Calling All Romance Writers!

We are looking for romance writers for ebooks.  Currently we are looking for two different categories:

1.  Collaboration Romance eBook:

This will be a romance eBook of about 4 romance stories in it with a paranormal theme.  These are short stories, about 5,000 words. 

2.  Romance eBooks

We are accepting romance ebooks to publish.

For more information and to get the submission guidelines, please send an email to ebooks@writewordsediting.com



Commas: When in Doubt, Leave it Out

It can sometimes be rather difficult to know when the proper time and place is to put a comma in order to break-up your sentence. The best rule of thumb to follow is “when in doubt, leave it out.” There are quite a lot of options for the proper use of commas, and it can be rather hard to be sure on how to take advantage of the proper use of how and where to use a comma.

Understanding the Comma

The first step in learning on how to properly use a comma is to understand what it is used for and why. A comma is used to break-up the flow of a sentence. It is sometimes used in place of a period, or to signify a pause in a piece of writing. Many people used to comma incorrectly. They are not trying to signify a pause or using it to separate a conjunction. They simply are just not sure if one belongs or not, and many people feel that the use of a comma makes the piece of writing appear to have more structure. The truth is that it is difficult to tell when you should and should not use a comma, but it is better not to have a pause or your sentence broken up when it should not have a break.

Commas Used for Separation

Almost everyone knows that you use a comma when trying to make an extensive list. Using a comma when listing items will help to prevent the items from running together. The rule of thumb is to use it whenever you are listing at least three items. You can avoid adding the comma before the “and” and the last remaining item in your list. You should use the comma to separate all of the items.

Conjunction

A conjunction is probably one of the most confusing ways that you can use a comma. It can be confusing to know if you are creating a true conjunction or if you are just creating a sentence that may contain the words “and” or “but.” A proper conjunction that will require a comma separation will contain a noun and a verb in both parts. They will form two complete sentences that will be separated by a comma and one of the words and, but, or, yet, nor, not, so, or yet.  The two parts will flow better in your writing using a conjunction than it would to separate them as two sentences. For example: I went to town. I realized I forgot my wallet. Use a comma in a conjunction to change those two sentences to: I went to town, but realized I forgot my wallet. Your writing will flow more smoothly and it will be easier to understand what you are trying to express.

Introduction or Explanatory Phrases

A comma is also used to separate a section of a sentence that is meant to create an introduction into a sentence or topic. You will also use a comma when separating an explanatory word or phrase.
Any other situations are extremely questionable when it comes to the use of commas. You will find it difficult at times to try and figure out if a comma is truly necessary or not. It is a lot easier for a reader to spot an out of place comma than it is to spot when a comma is missing. Separation and conjunctions are a little bit easier to figure out over the introductory or explanatory commas, but with a little bit of practice you will soon be well on your way to properly learn how to use your commas.

Do you know when the proper time to use a comma is?

How often do you receive an email or letter and secretly edit it in your head while you are reading it?

Writewordsediting.com

Are Writing Contests Scams?

This blog post is directly inspired by a response on our blog about our writing contest.

A lot of people are very cautious about entering into a writing contest online. It is important to be this way because there is a great deal of scams available online. Some of these contests may require you to pay a large entry fee, while others may require you to sign away the rights to your writing. It is important to read the fine print on the writing contest that you are thinking about entering. You could potentially see the article that you entered into the contest all over the web without receiving a dime for it.

Things to Keep a Look Out For

The truth is that some writing contests are scams. They will use the “contest” as a way to get a lot of legitimate original writing that they will use and never pay out the prize money. Some scams will charge an entry fee, but then never name a winner so that they do not have to pay out the prize money. It is always a good idea to do a web search on a company that may be having a writing contest, if they have burned people before than it will be rather easy to find it on the web. Think critically before entering into a contest or paying any money, if the contest seems too good to be true than it probably is exactly that. You may pay a $5 entry fee and be awarded $100 and that is more likely to happen than paying a $5 entry fee and being awarded $100,000.

