I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to have landed in this role, which seems to be an ideal fit for me. I’ll be helping to create and build content and communities for the Cincinnati.com Living site, which includes Moms, Home & Garden, Fashion, Relationships, Health & Fitness and savings so far.

I have been so impressed with the progressive spirit The Enquirer’s editors and publisher have shown with this site. Instead of thinking of local bloggers as the competition, they’ve built partnerships with them and brought them on as contributors. And part of my new role will include managing these relationships, spotting talented local bloggers and bringing them onboard.

So I guess I’m not unleashed any more, technically speaking. But you know, I’m a free spirit and will always be unleashed at heart. I’m absolutely committed to keeping this site going because I love the community we’ve built here. I’ll continue to closely follow my passion for books and publishing and offer you tips, advice and reports. And one cool benefit of going back to work in the media biz is that I’ll be better able to offer first-hand advice on writing, journalism and social media trends right from the front lines.

It’s been a wild year for me. Besides running this site, I’ve taken on new challenges in book editing, corporate and technical writing, book reviewing and writing for trade magazines. I’ve learned an awful lot about what it really takes to make it as a freelancer—it’s tough! I’ll write more on that topic next week.

Through it all though, I remained devoted to this site. And I’m so glad I did even while many around me were questioning why I was devoting so much time and energy into blogging and the forum and social media when it had no apparent benefit. This site has opened opportunities I couldn’t have even imagined a year ago.

This is the new reality for writers my friends. Cover a subject intensely, build a community and the world will open up to you. Opportunities will come your way.

Thanks so much for your readership, your comments, your participation in the forum and the contests here. Building this site and getting to have conversations about subjects I’m passionate about has been pure joy for me. I wish the same for each of you.

-Maria Schneider

I know many writers have a special fondness for the classic writing guide The Elements of Style. After all it’s de rigeur in most college writing classes.

Here, Garvey answers shares what he learned about Strunk & White while researching and writing Stylized. And he also offers some sound advice to writers who want to get their books out into the world.

1. When did you first become obsessed with Strunk & White and why?
The Elements of Style has been an important touchstone for me since I was a teenager, in the mid-1970s. But the book really hit home with me in college, when I was becoming interested in writing myself and trying to figure out how writers got their work done.

Strunk and White provided a path that appealed to me—in their calm presentation of a few helpful guidelines, in their attitudes about simplicity, concision, and brevity. The book also reassured me that if a writer was paying attention in his life and working hard to write with care and clarity and honesty, he stood a decent chance of putting his finger on some real truth from time to time and passing that along to his readers.

Finally, White’s Chapter 5 essay, “An Approach to Style,” widened the Elements message to include the subject of self-discovery, offering sage advice about clearing the brush and deadwood from your prose so that you can emerge on the page (which, it turns out, is the final secret of achieving “style”).

2.How did you go about your research for this book?
In 2005, I noticed that The Elements of Style was approaching its 50th anniversary, in 2009. That anniversary seemed the perfect time to tell the story of Elements and to give some thought to the reasons for the book’s staying power. I had been an E. B. White fan for many years, and I wanted to learn more about White’s work with Elements. I was also intrigued to learn more about William Strunk, a man we didn’t know much about beyond what White had written in his introduction to Elements.

I thought other admirers of The Elements of Style might appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the book and the men behind it. I began with the idea of interviewing other writers about the influence that The Elements of Style had on them. I talked with a couple of New Yorker writers, Alec Wilkinson and Adam Gopnik, and that pretty quickly opened doors that led to other writers who wanted to talk about Elements. Simultaneously, I dove into research on both the Strunk and White families. I secured the help of descendants in both families, and I made arrangements to spend time working in E. B. White’s archives at Cornell University. I also gave a lot of thought to the thematic threads I wanted to explore, drawing out those qualities of Elements that I find appealing and that I believe are responsible for its longevity. Other research paths opened up as well: I explored the book’s history in academia, I interviewed a fair number of writing teachers, and I got fairly deep into the book’s publishing history.

