ACPR Blog

I edit a local NCT magazine, so often have to find interesting articles on a zero budget. I don’t find it too hard, though, so I thought I’d share some tips.

If you invite contributions from members (for a group magazine) or residents or businesses if you run a local magazine, be clear about what you want. Style Guidelines are a way of outlining how you want people to use grammar. You can dictate whether you want numbers written as figures or words. You might suggest whether you like people to use % or per cent. The guidelines can clarify spelling issues: do you prefer the British organisation or American organization? You should also tell your potential writers how long you would like the deature to be, to save them writing way over lenght and to cut your editing duties. I find that several single page articles will interest more people than one very long article.

But what if you don’t have people queuing up to write? Well, there are hundreds of article websites online. People write articles because they want a link back to their business. You can use the articles but must include the person’s name and business link. You often are not allowed to edit the article.

A more flexible way to get an article to meet your requirements is to ask someone with an interest in the area to wrote something for you. Think about what would interest your readers. If they might want to read about natural health, ask a local complementary therapist for an advice feature. If you write for a business magazine ask someone who advises businesses: I recently supplied a batch of articles to the Worthing editor of Mums in Control.

If these ideas don’t help, email me, antonia@acpr.co.uk. I can usually find an article on most subjects or know someone who can offer you something relevant.

Sometimes it is easy to be confused between Editorial and Advertorial
Editorial is what the publication’s journalists write. they may research a news story or use information from a press release, but it is up to them what they include. You have no control over what they write. This makes up most of the content of most good media.
Advertorial is paid for, like an advertisement. A business may decide that potential customers will be more influenced by an article promoting their business. They pay for the space, and fill it with an article, often in a similar style to the rest of the publication. You can spot advertorials though as they must have ‘promotion’ or ‘advertisement’ printed above the text.

I read a great post over at Daily Writing Tips on ‘Five Words You Can Cut’. Check out the post. You will soon realise that you can slash and erase ‘perhaps’, ‘that’, ‘quite’, ‘just’ and ‘really’ from your copy while retaining the meaning AND making your text easier to read. I’d like to add ‘very’ to the list: how much more does calling your products ‘very’ good tell your customers? Aim for short snappy text to keep readers interested all the way through your promotional literature.

I have written a few articles in this blog recently about the ins and outs of running a community magazine. It is a subject that fascinates me. I have worked with several women who have done this and, as long as you don’t mind selling adverts, it is a great was to earn a good income from home. Mums returning from maternity leave are more and more looking at magazine franchises as a real home income opportunity. And of course, one of the things that most magazine owners enjoy is creating the content for their magazine.

Depending on your set up you may have free rein over the entire content, or have most or all of it supplied by the franchisor. If you have some input, or are setting up a magazine by yourself, you may wonder how best to fill your pages with gripping content that has readers retaining your magazine and passing it on to friends. Here are some tips to get you inspired: (more…)

I sent a press release about my PR book to a range of trade magazines, and as a result Accountancy Age asked me to write an article. The article has now appeared on three different websites, here, here and here, which I hope will get a few accountants and IT pros to check out and buy the book.

I’m enjoying reading The Greatest Freelance Writing Tips in the World by Linda Jones. It is in a lovely format – a small hardback, about 6″ by 4″ - and written in short snappy sections which makes it easy to read. It is inspiring and motivating, and reminded me how to sharpen up my pitches. However, the shortness of some of the sections can make some of the content seem a little disjointed. It can be frustrating just when you get interested to find that the book has moved onto the next topic. Jones is at her best in some of the longer sections. The chapter on Writing for the Internet is one of the best, and probably worth buying the book for by itself. I’m finally clear on exactly why blogging is such a good tool to boost your website’s profile, and what a Permalink is. Linda Jones is a prolific blogger, and this shows in this section of the book. Read her latest updates to her blog for parents of twins and more, You’ve Got Your Hands Full or find out more Freelance Writing Tips in her blog of the same name. 

The book is very practical, and you can see that Jones has years of experience in the media. She has written for local papers, worked in PR, and currently freelances for a range of newspapers and magazines. Buy the book if you want to get paid for writing, and need some pointers about the best way to achieve this. It will be £6.99 well invested.

Other useful books for aspiring writers which I’d recommend:

The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, The Writer’s Handbook, and the Media Directory are all handy references. Each has its strong points, they all have good information written by well informed people in the media, and will clue you in on how to get started. If you want to find a media contact the guides can be a starting place, although as they only come out once a year contacts may not be up to date.