Use in opt-in publications, or on Web sites, but please include resource box.

Please send me a copy, if possible. Many thanks.

**

Summary: If you want to sell your writing, you need to get ideas that sell.

Category: Writing

Words: 650

Getting ideas that sell

Copyright (c) 2002 by Angela Booth

(This article is an extract from my new writing workshop, Writing to Sell in Internet Age.)

As old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You can offer your writing too, but if no one wants it, you're stuck.

You've got to train yourself to come up with saleable ideas, for specific audiences. Somehow, someway, you've got to discover what people want, and give it to them in your writing. The more successfully you do that, more you'll sell.

==> To get more ideas, write more

In an article, prolific thriller/ horror writer Dean Koontz said that when he wrote more, spending six to eight hours a day at it, he got more ideas. He frequently found himself writing one book, while making notes for another two or three.

It's true. If you're not writing, you won't get ideas. Your subconscious mind is lazy. You haven't convinced it that finding ideas is important to you, so you don't get them.

Start a program of writing every day. Write anything, but make sure that you're doing it for at least an hour, and that you force yourself to write. Get your fingers on keyboard, and move them. Let whatever wants to come out, come out.

Sounds like work, right?

Sure. At first it is. Then it's fun. And easy. The first couple of days you do this, you may feel that it's pointless. But I promise you, keep at it, and within a few days you'll start coming up with more ideas that you know what to do with.

==> If you want to know what people want, ask them

One way to find out what people are interested in is to read bestseller lists. What are people buying? Extrapolate from these lists. Can you find any new trends?

Use in opt-in publications, or on Web sites, but please include resource box.

Please send me a copy, if possible. Many thanks.

**

Summary: If you're a professional writer, you need to get an attitude about your work.

Category: Writing

Words: 800

Get an attitude about your writing

Copyright (c) 2002 by Angela Booth

(This excerpt is taken from my new writing workshop Writing To Sell In Internet Age.)

Writer John Clausen, in his excellent book about freelance writing: Too Lazy To Work, Too Nervous To Steal, recommends that you get an attitude about your work. And he's right.

Many writers are submissive. This attitude brings out worst in others. It leads to people in a position to pay you for your work taking massive advantage of you, because they figure that you're not going to do anything about it.

Heck, it leads to business people --- editors, publishers and anyone who hires writers --- taking advantage of writers in general. So, while you're standing up for yourself, tell yourself that you're standing up for writers everywhere. Because you are.

Getting an attitude doesn't mean that you are rude or aggressive. You should be completely polite and professional at all times. However, you do need to be assertive. And to believe in yourself.

As Clausen rightly points out, whenever someone hires you to write something, or buys from you, they want to believe that they're hiring and buying best they can afford. Who will believe that you're good if you don't?

If you're overly grateful for each job you get, too thrilled with idea that potential buyer is being so nice to consider your work, you'll get ripped off with every job that you do.

It took me a long time to learn this.

This doesn't mean that you should get a massively inflated ego. You should have enough perspective to see where your work needs improvement. If you're prepared to learn, and to practise, your work will improve each year.

Let's get down to basics. If I don't mean be aggressive about your work, what do I mean by "get an attitude"?

What I mean is this: know what kind of writing you're doing is worth, and what you're worth. And then don't write for less. This means that you're willing to do some research and thinking before you accept a writing job.