3. What was the most surprising thing you discovered during your research?
There were several surprises along the way. The first was learning that William Strunk had grown up about five miles from my home in Cincinnati—in an old Victorian house that’s still standing. I was also surprised to learn that Strunk and White, in addition to being teacher and student, were actually friends for many years. White was a regular visitor at the Strunk house during his Cornell days, and in fact he went on at least one date with Strunk’s daughter, Catherine. After White’s graduation, Strunk followed his famous student’s writing career with avid interest, and he occasionally visited White in New York. Another surprising fact is that William Strunk, the quintessentially bookish professor, spent a year in Hollywood serving as a consultant on the Irving Thalberg production of Romeo and Juliet. Hollywood seems to have charmed Strunk completely, and vice-versa.

4. How has The Elements of Style stood the test of time so well?
In my view, the book has lasted because of the qualities mentioned earlier. It provides, in an entertaining and concentrated form, a few helpful rules and some clear reminders about the value of simplicity and clarity and organization. And the extra dimension, provided by White in Chapter 5, offers a seasoned pro’s considered opinions on the most helpful attitudes to bring to your work as a writer. The Elements of Style has stood the test of time because so many of the principles it illuminates are themselves timeless. Many of them go right back to Aristotle.

5. What was the process of getting your book published like? Was Stylized a difficult sell?
The publishing process for Stylized was pretty typical. After I had developed the kernel of the idea, got a few writers on board for the interviews, and felt fairly confident that I’d have access to the research materials I’d need, I created the proposal. It consisted of an overview of the project, my assessment of the market and the competition, a table of contents, a sample chapter, and one of the writer interviews (Adam Gopnik).

It took me a good three or four months to get the proposal into solid enough shape so that I felt comfortable sending it out. It ended up being a 50-page packet. My agent began sending the proposal around to publishing houses in the summer of 2007, and we struck the deal with Simon & Schuster around Christmas, 2007. I wouldn’t call the selling of Stylized difficult—I think it had a clear appeal for “book people”—but getting the proposal into tip-top shape certainly took a lot of time, thought, and effort.

6. Your day job is in the publishing industry. What would you most like to say to writers who are trying to sell their books?
There are plenty of things writers should keep in mind as they approach the marketplace with their work. Near the top of that list are understanding the market you’re going after, learning how to craft a proposal, and conducting yourself in a friendly, businesslike way.

Understanding the market: This comes down to reading widely in the type of work you’re trying to publish. If you don’t have some idea of what the market regards as good work in your chosen area, you’re at a disadvantage. For instance, in my day job I publish nonfiction books about music technology—the software and hardware used in the creation, recording, and performance of music. Our books are rather technical, and we publish in a relatively narrow niche. Writers hoping to write for us need to have some expertise in the subject, and they should definitely know what kinds of books we publish (this is easily accomplished by viewing our catalog on the web). It’s helpful, too, if they’ve studied the market enough to know where the holes are. if they can come in with a strong proposal for a book that plugs a gap in our coverage, I can’t sign them fast enough.

The proposal: Not all proposals need to be 50 pages long, but they all should contain certain standard elements, such as a consideration of the market and the competition for your book, an outline or table of contents, and a good sample of your writing. Practical advice on constructing a proposal can be found in any recent edition of Writer’s Market. I dwell in the nonfiction publishing world. Selling fiction works somewhat differently, but the basic how-to on that is also covered in easily available reference books (for instance, Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market).

Be businesslike: This should go without saying. Editors appreciate politeness, succinctness in your communications, and an upbeat attitude. Keeping things professional helps the process run smoothly. And maintaining a businesslike attitude about your own work can cushion you from the inevitable blows the business will deal out. Writers have a big emotional investment in their work and it’s easy to be wounded by the seeming cold-bloodedness of the process. Don’t take the hurdles personally. Learn what you can from every rejection and move on to the next market.

Check out Stylized on Amazon.

Are you a Strunk & White fan? Give the dynamic writing duo a shout-out here.

-Maria Schneider

Finally, you must be a registered member of the Editor Unleashed forum to enter (registration is free and just takes a few minutes).

This contest will feature a popular ranking on the forum along with final judging by an editorial team. The 50 best essays will be included in the “Why I Write” anthology on Smashwords. And one Grand Prize winner will receive $500 and promotion here and on Smashwords.

Mark Your Calendar:

• Post Your Entry: Monday, November 9 – Thursday, December 31
• Popular Ranking: Monday, January 4 – Friday, January 29

Questions or comments? Post them here. And be sure to subscribe to this blog (free!) and follow me on Twitter to get contest updates.

