Recently, someone posted a comment on one of my articles on Associated Content that said I was selling out for $5 bucks. The article it was placed on was this one called Understanding Copyrights: Frequently Asked Questions.

There’s a couple of things about this comment that caught my attention. First, the poster said I never wrote anything of substance and that this article was spam. Secondly, he or she said I was selling out for $5 bucks. He also said I had a fat face, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with my post here.

Reality is, I’ve written about the educational system in America, sexual health and safety, positive and negative thinking and lots more that I can honestly say have depth and substance. Egotistical of ME to say so, but still, I stand by that. Also, reality is, I didn’t sell out for $5 bucks, but rather, I sold out for $10 bucks, which is how much I’ve been paid for that article upon which they commented.

Is $10 selling out?

Perhaps.

But then, I got to thinking about it. You know, I’ve received all sorts of payment for articles over the last five years. My lowest paid article that I didn’t give away to someone for free or for a byline was $3.00. The highest paid article I’ve ever sold paid me $3200. Granted, that article required two weeks worth of ‘field research’ and interviewing several people and compiling all that information, but still, that’s a good chunk of money for a 1500 word article.

Then somewhere in between, I’ve been paid anywhere from $25 bucks to $150 bucks. I think the last time I figured it, including articles I give away for free, I have averaged $72 per article over 5 years. That’s my AVERAGE, and that includes articles I write for AC (It doesn’t include Helium articles, but does include Helium Marketplace articles.)

I’ve been told and have even seen it on those sites like AC and Helium and even on Suite101 that REAL writers don’t ’sell out’ and submit things to sites like that. That real writers are earning big bucks elsewhere and wouldn’t bother.

Is that true?

I don’t think so.

See, I’m a writer. All I’ve ever wanted to do was write. Before sites like AC and Helium existed, I wrote on blogs and before that, I wrote in spiral notebooks or on my computer just for me.

Getting paid for writing though, that was different. I have to write differently than the type of writing I enjoy when I want to get paid for it. I query magazines and web publications nearly daily, and I have anywhere from 10-100 queries or submissions out there at any given point in time.

Yet, I write for AC and Helium.

Why?

I don’t know. Perhaps because I enjoy it. Perhaps because I can write with whatever style I want about whatever topics that interest me without having to write to someone else’s guidelines or standards. Perhaps because I like having places to put up rejected articles for print publication that would have been a total waste of my time before places like AC and Helium existed, but now can at least return something on my investment of time.

I like getting paid for my writing. It’s that simple. I would write even if I never received another penny for it though. I wrote for years before I started getting paid for it and if tomorrow everyone stopped paying me for my writing, I’d keep writing for years to come. I swear on my deathbed I’ll be passing away with my fingers still clicking on the keyboard.

I am a writer. It’s not what I do; it’s who I am!

So… if I love to write, and I’m getting paid for it, is that really selling out?

I mean, I’m doing what I love… I’m getting paid for it, even if it’s less than what some might deem themselves worthy of, but it’s money for passion – money for love – money for doing what comes naturally that I would have done whether I received the money or not!

I personally don’t think that’s selling out.

I can be a paid writer making $10 bucks per article and pay my bills doing what I love to do for a living, or I can be a starving artist sacrificing myself for my writing and not providing for my family while slaving away at a job where my efforts make someone else money and trying to ‘make a go of it’ with my writing on the side, holding out for those really big paying gigs.

Hummm…. tough choice.

I think I’ll take my robe and slippers and recliner and laptop selling out to write articles for $10 bucks a pop every now and then to the alternative any day.

So the next time you are talking to someone who is bent on telling you that somehow you are not a ‘real’ writer because you don’t write this or write that or do this or do that, or someone tells you you’re selling out because of taking low pay, etc… ask yourself a few simple questions:

Do you love what you do – enjoy the writing itself?

And then ask yourself the important question:

Are you ONLY doing that type of writing because you’re afraid you’re not good enough, experienced enough, educated enough, (fill in the blank) enough to be a ‘real’ writer.

If your answer is YES to the first question and NO to the second – then tell those people to suck on your big toe and keep doing what you love and enjoying yourself while getting paid for it.

If, however, you you do not enjoy what you’re doing and you are only doing it because you’re afraid of larger markets and what you deem yourself to be ‘real writing’… maybe you’re not selling out, but perhaps you’re selling yourself short.

In the end, $5 bucks is $5 bucks, and $10 bucks is $10 bucks, and if it’s paying my bills by doing what I love, then just call me an official sell out!

