A Step in the Write Direction
April 23, 2012
IT’S HERE! I received my first shipment last week of my latest book The Freedom of Letting Go. Chapters include:
1 Letting Go of Grief
2. Letting Go of Failures — Your Own and Other People’s
3. Letting Go of Your Successes
4. Letting Go of Possessions
5. Letting Go of the Hurts in Your Life
6. Letting Go of Your Children
7. Letting Go of Health Issues
8. Letting Go of Your Youth
9. Letting Go of Guilt
10. Letting Go of Control
11. Letting Go of Worry
12. Letting Go of Doubt
13. Letting Go of Fear
The Land Beyond Letting Go
Order your copy today for only $15, plus $3 s&h.
Thought for Today: An out-of-towner drove his car into a ditch in a desolated area. Luckily, a local farmer came to help with his big strong horse named Buddy. He hitched Buddy up to the car and yelled, "Pull, Nellie, pull!" Buddy didn't move. Then the farmer hollered, "Pull, Buster, pull!" Buddy didn't respond. Once more the farmer commanded, "Pull, Coco , pull!" Nothing. Then the farmer nonchalantly said, "Pull, Buddy, pull!" And the horse easily dragged the car out of the ditch. The motorist was most appreciative and very curious. He asked the farmer why he called his horse by the wrong name three times. The farmer said, "Oh, Buddy is blind, and if he thought he was the only one pulling, he wouldn't even try!"
We all need encouragement, and that’s why I urge you to join a Christian writers group in your area. If there are none, perhaps—like Esther—God brought you into His kingdom for such a time as this and He wants you to start one. (I have an 88-page booklet on Starting and Running a Christian Writers Club…Critique Group…Conference for $15, postage included.)
(Actual writings reported from hospital charts)
- The patient refused autopsy.
- The patient has no previous history of suicides.
- Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.
- Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
- On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it disappeared.
- The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.
- Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
- She is numb from her toes down.
- The skin was moist and dry.
- Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.
- Patient was alert and unresponsive.
- I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.
- Skin: somewhat pale but present.
- Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.
Writing Tips for Today:
One of the pieces of information you need to put on the upper-hand corner of your manuscript (articles, poems, stories, etc., not books) is the rights you are offering. These are explained below explains the various rights. (Of course, you need to check guidelines first to see what rights the publishers accept.) When I attended my first writers’ conference, I had sold about 200 manuscripts up to that time, but had never heard of selling reprints. Understanding what rights to offer an editor can increase your writing income many times over.
First Rights. Type First Rights in the top, right-hand corner of your manuscript the first time you submit it. This means that the editor buys the right to be the first to publish your manuscript. Then after it is printed, you may resell it using reprint rights, but not to a competing market. For example, if you sell a manuscript the first time to a Southern Baptist periodical, you can sell a reprint to American Baptist or Conservative Baptist, but not to another Southern Baptist publication because it likely will have the same readership.
Reprint Rights. An advantage of writing for Christian periodicals is that you can sell reprints. After your material has been published the first time and you’re getting ready to resubmit it, type Reprint Rights or Second Rights in the upper right-hand corner. An editor may pay less for reprints, but it depends on the magazine and how much time has elapsed since you first sold the manuscript.
One-Time Rights. You may use one-time rights for sales to newspapers. The advantage is that you can sell your material to many newspapers all over the country at the same time; no one editor is buying the right to use it first. I also use one-time rights when I submit book reviews to magazines of different readerships. If I sold first rights, then waited for the reviews to be published before sending out reprints, the books would be old. Publishers want their readers to know about new books.
All Rights. When you sell a manuscript to a periodical that buys all rights, you forfeit any further use of that manuscript. Publishers can do whatever they want, as often as they want, without further payment to you. Your article can be included in an anthology or sold to another periodical without your permission. If, at a later date, you want to use all or part of this piece in an article or book, you will have to write to that publisher for permission. Depending how you want to use it, they will most likely grant their permission.
Simultaneous Rights (similar to One-Time Rights). Another method of selling an article is as a simultaneous submission. In this case, you submit your manuscript to several editors of noncompeting markets at the same time. If you do this, remember several things. First, as in all your writing, keep good records. Second, some editors will not accept simultaneous submissions (check your market books or publishers' guidelines). Third, if they do accept them, they often pay less. You can use these rights for holiday material.
These rights are described in more detail in A Step in the Write Direction—the Complete How-to Book for Christian Writers, available for $20, plus $3 s&h.
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