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How to Make Money Writing

4/21/2015

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In the last five years online book sellers such as amazon, Barnes and Nobles and even Goodreads have boosted sales of short stories and fiction.

But no matter how inspired you are to write the perfect novel, selling your fiction is a business.

So, if you’re planning a career as a professional writer, then you must be good at both writing and selling. In order to do this successfully, you’ll need to formulate a business plan.

Making a Plan

To begin, decide on a time line. How long will it take you to write a story, how many pages a week you need to write? Who will edit your work? Do you plan to submit your story or self-publish?

To figure out which works for you, check out http://thewritelife.com/self-publish-or-traditional/#.hhrhb7:TOQm

Setting goals

Find the right market for your stories. Your fiction might not make you rich, but it should still be treated like a job. This means telling your muse that inspiration or not, it has to show up at a certain time every day to write. By having this dedicated routine, you avoid the distractions and pitfalls so many writers experience.

Do your Research

What genres are trending right now? There is a variety of websites to do your research to see what suits the market's needs; Goodreads.com provides titles in any genre as well as reader opinions.

You can also check out a list of publishers and their submission requirements at http://pred-ed.com/ to discover what’s hot or not.

Ghost writing as an option

Writing stories as your main source of income might prove difficult. However, there are other ways to supplement your income. One option is ghost writing. You can find work on websites like elance.com and odesk.com. When you sign up, you will see a list of opportunities that are not limited to ghost writing, there’s also blogs, web content, articles and press release writing gigs.

Things to keep in mind

You might want to consider is using a pen name. No matter what genre you write in, a pen name provides a sense of anonymity.

 

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Food for thought about your

3/1/2015

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Plot

To develop your plot, ask yourself this question

What does the protagonist want, and why can’t they have it?

Example: Hank needs to steal a magic ruby to save his dying mother. He can’t have it because if he gets it, his true love (also trying to steal the magic ruby) will be killed by the evil king (antagonist) who has the stone.


















Questions to help develop this:


1) Who is the story about?

2) What do they want?

3) What stands in their way?

4) What are they going to do about it?

Conflict

Conflicts develop plots. The types of conflict weaved into a story; develop not only the main problem, but sub-plots as well and gives the story more depth.

Protagonist vs:

Self - this struggle is internal. The character has self-doubts, flaws and must choose whether to travel the path of good or evil

Others – this conflict is with the antagonist as well as co-protagonists and mentors.

World – This is settling where the character lives. The protagonist will find conflict with the society or culture they are living in. They might find themselves at odds with the magical or sci-fi environment. Part of this type conflict also includes nature, such as weather or a setting like a forest.


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Dystopian in the works

2/17/2015

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I'm currently working hard knocking pages daily on book one of a five part YA Dystopian fantasy.  

Here are some tidbits of interest for this project:

Dystopian Fantasy: In this genre, you will find futuristic communities that are filled with negative qualities such as poverty, suffering or oppression by a totalitarian/despotic system of government. This happens either because of a natural disaster or by the members of the particular society that brought this upon themselves by deeds done or ignored.

Time Frame: 500,000 years in the future, after a volcanic and earthquake catastrophe. 

Book one plot: The queen has been murdered. This accused, a 12 year old boy, is about to be executed unless the heroine can help him escape.

Protagonist: A heroine is a sixteen-year-old girl from a poor family. She meets a boy at school who's on a quest for a book that she believes doesn't exist.

Setting: Antarctica is now at the equator and location of the story. This is due to the catastrophe, which caused the earth to tilt on its axis.



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Week After Thanksgiving

12/4/2014

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The First Blog

11/3/2014

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Thank you for visiting the site.

As you can see it is still a work in progress. But as many of you writers know, life can throw any number of things at us. For me, life is about being a good mom, a caring wife, a hard working career gal, and that's all before I even get to sit down to write!

Speaking of writing, I just finished the first Benadi Mystery and currently working on the second book, and can't wait to show off the covers. :)

So grab a cup of coffee, tea or my favorite, a steamy mug of hot cocoa with a dash of peppermint and browse around, any comments or suggestions are always welcomed.

Julie
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