Author Mini-Bio for Adina Rishe Gewirtz

I’ve always had a passion for stories, and I’ve wanted to write my own since I was in the seventh grade. But it wasn’t until I got to college that I realized I also had a passion for the way stories are put together – the craft of writing, and especially the structure that makes stories work. There, I majored in Journalism and had the good fortune to study with some brilliant writers, one of whom, Jon Franklin, focused my attention on the structure that lies under every great piece of fiction.

When I got out of school, I began freelancing and doing some writing teaching. I found out that even people who have to write for school or work can use a system that teaches them how to build a piece of writing from the ground up. I built on the system I’d learned in school to make it comprehensible for “non-writers.” Eventually I taught the system to high school students, college students, even accountants. And that’s what ultimately became my book.

Interview with Adina Rishe Gewirtz:

It’s rare today to find an author who does nothing but write for a living. Do you have a ‘real’ job other than writing, and if so, what is it? What are some other jobs you’ve had in your life?’

Adina Rishe Gewirtz: For many years I freelanced, working for newspapers and magazines. Then I moved into teaching writing more consistently. Now I do editing, writing, and I work as a writing coach, helping people one on one or in groups figure out what’s wrong with a piece of writing, and how to fix it.

What compelled you to write your first book?

Adina Rishe Gewirtz: Compel is a good word for it. I’ve always wanted to write fiction and narrative nonfiction, and I never thought my first book would be a how-to on business writing! But I’ve been teaching for years, often to high school students in one-on-one tutoring sessions, and my husband has been listening to me teach for years. At some point, he began lobbying for a book. He said my way of teaching writing was unique, and I should share it. I resisted for a long time. I looked at all the writing books on the market and didn’t think I could add anything. Then I read some of them, and realized that a book that teaches structure – and one that does it in a funny, easy-to-read way – could get published. And it did! Prentice Hall, a division of Penguin, published it last October.

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Adina Rishe Gewirtz: I’ve wanted to be a writer since seventh grade, when I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the first time. I never expected my first book to be about writing, but it’s the number one subject I enjoy talking about, so I guess it’s only natural that things fell out this way.

Tell us a little bit about your book/s.

Adina Rishe Gewirtz: My book, How to Say It: Business Writing That Works is a how-to for non-writers who don’t generally even like to read about writing, much less do it. But it’s written in such a straightforward way – using funny examples – that readers have told me for the first time they didn’t mind learning about business writing. And the system gives them a way to write anything, from a memo to a full-length marketing proposal, without tearing their hair out.

Are you currently working on any writing projects our readers should watch for release soon?

Adina Rishe Gewirtz: Yes, I’ve got another writing book in the works – this one for students.

Is there anyone you’d like to specifically acknowledge who has inspired, motivated, encouraged or supported your writing?

Adina Rishe Gewirtz: There are several people who have inspired and supported me. My professors in college really gave me my craft. Jon Franklin and Judith Paterson, both incredible writers, continue to inspire me, as does another professor, Car Stepp. I have a wonderful friend, Katie McCabe, an award-winning writer who I talk to many times a day, comparing notes and sharing thoughts. And then there’s my family. My father always supported my dream of being a writer. My mother made it possible by babysitting, helping me when I had small children (and now) and giving me the time to pursue my career. And my husband – he’s the one who made me write my book, even when I doubted myself.

Have you ever had a character take over a story and move it in a different direction than you had originally intended? How did you handle it?

Adina Rishe Gewirtz: Although my How to Say It book doesn’t have characters in the same way as a novel does, the “character” in it is the voice in which I wrote it. And that voice did take over and drove the writing of the book. Until the first line of the book popped into my head, I didn’t realize that writing about memos, reports and proposals could be really funny!

Now, anything else you want your readers to know?

I love talking about writing, writing about writing, and helping people “fix” their writing problems. So if readers want to email me directly with questions, they can do so through my website, www.writersroadmap.com, or take a look at my blog,
www.thewritersroadmap.blogspot.com.

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Well, last month on a whim I rolled out a short story contest for Accentuate Writers on my forum. You can see the original thread for it by clicking here. I received a total of 14 entries, not a lot, but for our first contest that we threw together so quickly, I was pleased with this.

I hope more enter the next contest, which I will announce here and in our newsletter on Wednesday. There’s a special surprise for the new contest – Accentuate Writers will be doing an anthology trade paperback book to highlight all the winners!