WriteWordsEditing.Com Writing Contest

There has been some speculation that the writing contest on this site might be a scam. The truth is that this is a contest that you enter and it is completely legitimate. You will not be forced to sell the article that you list on the website, but you will have the option to list it for sale should you choose. You are not required to sell your article nor are you forced to enter the contest if you choose to list an article for sale on our site. You are required to pay a $5 per entry fee in order to enter the writing contest. This fee is only to cover the prize money for the contest and other expenses involved, but you will not be required to pay the entry fee if you choose not to enter into the contest, or only simply want to list an article on the site for sale.

On our website, we have a section where authors can submit articles on varies topics to sell.  Many of the contest articles will be listed for sell for the authors to earn money when their article is sold; however, this is not a requirement. 

When you enter into our contest, the $5 entry fee is used for the prize money, contest preparation and marketing for the contest.  What you get for your entry fee:

·         Chance to win $100

·         Opportunity to post your article for sale on the website

·         The winning article will be highlighted on our website, in our newsletter, our blog, Facebook and Twitter.  A press release will also be sent out about the winner, which helps the author gain extra notice.

·         Other entries, aside from the winning artice, in the contest will also be mentioned in the newsletter, blogs and other areas which will help to advertise the article and the writer

How to Make the Writing Contest Work for You

The writing contest is just built as a way for freelance writers to earn a little bit extra money, and find out how competitive their writing will be against others of the same genre. The rules are all listed on the site, and there will be a topic each month for the contest. This is again by choice, and you are not required to sell any of the articles that you enter nor are you required to enter the contest if you are looking to list your articles for sale.

When it is Alright to Pay an Entry Fee

There is some stipulation about entering a writing contest that requires an entry fee. You should use caution whenever you enter into any type of competition that requires an entry fee, there are quite a lot of scams available on the internet that will take you money and run. We are simply a fairly new site, and the only reason that we are requiring the entry fee is so that we can afford to conduct the contest, and so that the winner will be awarded with a cash price. We would be happy to answer any questions that you might have in regards to the writing contest or our services. You can contact us editor@writewordsediting.com.

Freelance Writing: How to Avoid the Scams

Searching for jobs online can be incredibly difficult at times. Not only is there a lot of competition, but when it comes to jobs that you can do in the comfort of your own home there are a great deal of scams out there. Freelance writing is no different. There are a lot of people that may request a job only to have no intention of paying for it, and there are other people that make requests but do not spell out the details of the project so you end up getting paid an extremely low amount of the amount of work that is completed.

How to Avoid Freelance Writing Scams

·         Samples Requested.

There are a lot of employers that will request written samples in order to see if you are the right fit for their project. This is a common practice and most experienced freelance writers will have a set portfolio of previous work that they can submit. When you come across a job that requests that you submit an unpaid writing sample on a specific topic you will most likely want to pass this by. When you create a piece of writing for a specific topic and submit it the employer can use that piece and upload it without any problem because it will pass Copyscape. When you take into consideration that every applicant is submitting a sample the employer is basically getting their project fulfilled for free. Only submit samples that are previously used samples, or refer the employer to an online portfolio. That way they will be able to see your writing if it is a legitimate job, but will not be able to “steal” your work.

·         Avoid Craigslist.

There are a lot of projects that are listed on Craigslist, and some of them are legitimate but many of them are not. The problem with getting freelance writing projects through Craigslist is that you have no guarantee. Many of the online freelance writing sites will require the employer to “fund” the job before you begin. This means that the employer has to send the money to the site in order to prove that they have the money to pay for the project, and the site will hold the money until the job is completed. The employer will then be required to release the money once the project is completed. You may run into an issue where a client does not release the money, but then you can contact the site to help settle the issue. You have no guarantee and no tracking method on Craigslist, so it is a use at your own risk type of venue.

 ·         High Prices for Little Work.

There are some employers that will offer a large amount of money for a job that does not require a great deal of work. They will offer to pay you in pieces as the work is submitted. Generally you will receive the first payment with no problem, but the remaining payments will be delayed until you complete the project. Once the project is completed they will complain that the quality was not up to their standards and refuse to pay for the remainder of the project. They will keep and use your writing, but the only payment you will receive is the original first small payment; sometimes if a job seems too good to be true than it probably is.

There are several legitimate places to find freelance writing work online. If you see our previous blog, Freelance Writing: Where to Find Work, you will be able to find some of the must trusted sites for finding legitimate freelance writing work. Do not get discouraged if you have been scammed in the past, there are a lot of jobs available online for freelance writers and the majority of them are legitimate projects. It is best to use the rule of thumb that if it is not from a legitimate freelance writing site you should use a great deal of caution.