-Maria Schneider

The first book my son ever got truly captivated by as an early reader was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We had read the earlier Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone together, with me doing most of the reading since he had just learned to read. By the time the second book came out, he was determined to read it himself.

It was a remarkable experience to watch him drop into the world of witchcraft and wizardry, to be completely absorbed by the world created by J.K. Rowling, waiting every day for the chance to dive back into that world again. This is a magical moment for any parent, even more so for someone who inhabits the world of books.

But suppose he had been introduced to Rowling’s work through a computer screen, or in one of those “designed in Microsoft Word” ebooks? Would he have sunk so easily into the vast world he came to know and love?

Readability Matters

Interior book design must be the most self-effacing kind of design there is. When it works, it’s almost invisible.

A good book design enhances the flow of the author’s ideas to the reader, while doing nothing to impede that flow. Then reading becomes an effortless movement in which the words themselves disappear and the mind is fully engaged with the subject matter at hand.

The Rowling books work because they promote readability with many of the elements I’ll explain below, and because they are ideally suited to their intended audience. From the open feel of the page typography to the charming Mary GrandPré illustrations at the head of each chapter, they keep the young reader moving through the story to find out what happens next.

It all adds up to books that are terrifically readable. And readability is the key to getting the author’s message across.

The 3 Essential Design Elements

The form of the book hasn’t changed much in the last 500 years. Tall columns of evenly spaced type, margins squared up all the way around, anything that’s not text subservient to the text itself. Ample margins to allow for eyes to rest and hands to hold the page.

But even within that context, decisions have to be made that have a critical effect on the readability of the finished book. Of course the most basic decisions have to do with the main text block on each page.

Here are three areas that determine that text block, and therefore how well the book communicates the author’s ideas:

1. Typeface selection. Selection of a base typeface has the biggest effect on readability. Book designers tend to stick to the same group of typefaces. We each have our favorites, but almost all of these typefaces have one thing in common: they are classic book design typefaces.

Using a classic typeface like Bembo, Bodoni, Caslon, Garamond, Janson, Granjon, Sabin, will immediately help your book be readable. These typefaces get used over and over for a reason. They are workmanlike roman faces that produce a harmonious and rhythmic line with just enough variation to keep the eye interested.

Typefaces designed for the computer screen rarely translate well to the page. On screen typefaces like Verdana perform well; in a book they tire the eyes and fatigue the reader.

2. Line length. Another important choice is how long your line is in relation to the size of the type you’re using. This is critical because lines that are too short break the text so often that the natural phrasing of sentences is disrupted, and readability suffers. Well laid-out text will have about 10 to 15 words per line, depending on the type of book.

Very long lines, on the other hand, cause “doubling” where you lose track of which line you were on when you have to travel a long way from the right margin back to the left to start the next line. And in extreme cases, text on long lines can become unreadable. Think of reading your favorite book laid out as a web page on a modern, flat-screen monitor. It’s easy to have as many as 35 to 40 words on a line on these monitors.

It’s interesting that the digital gadgets we have for reading books, like the Kindle and the Sony Reader, are the first vertical screens I’ve seen since the rotating monitors of years ago. Finally, the “landscape” screens we’ve been forced to read on are being flipped on their sides, an acknowledgment of just how deep-seated reading is as a habit, and just how conventional our expectations are of what a “page” is supposed to look like.

3. Leading. As in many trades with a long history, the terms we use today tell us something about the history of the craft. During the 400 years when type for books was set by hand, one letter at a time, the way to space the lines and to provide more structural stability to the thousands of little pieces of metal, was to interleave the lines with thin pieces of lead.

But the leading—the space between the lines—is critical in readability. Too little space and the lines blend in with each other, confusing the eye. Too much space and they lose their connection with each other and interrupt the continuity of reading. Getting this element of page design right gives readability a boost, as the lines, and thoughts, flow easily down the page.

More Design Details

The following elements of page design also affect readability:
• Running heads and folios
• Margins and how the type column lays on the page
• Typography of subheads and pull quotes
• Sidebars and extra-textural elements

All influence how enjoyable the book is to read. But getting these three elements right at the beginning forms the base for excellent book designs. Typeface and line length produce the basic text block around which the rest of the page is built. When this is done well, both authors and readers benefit.