Of course, we’ll still have the cash prizes or the Amazon gift Certificates and the free editing for the stories – the writers will still retain all but first publication rights – but now we can add their name to the cover of the book, a short bio in the book, and free copies for friends and family too!

Anyway, more on that to come – without further delay, let’s name the winners of the first Accentuate Writers Short Story Contest!

Third Place:

Flood of Tears, by M. Lori Motley

This is a fantastic short story written about ‘the sins of the father’. The judges really liked the tone, the style and the writing was solid – why did it not score higher? Honestly, they were depressed by the sad ending!

Seriously though, this is a great short with a lot of potential for the right market, and the judges believed, as do I, that it deserved this recognition!

Congratulations!

Second Place:

The Assignment, by Jennifer Walker

If you are a writer, of any type, or a student, or both for that matter, you will understand and empathize with this short story. While it’s a little short on actual ’story’, the judges found it amusing, very well-written, and hands-down beats all other submissions for grammar, style, punctuation and formatting, as well as adherence to the contest guidelines. All in all, this is worth the read and definitely deserves recognition!

Congratulations!

Purgatory, by Steven Thor Gunnin

Okay, this is one of those instances where a good story and the right way of telling it can make up for a lot of grammar and style issues, and that’s the mark of a good story teller right there.

What I mean is, I’ve been an editor for quite some time now, as has one of the judges of this contest, and when a writer can push a story past a professional editor who doesn’t try to edit as he or she goes, then you’ve told a good story. In a rare moment of reading, I found myself more interested in the story than editing it in my head.

This story has a nice twist to it at the end, and all of the judges agreed it would make a great short movie. It was a tough decision for the judges, with 14 good entries, and with three top ones that were so close together in quality and style, but the unanimous decision of the judges as well as myself is that this short has the ’story’ that readers look for that draws you in and keeps you reading until the end.

With the right professional polish, author Steven Thor Gunnin has potential as a writer and we hope winning this prize and the potential to be published in our upcoming anthology will spur him to continue to seek higher and better markets and use his talents to further a writing career.

I look forward to reading more from Mr. Gunnin!

—————————————–

And there you have it, the first three winners of the Accentuate Writers first ever short story contest.

Congratulations to all the winners and to those who entered! Everyone who entered will get a short assessment of their writing. All those who made it to the finals will get a bit longer assessment, and those who won will win the prizes listed on the forum and this blog, including a cash prize for first place and a free professional edit for all three winners – as well as a contract for publication in the Accentuate Anthology.

Stay tuned to this blog on Wednesday of this week for the next short story contest announcement!

Again, thanks to everyone for your submissions! I’ll be contacting the winner before Friday to let them know how to claim their prizes and with more info on the anthology.

Ya’ll have a great night!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Anyone who wants to know what suspension of disbelief is needs only Google or go to Wikipedia to read the definition.

Yes, I am a fiction writer, but here on this blog, I tend to focus more on the career or writing more than the actual writing I do. I wanted to talk a little bit about suspension of disbelief as it might pertain to non-fiction writing.

Yeah, that’s what I said, suspension of disbelief in non-fiction.

Okay, first, let me talk about suspension of disbelief for those who don’t know. In layman’s terms, this simply means, can you write something in such a way that no matter what it is you are writing or what it’s about the reader can wholly believe, at least for the moment they are reading it, that it is a ‘true’ story – they can believe it’s real, and for the moment, suspend any disbelief.

Have you ever found yourself watching a movie and saying, “Oh, get real. That could never happen!”

That means the movie didn’t manage to create a proper suspension of disbelief for you… and as a writer, not being able to do that means your writing isn’t going to go over well with readers.

There’s lots of ways to ensure you do this properly. One way is to simply tell such a wonderful story in such a compelling manner that your reader is so captured by it that even if you get something historically inaccurate, something physical impossible, etc, that they simply don’t see it.

But that’s weak writing. Stronger writing would make sure everything is accurate and possible AND write a compelling story.

Of course, then you have your fantasy and sci-fi genres. Boy, these are tough, because the fans of these genres are often fanatical about making sure you know your stuff. If you aren’t spot-on, these readers can rip you apart. So sure, you can do things in fantasy and sci-fi that you can’t do in a book based here on earth in our reality – BUT you’d better make darned sure you have explained the laws of that universe, word, ship, realm, whatever it is well enough to suspend disbelief for your reader.