How would you report your scam if you happened to experience one?

Write Words Editing
www.writewordsediting.com

Freelance Writing: Where to Find Work

Times are tight moneywise for almost everyone, and that means that many people are looking for another source of income. Now is the time to put your writing skills to work. There are thousands of jobs available every day that are looking for writers on almost any kind of topic. You may be great at marketing, social networking, blogs, articles, or creative writing. There are freelance writing jobs available in all of these categories; all you have to do is to know where to look.

Elance.com

Elance.com is a wonderful site to find freelance work no matter what your specialty might be. You could help with a huge marketing campaign or do a little bit of data entry. They have all of their freelance work available in the respective categories, and make getting started extremely easy. Elance.com will allow you to sign-up and bid on jobs in a single category for free. Freelance writing is a great category because no matter what you do you will need some kind of writing in your line of work. You may need copy for a brochure or a press release on a new product, but every company will require some kind of writing at some point.

Elance.com is easy to navigate and is a wonderful platform for a person to market themselves. You have a profile page in which you can upload a portfolio, customers can read reviews about your work, and you can list information about yourself. You can select the jobs that you are interested in, or you may be invited to bid on a job. You will not have to complete any work without naming your price first.

Freelancer.com

Freelancer.com has been around for a while and is one of the freelance websites with the most registered users. The only problem with this is that it generally means more competition, and if you look at the history the number of jobs that are awarded through Freelancer.com is much lower than many of the other freelance websites. The freelance writing jobs are organized in their own category and divided into subcategories for easy searching. This place does list a large amount of projects, but if you are looking to do higher priced jobs than this is probably not the best site for you to search.

Odesk.com

Odesk.com is another site that is comparable to Elance.com. It has a reputation for offering a large amount of projects as well as following through with the orders. This is extremely important since you do not want to waste your time bidding on several projects that end up never getting awarded to anyone. Odesk.com has its own freelance writing category and it is broken down into subcategories. You will be able to easily find “article writing” freelance projects and review all of the project requests available.

The downside to Odesk.com is that they charge around a 10% commission where Elance.com only charges around 8%. The jobs on Odesk.com also tend to be a little more on the lower end in what they pay to their freelance writers.

WriteWordsEditing.com

WriteWordsEditing.com is a great place to showcase your talent. You can take articles or papers that you have written and place them up for sale on the website. The buyers will be able to purchase a specific article that is advertised or request custom articles that they would like. The pricing is available on the website if you are interested in purchasing any articles.

Article writing is not the only way to make money on WriteWordsEditing.com. Every month there is a writing competition on a specified topic. The rules of the contest are listed on the site, and there will be a new topic announced each month. The winner of the contest will receive $100 in prize money.

Freelance writing is a great way to make money. You can write about a hobby you may know a lot about, the category of the profession you work in, or simply just make up some entertaining stories. Freelance writing is a great way to get paid to do research that you were already doing for free.

What is your favorite topic to read about?

How often do you read an article and wonder how much the author actually knew about the topic?

History of Writing

Writing has changed a great deal over the years, and it sometimes can take a little bit of time and effort to be able to read and truly understand writing from a different time. The only reason that we are able to have the knowledge and understand what has happened throughout history is through the documentation by certain individuals. It is quite interesting to see how stories vary from one time to another, and depending upon the opinion or the beliefs of the writer the story could change dramatically.

The Stories we Tell

A lot of people do not realize the dramatic differences that have occurred in stories throughout the years. An excellent example of this is the fairy tales. Originally many of these fairy tales were created as a way in order to scare children into behaving. For example: Little Red Riding Hood was a story that actually was originally created for teaching the dangers of the outside world to little girls. Fairy tales are now used as heartwarming feel good stories to tell your children at bedtime, or for them to see brought to life in the movies. Translating these stories has changed them over the years as well. Cinderella is actually known for having lost her glass slipper due to a mistake in a translation, in the original story she was actually wearing a fur slipper. It is amazing to see how stories change from one generation to the next, but many of the quality “Classic” stories and novels seem to stand the test of time and are still being read today.