Resources on Book Design and Typography

Here are a few classic books on book design and typography. All are available from Amazon.com (affiliate links)
The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design (Classic Typography Series) by Jan Tschichold
The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
Jan Tschichold: A Life in Typography by Jan Tschichold
The Complete Manual of Typography by Jim Felici

Another free resource is the excellent enewsletter from myfonts.com with new type designs, interviews with type designers and examples of creative uses of typography.

Joel Friedlander is the proprietor of Marin Bookworks, a publishing services company in San Rafael, California that has launched many self-publishers. Joel is an award-winning book designer, a self-published author, and blogs about publishing and book design at TheBookDesigner.com.

At the time of writing this, fifteen chapters of my novel have been published on my site as podcasts. I love recording and publishing them now, but it was daunting at the start. I’d like to give you a hand with some of the basics if you are considering taking the podcasting plunge.

Technology

Let’s get the scariest bit out of the way first—the technology. I’m going to explain the process I use to podcast, but please note that my initial set up may be different to yours. The process will always be record, format correctly and then publish, and I’ll look at each in turn.

I have my own domain, and my own hosting which runs WordPress. Some of you will have Blogger sites and some of you will have WordPress sites hosted by WordPress (and probably a lot of other blog/website permutations too) so you’ll need to adapt this process to your own situation. Whatever the set up, you’ll need a microphone. I use a microphone headset, nothing fancy, it plugs straight into my USB port. I bought it to use Skype, not to podcast, but it does the job fine.

Recording

I use a delicious free piece of software called Audacity.  Not only is it free, it’s incredibly simple to use and there are lots of videos on YouTube with step-by-step instructions.

I tweaked the default recording settings to match those required by Podiobooks as I want to publish on their site one day. I record in stereo, with a bit rate of 128 kbps and a sample rate of 44.1 kHz (this doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, I just followed the requirements in their guide).

Formatting

The recording is created as a .aup file, and so I export it out of Audacity as an MP3 file, then it can be played on most devices. One bit that is important at this stage is correctly entering the ID3 tags. These determine the information that is carried with the file, so that when people save it to their various devices, the device can read what it’s called, who recorded it, what ‘album’ it’s part of etc.

My only criticism with Audacity is that it doesn’t have a ‘podcast’ tag option. To get round this I save as much information as I can (title, album, artist), export as an MP3, then open the file with iTunes. Then I right click on the file in the iTunes window and click on “Get info” to access a series of tabs with editable information on them. I change the genre to ‘podcast’ and I’m done.

Publishing the podcast

I use a WordPress plugin called PowerPress and it has been brilliant. It was a bit fiddly to set up, but they have an excellent, detailed tutorial video that takes you through the process step by step. All I can recommend is patience, a good amount of time to dedicate to it and a place to test your pages that others won’t see!

Before the podcast can be published, the file has to be uploaded to the hosting server. I use a free FTP client called FileZilla but I’m sure you can upload a file via the usual media library method in WordPress admin.

Once the file is uploaded, it’s simply a matter of creating the page in WordPress, scrolling down to the PowerPress section inserted by the plugin and typing in the file name. As everything has already been set up in terms of where it should look for that file, it’s easy.

Content

If, like me, you plan to podcast something you’ve already written, you’re halfway there. Chapters are usually a good length for a single podcast (mine are usually between 15 – 20 minutes long when read aloud). I could never podcast off the cuff; my voice just seizes up, so you might want to outline topics if you are going for something more spontaneous.

Presentation

Before I recorded my first ever podcast, I was lucky enough to have a coaching session from the marvelous lady behind onlinesoundadvice.com. She has a great free ebook of advice for beginners by the way. That advice, and a significant amount of trial and error on my part, has led to this preparation before I record:

• Make a cup of tea
• Take my inhaler (very important if you’re asthmatic like I am, as the tension of recording can bring on a bit of wheezing)
•Tie my hair back—stray wisps can sound like juggernauts on a sensitive microphone
• Switch off any unnecessary applications on my computer so there are no email or tweet pings in the middle of a scene
• Get a glass of water (for when the tea runs out)
• Tell anyone else in the house that I’m recording
• Shut my office door (I work from home) which improves acoustics

Then I read the chapter through, making mental notes about how to deliver dialogue, put on the headset, positioning the microphone at least 5 cms away and below my mouth, then I click record.

