, I thank you for your help to spread the word about this resource. Also notice in the right hand column of my blog, (scroll down) there is a search tool where you can use key words and search the entire blog database of over 1,500 entries. I will often use this tool but you can use it as well to find information on many different writing topics. Finally, please use my ClickToTweet link at the end of this blog to pass on the article to others through social media. Thank you in advance for this help.

Are you using this often forgotten strategy in your own writing? Let me know in the comments below.

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There is an often forgotten strategy for authors this prolific editor and author uses. Are you using it? Get the details here. (ClickToTweet)