LumpysCorner

in this age of the “writer as an entrepreneur” responsible for a growing share of the work required to not only create but also sell a book, adding management skills to our repertoire of abilities is not at all a bad idea.

what our goals are beyond sales

It’s not as violent as it sounds, but this process can prove painful for many writers; it’s all about getting rid of self-indulgent, flowery writing

don’t go off the deep end with the thesaurus. Don’t choose every synonym Word suggests for your replacements, as some lead to awkward phrasing and don’t fit within the context. Your words should fit naturally in the sentence while also decreasing redundancy.

Look for words and phrases like “a number of,” “in order to,” and especially “that.” All can be replaced with shorter and more powerful words or can be completely cut out.

When your article assignment is to write 1,000 words and you turn in 2,000 words, it creates all kinds of problems for your editor. She’ll need to comb through your article and decide which 1,000 words she can cut. After all, she has only so much space, so she has to make it fit. Now, don’t get all wishy-washy on me and turn the extra material into a bonus sidebar. Just squish all those extra words in there and let your editor deal with it.

Avoid showing even a modicum of personality. If you want your article killed, it should look like it was written by a robot…a robot that doesn’t speak English.

When you get an assignment, your client will send you a little thing called an assignment letter, which details the specs of the assignment. Ignore this.

your interview will fail if you do not display curiosity about who you are interviewing and what he or she might say.

an interview is not so much a chance for you to get to know your subject better (though you will) … an interview is your chance to be the conduit that allows your audience to get to know your subject better.

f you are not asking this question to yourself before every interview, then your interviews are failing. Because they aren’t delivering the value to your audience that they could be.

the most commonly used are a 728×90 “leaderboard” and a 300×250 “medium rectangle”.

If you don’t collect email addresses on your site — for example, to send out a weekly or monthly newsletter — you should start. (

Publishers are leaning heavily on the idea that these are “premium” magazines, with deep reporting and full-page photos. Music reviews site Pitchfork even hopes that printing its quarterly magazine’s long-form features and illustrations on high-quality paper stock will encourage readers to collect them just as they collect vinyl records.

ather than eye the big general-interest numbers of Time and Rolling Stone, digital publishers are creating their magazines with lower circulations and content aimed at more niche audiences.

Most media companies have historically treated magazines as loss leaders, selling them for cheap in the hopes of building the sort of big circulation numbers

Website owners should use hyperlinks carefully, such as by checking they are not linking to subscription-only content and that the terms of the site linked to permit such an action.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

Not only did his book confirm for me that the best way to create a positive change is through small acts repeated daily, but the book was exceptionally well written and researched — impressive in that the author is not a professional writer — and so applicable to the many writers I meet who struggle with getting query letters out the door or writing big projects like books and novels.

There are two kinds of motivation. The first type is having a reason for doing something. My motivation for exercise is to look and feel healthy. My motivation for doing this interview is that you asked me to do it and I want to spread the word about mini habits. Unlike the next definition of motivation, your reason for doing things is generally very stable and changes very little over time. There’s also emotional motivation, which is rooted in enthusiasm and determines your willingness to take action in the moment (“This year I’m going to get in shape so I’m off to the gym!”). Most goal systems rely on this type of motivation; they’ll tell you that you need to find this motivation to succeed. The problem is that emotional motivation isn’t reliable or habit friendly.

The clients are “not there” for all freelancers, until we go out and proactively market and find them. Take responsibility for your business success and realize it’s up to you to get out there and look for new clients (or new projects from current clients).

Don’t have a writer website? It’s time to get one. You really can’t present yourself professionally these days without a site.

Tweaking your site copy is something you can do 10 minutes a day on, and it’s well worth it to up your odds of drawing prospects to you.