I always record the first draft in one sitting, even if I end up recording three minutes worth of tea drinking, nose blowing and water slurping in between. I’ve also started to edit in the same sitting too, as sometimes a syllable is too harsh and I need to re-record a phrase. If it’s in the same sitting, all of the recording variables are exactly the same, so the new material can be inserted flawlessly.

It can be scary when you start, but believe me, it’s the most rewarding thing in the world when people start to listen to your podcasts and then look forward to them! It creates an intimacy that words on a screen simply cannot. Go for it!

If you have more tips and resources for podcasting, please share in the comments.

Follow Emma Newman’s adventures in podcasting and writing at Post-Apocalyptic Publishing.

An all-new writing contest sponsored by two great online resources for writers: Editor Unleashed and Smashwords!

You help choose the $500 Grand Prize winner.

No entry fee!

The Dates:
• Post Your Entry on the Forum: Monday, November 9 – Thursday, December 31
• Popular Ranking: Monday, January 4 – Friday, January 29
• Winners Announced: Monday, February 1

How to Enter:
• Writers post their essays of 750 words or fewer on the Editor Unleashed forum. Contestants must be registered members of the forum to enter. (Membership is free. Only one entry per writer please.)

You Help Choose the Winners:
• All members of the Editor Unleashed forum will be eligible to rank entries. The popular vote will help decide the winners!
• With consideration to popular ranking, the Grand Prize winner will be chosen by Maria Schneider of Editor Unleashed.

Prizes and Promotions:
• The Grand Prize winner will receive a $500 cash prize (courtesy of Smashwords) and will be interviewed and promoted on the Editor Unleashed and Smashwords blogs. The Grand Prize winning essay will appear first in The “Why I Write” anthology.

• 50 writers will have their essays included in The “Why I Write” anthology published via Smashwords as a free ebook. Once published at Smashwords, the anthology will also be available in other online bookstores that distribute Smashwords ebooks, including Stanza, the ebook reading app used by over 1.5 million iPhone and iPod Touch users to read ebooks and the Sony Reader.

• Entrants grant Editor Unleashed and Smashwords non-exclusive digital rights to publish their essay in a digital anthology available on Smashwords and in online bookstores and websites that distribute Smashwords books. You keep full rights to your essay.

• All 50 essays will be promoted by Editor Unleashed and Smashwords.

Let us help you promote your writing!

Questions or comments? Post them here in the comments.
For updates via Twitter follow mariaschneider and markcoker and subscribe to this blog here.

About Editor Unleashed
Editor Unleashed has become a premiere online resource for writers of all genres. The site features timely interviews with publishing industry insiders, helpful articles on the craft and business of writing, and a vibrant online writers’ forum. Editor Unleashed founder and editor Maria Schneider is the former editor in chief of Writer’s Digest magazine who has overseen and judged dozens of popular writing competitions. Editor Unleashed was recently chosen as one of the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers.

About Smashwords
Smashwords is a popular ebook publishing platform and online bookstore for indie authors. Authors upload their manuscript as a Microsoft Word document to Smashwords which then instantly converts it into nine ebook formats, ready for immediate sale online at a price set by the author. The Smashwords service is completely free. Authors earn royalties of up to 85 percent of the net selling price (net=[price set by author minus PayPal fee]*.85). Smashwords ebooks are also distributed within the native ebook catalog of Stanza, the #1 ebook reading app on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Learn more about Smashwords by reading this interview with Smashwords founder Mark Coker or by visiting Smashwords.

Writers get asked about imagination a lot. Where do you get your ideas? Most recently a writer on the forum asked the Fantasy and Science Fiction folk who participate in #FridayFlash on Twitter where they get their ideas. Is it drugs? Videogames?

I believe that most good fiction comes from the same place, be it humor or horror, scientifically plausible or downright impossible. You have to experience, read and study enough to get the raw material that can make up an original story. But I think the genesis of good fiction is simple: taking an idea in a new direction.

I write fiction every day for my blog, The Bathroom Monologues, and about a third of it is Fantasy. When I look at my childhood, there was always some Fantasy: Smurfs on TV, Land Before Time in movie theatres, Hercules in books and Robin Hood games in the backyard. These deviated from my life in fantastic ways. The fantasy deviation was attractive.

