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    Finding Topics That Make Your Articles Indispensable
    Finding Topics That Make Your Articles Indispensable
    Finding Topics That Make Your Articles Indispensable
    Ebook37 pages1 hour

    Finding Topics That Make Your Articles Indispensable

    By Gordon Burgett

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    About this ebook

    It's harder and harder to place articles in magazines, newspapers, and other publications. The recession is up, the amount of advertising is down, and there are fewer articles being bought by fewer magazines and newspapers.

    So to see print you need to make the very topics you suggest or write indispensable to the editors when queried or submitted. The ideas have to so commend themselves that they move to the top of the buy list.

    There's a way (or a dozen ways) to do that. Gordon Burgett has had 1,700+ freelance articles in print (and 40 books, including Writer's Digest's Sell and Resell Your Magazine Articles). He had The Query Book published in five reincarnations, and his best seller is How to Sell 75% of Your Freelance Writing. So here, in 28 fast pages, Gordon shares how he made his submissions indispensable--and how the reader can too.

    You have to open the query door with your ideas and words. Read the door-openers he suggests.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGordon Burgett
    Release dateNov 28, 2011
    ISBN9781466074156
    Finding Topics That Make Your Articles Indispensable
    Author

    Gordon Burgett

    Gordon Burgett has 46 books and 1700+ published articles in print, has given 2000+ paid speaking presentations, and offers a free monthly newsletter at www.gordonburgett.com/free-reports. He posts at his blog at http://blog.gordonburgett.com twice weekly and discusses publishing, niche marketing, and selling one's writing.

    Read more from Gordon Burgett

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      Book preview

      Finding Topics That Make Your Articles Indispensable - Gordon Burgett

      FINDING TOPICS THAT

      MAKE YOUR ARTICLES

      INDISPENSABLE

      Gordon Burgett

      Copyright © 2011 by Communication Unlimited

      Published at Smashwords

      www.gordonburgett.com

      info@gordonburgett.com

      (800) 563-1454

      Since my recent publications have focused on how you can make yourself indispensable by empire building (and the lifelong wealth that can come from that), let’s talk about how you can apply that to magazine, newspaper, and newsletter articles.

      Or, as the sub-title of this report says, How to make it hard for (their) editors to say no.

      Mind you, most editors I know have a mission in mind but not much print space in which to achieve it (and keep their paying subscribers or buyers). So with an ever-shrinking budget to pay for copy, they have little difficulty saying no to almost anything from outsiders like us. Still, they must put something on their pages. Let’s make their rejection of the articles you propose much harder!

      Why bother with articles in the first place?

      Not for the big bucks—at least not directly. Often it’s for no bucks at all!

      Our goal in empire building is to keep others regularly aware of our unique knowledge or service. It’s to show that we have special information or skill that the readers of key publications need to know, and, by extension, products, consulting, and speeches or seminars they might then rush to buy, use, or hear.

      If we get paid along the way, that’s a welcome bonus and another reason for providing editors with copy that shouts (with appropriate demeanor) to be read!

      Think of a publication as a convention in words. Conventions usually have a half-dozen key speakers, each offering his or her own thesis that attendees at that gathering particularly want to hear.

      You are speaking at the convention (or writing an article) for three reasons: (1) to be one of those chosen speakers (or article authors) and thus be identified as exceptional, (2) to share your unique knowledge—the words and energy and clarity of expression—and thus show the listener that they need to hear more of what you know and can share, and (3) to display your bio slug (like a speaker’s introduction, here under the by-line or at the end of the article) to again state your name, your area(s) of expertise, how others can contact you, and what you’ve recently published where they can further check you out.

      Except it’s much better in print because the reader can cut out and save those words to dutifully read again and again.

      A mixed blessing. Spoken words, if not otherwise recorded, are here and gone. Errors, misspeaks, or the odd slip-up are often missed or dismissed. Printed words, like bells that can’t be unrung, are in print to be read and weighed forever.

      In other words, you want to get in print because that in itself can be a huge payment. Being

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