I wanted to pass along this information about the Writer’s Digest Contest.  For writers who are seeking to be published, winning a contest is great ways to get noticed.  

According to their email, here are the categories:

The deadline for entry is June 1, 2009.   Depending on your genre costs range from $15 to $20.  First place prize is $3,000 and the chance to meet with editors and agents in New York. 

For more information on this contest, please visit the following link: http://www.writersdigest.com/annual

Knowing the audience of your writing is important, especially when submitting the work.  When you have spent many laborious hours crafting you work, don’t waste time sending it to the wrong people.  The key is research. 

I mentioned in one my last postings that one of the largest reasons for a manuscript being rejected is being sent to the wrong place.  If the agent specializes in horror, a romance novel will be rejected.  The same goes for magazines or newspapers.  If the style or content doesn’t match the publication, your article will be rejected no matter how well written it is.   Remember, publishing is a money making business.  Each publisher is looking to market their products to certain segments of the population.   When you work is read, the primary driving factor will be whether or not the material be marketed to their customer base.

Here are some steps to get to know your audience.

• Read all the submission guidelines.  Don’t just skim over them.  Most of them offer detailed information that will help you understand the audience.  Most agencies or publishing house will list genres they focus on in this area.
• Read a couple of issues of the magazine or newspaper.  Take note of what kind of articles you find.  Ask yourself questions about the style.  Use this information to figure out who the audience is.  Teen magazines have different styles than women’s magazines or men’s magazines. 
• If you are researching an agent or publisher, then find out what books they have represented or published.  Either read through a few of them or read enough to understand the style, genres or subject matter they want.

What if I want to write to a specific audience?

Again, research is the key.  Look at what that segment of the population reads or watches.  Talk to people in that demographic.  Both will help you write to that particular audience.

Rejection is a common occurrence for writers. The more we submit, the more we feel its sting. However, we shouldn’t let rejection be a deterrent to writing or submitting our work. While rejection hurts initially (we are human after all), it doesn’t have to get you down. Here a few tips on how to deal with rejection as a writer.

1. Don’t take it personally.
   Editors, agents and their staffs are people, meaning the same daily tasks and annoyances influence them just as they influence you. Plus, they have a job to do. This job requires them to use their own judgment and biases to sift through material. As with any working professional, they are busy; therefore, a form letter is usually the easiest and most productive communication to use.
2. Know it is not a statement on Your Talent.
   A rejection doesn’t mean you are not a good writer. What it may mean is that your piece didn’t fit the idea of what that particular company or agent was wanting to find. Even the most talented and commercially successful writers had a hard time finding the right publisher for their first work.
3. Celebrate it and keep writing.
   One of the writer’s groups that I attend occasionally celebrates rejection letters. Why? It means they are submitting their writing not just writing. So see the letter as progress and submit to another place.

These same ideas apply even if you are a corporate writer. A business may have an idea of a certain style or a specific background. When you are passed over for another writer, it doesn’t always reflect on talent either.

Keep writing, keep looking. Eventually, there will be a match.

Recently, I attended a writer’s group meeting. The guest speaker for the meeting was an editor, and the topic of the meeting was how not to kill your manuscript.  I wanted to share some points I learned from that meeting.
The following is a list of main points from the meeting.  
 
·         Nine in ten manuscripts are rejected with [...]