But I said this was a talk about suspension of disbelief in non-fiction writing.

I know this is going to be kinda silly and I do indeed know this isn’t what the intent of suspension of disbelief was when Samuel Colridge, but even in non-fiction writing, you need to remember that you’re coming at the writing for the perspective of – you are the expert (the writer, the one with the information) and the reader is the one seeking more information, and may or may not know more than you do on the subject.

Every reader comes to your writing, article, book with a knowledge base that has told them something about what you’ve written, and they are looking to see if you are right – and it’s your job, with facts, information, and experience, to show them you know what you’re talking about.

If you are a good writer – you can BS a reader and make them believe you are an expert in your field or that field, when you really don’t have a clue about it and everything you are telling them was stuff you found on the internet or in books that you read before writing your article or book about that topic.

Also, for sales copy writing people are going to be skeptical to start anyway – can you write good enough copy to have them suspend their skepticism and have to get the product or service you’re writing about?

THAT is where you get the ‘good’ writing – when your writing, whether fiction, non-fiction, sales copy or otherwise, allows the reader to wholly believe what you have written – at least, believe it for the time they are reading it.

With non-fiction, you do need facts on your side, because a good reader will verify your information or utilize it, and they expect it to be right, accurate, safe, informative, etc.

But if you don’t know you facts, you get something wrong, or you hit a point where a person says, “Nah, that’s not right….” you’re going to lose your readership.

So when you write things, whether fiction or non-fiction, read them in such a way as though you had no knowledge of the subject and ask yourself, “Would *I* believe this if I hadn’t written it?”

If not, then either the writing isn’t compelling enough or you need to explain yourself better.

Mostly I’m just rambling now – you’ll forgive me for trying to write while taking a Lortab. Perhaps I just broke my own rules here and wrote something that makes no sense and you’re reading through this thinking, “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

If so, you would be right.

I’m not talking.

I’m typing.

Ya’ll have a great day.

Love and stuff,
Michy

Well, last month on a whim I rolled out a short story contest for Accentuate Writers on my forum. You can see the original thread for it by clicking here. I received a total of 14 entries, not a lot, but for our first contest that we threw together so quickly, I was pleased with this.

I hope more enter the next contest, which I will announce here and in our newsletter on Wednesday. There’s a special surprise for the new contest – Accentuate Writers will be doing an anthology trade paperback book to highlight all the winners!

Of course, we’ll still have the cash prizes or the Amazon gift Certificates and the free editing for the stories – the writers will still retain all but first publication rights – but now we can add their name to the cover of the book, a short bio in the book, and free copies for friends and family too!

Anyway, more on that to come – without further delay, let’s name the winners of the first Accentuate Writers Short Story Contest!

Third Place:

Flood of Tears, by M. Lori Motley

This is a fantastic short story written about ‘the sins of the father’. The judges really liked the tone, the style and the writing was solid – why did it not score higher? Honestly, they were depressed by the sad ending!

Seriously though, this is a great short with a lot of potential for the right market, and the judges believed, as do I, that it deserved this recognition!

Congratulations!

Second Place:

The Assignment, by Jennifer Walker

If you are a writer, of any type, or a student, or both for that matter, you will understand and empathize with this short story. While it’s a little short on actual ’story’, the judges found it amusing, very well-written, and hands-down beats all other submissions for grammar, style, punctuation and formatting, as well as adherence to the contest guidelines. All in all, this is worth the read and definitely deserves recognition!

Congratulations!

Purgatory, by Steven Thor Gunnin

Okay, this is one of those instances where a good story and the right way of telling it can make up for a lot of grammar and style issues, and that’s the mark of a good story teller right there.

What I mean is, I’ve been an editor for quite some time now, as has one of the judges of this contest, and when a writer can push a story past a professional editor who doesn’t try to edit as he or she goes, then you’ve told a good story. In a rare moment of reading, I found myself more interested in the story than editing it in my head.

This story has a nice twist to it at the end, and all of the judges agreed it would make a great short movie. It was a tough decision for the judges, with 14 good entries, and with three top ones that were so close together in quality and style, but the unanimous decision of the judges as well as myself is that this short has the ’story’ that readers look for that draws you in and keeps you reading until the end.

With the right professional polish, author Steven Thor Gunnin has potential as a writer and we hope winning this prize and the potential to be published in our upcoming anthology will spur him to continue to seek higher and better markets and use his talents to further a writing career.

I look forward to reading more from Mr. Gunnin!