The Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition

Photo courtesy of Kriss Szkurlatowski

 

The deadline is fast approaching for the 79th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition--May 14th--so get your manuscripts ready.


Writer’s Digest is giving away a total of $30,000 in cash and prizes. The Grand Prize winner will receive $3,000 cash and an all expense paid trip to New York City to meet with agents and editors.

Impressive, huh?

But you will also win cash and prizes if you place 1st through 10th in any of the ten categories.

But--and here’s why I REALLY love the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition--those who win 11th through 100th place receive distinctive honorable mention certificates. (I have won two of these, one for fiction and one for nonfiction).

How many of us writers enter writing contests and never know how close we came to actually winning? At the Writer’s Digest writing competition, you’ll know how close you came and you’ll also have a fancy certificate to prove it. This certainly helps prop up a writer’s shaky ego.

So go ahead and enter. What have you got to lose except--perhaps--the fear that you’ll never be a real writer?

Writer’s Digest Writing Competition--Fast Facts

- You may enter as many times as you want in each of these 10 categories:

o Inspirational writing

o Memoirs/personal essay

o Magazine feature article

o Genre short story

o Mainstream/literary short story

o Rhyming poetry

o Non-rhyming poetry

o Stage play

o Television/movie script

o Children’s/young adult fiction.

- Entry fee is $20s for the first manuscript, and $15 for each additional manuscript submitted at the same time. (Poems are $15 for the first entry, and $10 for each additional poem submitted at the same time).

- You can enter through the mail or online.

- Deadline is May 14, 2010, but entries will be accepted until June 1st. (There is a $5 additional entry fee for each manuscript submitted after the May 14th deadline.)

I’ve got to go now and get my manuscripts ready to submit. Good luck in the Writer’s Digest 79th Annual Writing Competition and let me know how you did.

Paid by Break Studios

I just received my first payment from Break Studios--thirty-two dollars--deposited into my PayPal account. Yipee!!!


This was for my writing of four articles of approximately 450 words each ($8 per article).

Although this is not a lot of money to pay a writer--piddly, in fact--these four articles were incredibly fun and very easy to write. I chose either the “how-to” or the strategy articles, which basically gives the reader step-by-step instructions in a particular area (using the 1, 2, 3 format).

If you haven’t heard of Break Studios, let me give you a run-down:

Break Studios is a lot like Demand Studios. You get to choose from a list of articles and you have a certain amount of days to write them. At a predetermined time--the lst and the 15th of the month for Break Studios--they deposit payment for your completed (and accepted) articles into your PayPal account.

I have written for Demand Studios also (but not for over a year) and I found the articles at Break Studios much more enjoyable to write. At Demand Studios, for instance, I was only approved to write articles for eHow, and writing these how-to articles got very boring, very quickly.

I also found the Demand Studios’ editors to be very flaky. (One editor, for instance, sent an article back to me for revision simply because I had put two spaces after my periods instead of the one space required by the writer’s guidelines). EXCUSE me…I have been double spacing after every period for the past 30 some years and it’s a habit. So far, I have had no such problems with the editors at Break Studios.

So, although the pay isn’t great, I am (so far) impressed with Break Studios and intend to keep writing for them periodically.

Image by foxumon

Freelance Writer’s Review of Associated Content

I’ve been writing for Associated Content since 2007 and I thought that it was time that I reviewed this freelance writing outlet.


My experiences with Associated Content have been positive, but if you’re looking to make a real living writing for them, look elsewhere.

You get paid by AC based on the number of unique page views that your content receives. You can also offer your content for upfront payment review (plus page views) in exchange for giving them exclusive rights to your article. But this upfront payment is quite low. The last time I looked at Associated Content’s policies’ page, I believe that it said the typical upfront payment is between $3 and $20. However, I have never been offered more than $4 as an upfront payment on any of my articles.

And don’t think that they will automatically approve an upfront payment for any article that you submit to them. They have certain rules about what constitutes upfront payment-worthy content, although these rules are very fuzzy and (I feel) varies from editor to editor.

One more thing…unless they’ve changed their policy on monthly page view payouts, they take a processing fee out of your puny payment. This really bothers me since, without freelance writers, they would have NO website. How dare they charge us for paying us the money that is well below what freelance writers should be making! (Thankfully, there is not such charge for their upfront payments).

…oh well.

But Associated Content is a great place to get writing experience and to showcase your writing talent. However, if you want to use your published content to woo prospective employers, make sure that you proofread and edit your content carefully. Associated Content does no line or content editing of their articles (even the ones that are accepted for upfront payment).

Online Writing Gigs

I have been an online writer for several years now, so I thought that I would share some of my online writing gigs with you. So far, I have written for:

1. Associated Content
2. Helium
3. Digital Journal
4. Demand Studios
5. Break Studios
6. Inbox.com (paid forum poster)
7. Today.com (now BlogDog) with my Mystery Tour blog
8. Interact Media 

...and I write for a few other clients that are not as well known. 

So far, I have had an interesting experience, but have not made an impressive amount of money. Making money at online freelance writing is hard, and it's made even more so by bidding sites such as iFreelancer that allows their clients to post ridiculously low rates (I'm talking $2.00 for ten 500 word articles, for instance) and the writers who are willing to take such puny wages. 

Listen up, people. Writing is an ART and a SKILL. Good writers should be paid well. Yet, the wages that many of these online writng sites offer is insulting. But to get my start, I wrote many low paying articles, like so many other writers are doing.

Sigh...

In coming days, I will post my reviews of some of these freelance writing sites. In the meantime, feel free to share some of your experiences with me.

Image of keyboard by soopahtoe's at http://www.sxc.hu/profile/soopahtoe