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Featured Publication: News Directory
Website: www.NewsDirectory.com
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ELBOW-DEEP IN APPROCHABLE PUBLICATIONS
By Bonnie Caton in Portland, OR
It's easy to find places to get published once you know where to look. I do it every week for these featured publications... and you can, too.
One great place to find magazines and local newspapers is NewsDirectory.com. There, you can search for publications by name. But this site also offers a really handy area code look-up tool.
For example, here in Portland, Oregon, the most-read newspaper in the whole state is The Oregonian. I could send travel articles there, but the competition, I understand, might be steep for a budding travel writer like me.
If you're in a similar situation, all you have to do is go to www.NewsDirectory.com and type in your area code. Then in addition to the very well-known publications, the list you'll get will also include more approachable local newspapers. I'd never heard of half of the ones I found in the Portland metropolitan area.
You can also browse magazines by subject. The "travel" link shows a list of more than 60 travel-themed magazines. Don't forget to check other subjects that might publish travel content, too -- like food, parenting, history, business, or arts and entertainment.
Once you find publications you'd like to write for, here are a few tips on finding the writer's guidelines on their websites:
** 1. Know the vocabulary. Different newspaper and magazine sites label their writer's guidelines in different ways. Some don't label them at all. Look through the site for hyperlinks with words like "writer's guidelines," "submission guidelines," "submit a story idea," "submissions," etc.
** 2. Check the hidden corners of the site. Sometimes, the submission guidelines are out in the open, up by the publication's banner. But you won't usually find them there. One trick is to scroll down to the very bottom of the page. Usually you'll find contact information and sometimes you'll see a tiny hyperlink to submission guidelines. Another place you'll sometimes find them is in the "contact us" or the "about us" section.
** 3. Try Google. If you still haven't found any submission information, you can try putting the publication's name and the words "submission guidelines" or "writer's guidelines" into a Google search.
** 4. Send an email. Usually, the above methods will bring out a publication's guidelines. But if they don't, you can always send an email to editorial staff to ask for them. Just politely let them know you're a freelance writer and you'd love to have a copy of the writer's guidelines.
[Ed. Note: Did you know that you can sell essentially the same story to multiple publications? You just have to move a few things around and change it up a bit. At our Ultimate Travel Writer's Workshop a few weeks ago in San Francisco, freelance writer Jennifer Stevens gave us eight different types of stories that magazines like to buy. You can use them to quickly turn one vacation into eight different stories... and eight paychecks.
Listen to all of Jen's workshop presentations and get her PowerPoint slides by getting a copy of the Ultimate Travel Writer's Workshop-at-Home package. Hurry, though, because the price goes up after this week. Grab yours now and you'll save $100, here.]
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