But I recognized more kinds of attractive deviation in my teens. In M*A*S*H you had lighthearted banter while stitching up dying soldiers. The novels of Douglas Adams were wildly imaginative, on one page disproving God by demonstrating His existence, then disproving the usefulness of logic in the next. All these cases went against the norm in amusing ways. These deviations weren’t that different from Stephen King making a wind-up monkey scary, though turning the positive into the negative like he did was overwhelmingly more popular than the reverse.

There was this whole other realm of reactions that everyday people simply didn’t exercise, particularly the option of amusement. I realized I could react differently than everyone else if I just stopped giving in to cultural peer pressure. I needed to do that in my everyday life and also in my fiction.

I remember watching The Matrix and thinking that sea of black leather jackets desperately needed somebody to show up in a Hawaiian shirt. And I actually wore one to the midnight premiere of the second movie. But that wasn’t my moment of emergence. Neither was rewriting Macbeth as a short story starring a magic detective.

Those were petty rebellions. I needed to write original stuff that was about what I wanted out of fiction, not what I hated in it. Instead of looking at a story and thinking how I’d change it, I could get the idea for my own story from just one scene or detail of someone else’s. A favorite hobby at college movie screenings was to anticipate how I wanted the plot to go, and if it didn’t go that way, to write an outline based on my guess that night. That imaginary plot was mine.

Soon it wasn’t that difficult to look at life and think that I hadn’t read a story about X lately. And by X, I don’t mean a fight with the driving instructor. I mean the driving instructor giving you wrong directions and kidnapping you.

What Do You Want To Read?

Instead of thinking about plausibility or good stories, ask yourself what you want to read. What would make the best escapism for you? What’s funniest to you? What would you most want readers to experience? Sometimes you want to share a personal tragedy about racism, but sometimes what you really want is a dragon running for mayor so she can order the knights to stop coming after her.

Some people are inhibited from writing Fantasy and its related genres because these aren’t realistic. Never mind that they don’t watch realistic stuff on TV (CSI and Dexter are about as plausible as The Chronicles of Narnia). But the real question is what you want out of your compositions. If you want something way out of your experience, you can write that. Research it if it’s real or think it through if it’s not. J.R.R. Tolkien put decades into Middle Earth. If you don’t want something so exhaustive, there are simpler, far shorter ideas.

“Much like the barriers of realism and keeping your prose cynical or morose, grounding everything in your personal experience
can prevent take-off.”

I recently wrote a first person monologue defending snake oil salesmen because, in their opinion, snakes need oiling. Taking things too literally, or not literally enough, or connecting things that aren’t normally connected gets easier the more you do it and the less you follow the convention of writing everything based on personal experience.

Much like the barriers of realism and keeping your prose cynical or morose, grounding everything in your personal experience can prevent take-off. Everything you write will be the result of your life anyway–your nature, nurture and decisions make up what you want. But what you write doesn’t have to conform to what you’ve seen and done. Ben Hur was written by a guy in Indiana in 1880. Shakespeare wrote about fairies and nobles of previous centuries in countries he never visited. Douglas Adams was never on a spaceship powered by improbability.

Let me close with a recent example to show you exactly where some of my ideas come from. I sat in a waiting room of Westchester Medical Center waiting for my mother’s cancer screening to end. It took more than an hour and eventually I got the urge to write. I looked at the door and asked myself, “What is the creepiest thing that could walk through the door right now?” There’s your deviation.

I wrote for a few lines about something morbid and disgusting. It didn’t take and the inspiration was gone in a few lines. So I closed my eyes and sat back. I was on a row of chairs, though the waiting room was almost empty. OK, if this seat could be anywhere, not just in a hospital, who would be funny if they sat down next to me?

That one worked, and I wound up with micro-fiction about an Islamic gorgon (she likes the veil) on an Amtrak train. In the course of writing, I was replaced by a dryad boy. I let it turn third person, changed settings and swapped myself out without questioning–it was what I felt like experiencing. All I had to do was cross things out and make notes of what to rewrite later so it would make sense.

You may say, “OK, you can imagine things anywhere. But how do I get an Islamic gorgon? I don’t imagine that kind of stuff.” But the point isn’t to get an Islamic gorgon in a hospital or Ben Hur in Indiana. Imagine whatever interests you no matter how far removed from your life it is. It doesn’t matter if it seems absurd. If it amuses you entertain the thought. If it goes away in a few sentences? There are other things to write about. If it’s too embarrassing for you to share? You can keep it in your desk and never show it to another soul. Don’t be intimidated to write about what  entertains you, or too scared to admit what you enjoy.