How Writer’s have Changed

Writers have also changed a great deal over the years. Many of the early writers were not well educated. Most of the education that they received was self-taught. Books were not as easy to come by since they did not have an easy way to distribute to the masses. Some writers actually had people write their stories down for them. It is believed that Shakespeare actually did not write his own plays. He created the stories, but was unable to actually write them down himself so he had someone do that for him.

Today’s society has allowed a great deal of people to be able to get a higher education. The creation of student loans and scholarships has allowed individuals the ability to go to college or even get a Masters or Doctorate level degree. Many of these people go on to write books around the basis of their degree and are often published. This has helped with advances in many sections of education such as psychology, science, and medicine.

Creative stories are still thriving. You have many novels such as the Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that were all series of novels that were extremely popular, and were later turned into big screen productions. People still truly enjoy reading a quality story and then see it come to life on the big screen. There are many other series such as the Sookie Stackhouse or Pretty Little Liars novels that have been made into small screen productions and seem to have an extremely strong following.

Where Writing is Headed

Society as a whole seems to still truly enjoy reading a good story.  The only difference is that in the future most novels will not be printed, but will be acquired electronically. Print has become so expensive; the increase in the price of fuel combined with a lot of the environmental concerns has made it extremely expensive to produce printed material. This is why many places such as bookstores, newspapers, and print shops have been going out of business in droves over the past few years. Electronic media is much more cost effective, and is a way for the industry to get their information out to a great deal of people rather quickly.

Do you think that your printed books will be worth a lot of money in 20 years?

How likely are you to completely convert your library to all electronic files?

Write Words Editing

www.writewordsediting.com

Pinterest and SEO – How Pinterest can help your SEO Marketing Campaign

Pinterest has become the latest in a fun way to socially network with people. Pinterest will allow you to not only connect with people, but share ideas, hobbies, news, and almost any kind of information that you may want to share. It is a great place to go for ideas on new recipes, fun crafts to do with the kids, or even wedding ideas. There are boards for almost any interest or hobby out there, and it is all sitting online just waiting for someone to come and explore. This is why it makes it the perfect platform in order to be able to launch a new product, or get out information about your company quickly.

The nice thing about Pinterest that you do not get with other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter is that you do not have to be friends with someone in order to see what they may be advertising or projects they might have created a board to advertise. A lot of people are able to see your advertisements or “boards” very quickly so that you are able to reach a lot of people with the click of a button.

How Pinterest Works

Pinterest was created as a way for people to be able to share their projects, interests and hobbies. It is not like Facebook where you may have a lot of options for communicating with people. It is much more basic. You will start by following people and getting followers. The people you follow will appear on your homepage when you log on. Any new updates or information that they may have posted will show up, so that you can see and easily search the new postings. You will not only be able to see anything that they post, but you will also be able to see anything that they repin or anything that they like. This is the reason that word travels so fast on Pinterest. You may log-in and search “Movies” and all of the results for movies will show up and you will be able to make comments or read other comments that have been made about the films. You will have options to create a board just for movies, pin it, or mark it as a favorite. Once you do any of these actions then all of your followers will be able to see it when they log into their accounts. They may choose to do one of the actions as well and then all of their followers will be able to see it as well.

How to Setup Your Pinterest

Getting started with Pinterest is easy. Follow these simple steps and you will be well on your way to creating the perfect Pinterest account that is taking advantage of the SEO system.

·         Create an Account. This is easy because you can easily create an account using your Facebook account. That means that the account you learned to setup in Facebook and SEO can help you to skip steps when setting up your Pinterest account. When you sign into Pinterest using your Facebook account any updates that you make to your Pinterest will also show up on your Facebook page.

·         Maximize your SEO in your description. You will have 200 characters to write anything that you would like about your company, yourself or your product. Make sure it is well written, and that your keywords are included in your description.

·         Create Boards that will help with your connections. Make sure that when you are naming your boards that you do so in a manner that will easily link your boards to your business or project. You can also include your SEO keywords in the title and description for each pin that you do on one of your boards.

Pinterest has become a wonderful way for people to express their creativity as well as get the inside track on new styles, fashions, or products. Make Pinterest and SEO work for you just by following a few simple rules.

Write Words Editing