Writer – Editor – Blogger
Posts tagged Submission Tracking
“Get Organized” for Writers
May 24th
“Get Organized a
nd Sell Your Work” is the title of a conference workshop I developed for Kentucky Christian Writers Conference 2010. The handout used in that workshop is available for download here. Meanwhile, some of the content is included in posts on Blog4writers.
The reason a writer needs to get organized is so that he or she will have more time to WRITE.
- W is for Your Writing Place
- R is for Your Records
- I is for Your Intentions
- T is for Your Time
- E is for Evaluating Your Progress
Read each post and adopt some of the tips included. As you get more organized, you’ll find you get more done even if you can’t devote full time to your writing.
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PS: Make a Wordle for your blog like the one here. Go to the Wordle site for the full image for my Wordle. It takes the text from your blog feed and makes an image that you can save to the public gallery. Make your own at Wordle.net.
Get Organized: Records
Apr 26th
Once your work space is set up, you need to organize subject matter, submission tracking, finances, and communications. For topics covered in previous blog posts, I provide a link to those posts in the text below.
Subject matter/content: If you write in more than one genre, make files for each genre in the beginning. As your collection grows, you will need to make sub-categories. For example, master category might be Nonfiction with subcategories Devotionals, Articles, or Book Ideas.
Other filing system ideas can be found here and here.
Submission Tracking: This is possibly the most critical organizing task for a writer, especially if you send simultaneous submissions. It’s also necessary for managing reprints. My previous post describes several methods, including a free Excel file I created for this purpose. See the full post here.
More >
Submission Tracking Methods
Feb 24th
Freelance writers need to track their submissions to print and online publications. I’ve always used a card file, because I could keep it handy on my desk, and the box was not subject to computer crashes or lightning strikes. Thinking I should probably be tracking on the computer instead, I have checked into various ways of tracking submissions electronically. Here’s what I’ve found and what I think about each option.
Microsoft Excel File (Spreadsheet): I set up a table in landscape view with header row containing these labels: Article/Story, Publication, Contact, Word Limit, Pays, Date Sent, Response In (time period stated in guidelines), Number of Pages, Postage (if any), Reply Expected, Responded on (date), Accepted (date), Amount Paid, Date Paid, and Notes. Once my file was set up, I just entered the data for each submission when I sent it out. When I got a reply, I’d update the listing. This works pretty well for tracking your income for the year as well as keeping up with your submissions, but you have to know how to use the spreadsheet software. More >