John Wiswell has published micro-fiction at Burst, Every Day Fiction, Alienskin, Microhorror and in the Editors Unleashed Flash 40 Anthology. He writes something new every day for The Bathroom Monologues. Catch him on Twitter at @Wiswell.

That’s why I’m so excited to announce that Editor Unleashed is once again teaming up with Smashwords to present a writing contest with a theme:

Why I Write…

You may remember the popular Editor Unleashed/Smashwords Flash Fiction 40 contest. The top 40 winners were published in an anthology at Smashwords.

This time around we’re looking for great essayists and evocative theme-based nonfiction. This contest will feature a popular ranking on the forum along with final judging by an editorial team. The 50 best essays will be included in the “Why I Write” anthology on Smashwords. And one Grand Prize winner will receive $500 and promotion here and on Smashwords.

Mark Your Calendar:

• The Rules Posted here: Monday, November 2
• Post Your Entry: Monday, November 9 – Thursday, December 31
• Popular Ranking: Monday, January 4 – Friday, January 29

Questions or comments? Post them here. And be sure to subscribe to this blog (free!) and follow me on Twitter to get contest updates.

Now go get started on those essays!

-Maria Schneider

A lively ongoing conversation is taking place on Twitter about where the publishing industry is headed. With digital media overshadowing its legacy media counterpart, publishers are struggling to figure out pricing, digital rights issues and how to market digital content. These are similar to the struggles the music industry has faced over the past few years.

Here are 15 Twitter users I turn to for news and insight about how old school publishing is meeting its digital future. By following these publishing innovators, you can follow — and even participate in — the industry’s conversations as they take place in real-time.

Get the full list here.

And feel free to suggest more good Twitter follows for publishing trends.

-Maria Schneider

I make a healthy hourly wage freelance writing and editing, I’ve been the editor in chief of a national magazine, and I have earned more than $1,000 for writing a single magazine article. So it might seem strange to you that I would write for free at this point in my career.

But the reality is, making a name for yourself in the online world is a whole different game than the print world I came from. The players are different, the rules of engagement are different, there’s an entirely different path to what it takes to make it online. Even though I’m not getting paid to write for a blog with a well-established audience, the rewards are significant.

A single guest post on a high-profile blog can bring thousands of new readers your way. It’s the chance to play on a bigger stage,
which is a real and tangible benefit.

In fact, I’d go as far to say that getting a guest post on a popular blog will go further to help you as an online writer, than an Op-Ed in the New York Times. Even if you get paid for your work, The New York Times isn’t likely to link back to your website. But a high-profile blog will, which gives you exactly what you need to succeed online. Links equal higher Google rankings, a higher Technorati rank—not to mention the exposure and traffic that comes your way. And the more traffic your site has, the more likely you are to sell your book, services, get ad clicks or whatever else you have going on your site.

I’m not saying you should write for free across the board. But I’ve seen that the bloggers who have embraced this ethos tend to be more successful than the writers who hold on too closely to their work and demand payment for each and every word that springs from their fingertips. I know this isn’t a popular sentiment among writers and I really think it’s a big part of what is holding writers back from success online.

Here’s a checklist for you to consider whether or not writing for free is worthwhile:

• Are you guaranteed a byline? If no then politely decline.

• Will the site give you a bio note with a link back to your site? I consider this non-negotiable in exchange for providing free articles.

• Is the site well-edited? Both Mashable and Copyblogger have wonderful editors. I wouldn’t work with them otherwise. Working with a good editor can be payment enough for what you can learn about writing online.

• Is the site closely related to your niche? An important factor to consider since it’s not as useful to write for sites outside of your niche. The potential new readers it brings should be interested in your content. And if you write a spec piece and it doesn’t work for whatever blog you’ve targeted, cool, you can run it on your own site.

• Are the site’s owners and editors polite and respectful of you and your work? If not, it’s not worth it. There are lots of great blogs out there. Go find another blogger who will appreciate your effort.

By the way, if you’d like to submit a post for consideration here on Editor Unleashed, I welcome guests posts. You can email me and I’ll do my best to followup quickly.

-Maria Schneider

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