Writing to Publish

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com, and I'm going to talk about writing to publish. So, the very nature of writing to publish means there is going to be an audience, so the important thing in writing to publish is to know your audience, know who you're writing for, and to write appropriately to that audience. Another important thing in writing to publish is that you'll have to generally have to pitch it to an editor or someone who's going to make a decision about whether it will be published or not, so you'll also have to know what that editor, sort of the gatekeeper of that publication, is looking for, so that you can satisfy their requirements in order to become published. So educate yourself about who the readers are and then what the editor is looking for and those two things kind of go hand in hand. Of course, there is usually a specific format that an editor is looking for for your submission, so you'll be submitting work and be sure to follow exactly the guidelines for how to submit that work. Oftentimes not following those guidelines can mean that you are eliminated from consideration, and it really removes your chances before you become published. So, concentrate on following the specific format that is required for this publication and then writing in a way that will really work well for the audience. Proofread any materials that you're going to submit for publication. This is so important because people make a judgment about you as a writer based on how clean and polished your work is, and a mistake like a typo or a grammatical error can really make a big difference. It might prevent you from working with this publication in the future. So those are some things to keep in mind about writing to publish."