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If you must make a postal submission, print your work on good quality white paper in black ink with inch-wide margins. Make sure your name and contact details appear on your cover letter and the first page of your article, along with the title, your name, and a word count. Print a new copy for each submission you make. Nothing is more off-putting to an editor than to receive a dog-eared copy which has done the rounds.
In summary, the main body should include:
If the opening is illogical, dull, or irrelevant you’ll lose the editor’s interest. It won’t matter how good the rest of the article is because the editor won’t read it. Keep your sentences short. Be clear, coherent, and concise. The editor shouldn’t have to work out what you want to say. You should say it. The most common reason for a form rejection is a weak opening. If you want to learn how to write articles that sell, make sure you invest time and talent in crafting your opening paragraph.
While online titles must be unambiguous and search-friendly, you can be more creative with titles for print publication. Above all, magazine headlines must be eye-catching. Puns, ambiguity, allusion, and humor can all work.
Take time crafting titles. Always study your market, or the publisher’s guidelines, and conform to the editor’s preferred style. One last word about titles: prepare for editors to rewrite or replace them. It happens. The final decision on headlines is the editor’s prerogative. But whether your title finds its way into print or not, learning to craft a good title is the first step in understanding how to write articles that sell.
Put your article to one side and work on something else. Leave it for several days before rereading it. Then read it three times.
Three of the most common styles of closing paragraph are:
So when you’ve sent an article off, don’t sit around waiting for a reply. Make a note of the submission details in your records, forget about it , and set to work on the next piece.
Keep your cover letter brief, polite, and to the point. Address the editor by name. The editor will decide whether to buy your article on its own merits and has no interest in your biography unless it’s pertinent to the article’s content. If your article is about swarthy pirates and you are a swarthy pirate, you should say so. Otherwise, omit personal details. Likewise, when submitting an article, there’s no advantage in mentioning previous publication credits.
Interesting fact: I wrote the first draft of this article in about 20 minutes using my ‘1k Every Day’ technique. It helps writers generate an endless stream of ideas and outlines for articles and stories. No catch, no sign-up, no fee, no up-sell. Just a simple explanation of a powerful technique. It’s all explained here .
Read the submission guidelines for your publication and follow them. If there’s anything you don’t understand, contact the editor and ask for clarification.
New writers often overlook how important titles are. But you must craft a title that’s informative and enticing. It’s the first thing an editor reads. Make sure it’s not the last. A good title communicates at a glance what your article is about, the target readership, and the questions the article promises to answer.
In summary, a good title for an online article should include:
When your article is complete, you’ll be eager to submit it. Don’t. It’s probable that despite all your hard work the article is not yet in a saleable condition. Learning how to write articles that sell involves learning to revise.
Image by Michael Zimmermann from Pixabay The secret of good article writing Anyone with a basic grasp of grammar and syntax can write an article. But, as I soon learned when I started out , if you want to make a living, you must learn how to write articles that sell. As a new freelance writer, you’ll generate most of your income by writing articles published in print or online.
“How to Write Articles” tells you it’s an instructional piece about article writing. “That Sell” informs you it’s aimed at writers who want to make money. “A Beginner’s Guide” lets you know the target audience are new or aspiring writers rather than seasoned hacks, and “to Freelance Writing” defines the niche. The question the title promises to answer is, “How can I write an article an editor is likely to buy?”
The final aspect of learning how to write articles that sell is to understand the need for productivity. The more articles you write and submit, the greater your chances of making a sale.
Austin is a professional writer/editor. He shares sensible advice for serious writers and odd diversions into science, philosophy, culture, and the arts. He/him
Unless requested by the editor, you should avoid “click bait” titles. Editors associate them with spam, sensationalism, and dishonesty. Typical click bait titles are things like, “She Didn’t Know Anyone Was Watching… Until This Happened” and “10 Things Children Do When Their Parents Aren’t Looking. Number 7 Will Shock You”. You still see click bait titles, but they are falling out of fashion. Aim for something better.
In the third pass, proofread your article, which means checking spelling and grammar for errors. I recommend printing a copy of your article or changing the font in your word processor before proofreading. It’s easy to miss errors in a text you wrote yourself. Changing its appearance helps you see it with fresh eyes. how to be an article writer Sub-editors will correct remaining issues, but it’s not their first responsibility. To make a successful career as a freelance writer, take pride in your work and make it the best you can.
Magazines, newspapers, commercial blogs, and informational websites are always hungry for fresh, original content. Even when writing white papers, business-to-business communications, email campaigns, advertising, marketing copy, reports, guidelines or handbooks, the article structure is always your starting point.
You may be wondering how to find markets keen to buy your work. To keep up a steady flow of saleable articles, you need to know how to do effective market research. If you’d like to learn everything you need to do just that, read this next:
Most publications today expect electronic submissions. Follow the editor’s requirements for layout, font, and font size. Editors may ask you to attach documents or paste articles into the body of an email. Check attachments are in an acceptable format such as .doc, .docx, .rtf, or PDF. Some publications use online submissions portals. In that case, go to the portal, sign up, and follow the instructions.
Imagine your article is for a gardening magazine and your subject winter-flowering border plants. “5 Easy to Grow Plants that Flower in Winter” would be a good online title. But for a print magazine you could try, “Add Warmth this Winter with Naked Ladies”. As keen gardeners know, “Naked Lady” is the common name for Amaryllis belladonna , a popular plant which flowers late Fall. Without the constraint of keywords you can have more fun. While many editors still like a title to illustrate the article’s content, in print it’s often more important for a headline to pique curiosity than to inform.
Read your article a second time. Use red ink or the delete key and cut out every unnecessary word or phrase. Rephrase sentences to make them shorter and clearer. Remove clichés. Be as unforgiving and critical as you dare.
Tailor the length of an article to the demands of the market for which it’s written. If your article falls short of the required word count, don’t pad it with superfluous waffle. Go back to your research and find more facts to add to the piece.
If you write a summary conclusion, keep it short and sweet. Three sentences should be plenty. You should answer the question your article raised in its opening paragraph by the time you reach the end. But it’s effective to close with a new question which follows from what has gone before. This technique works well online to encourage lively discussion in the comments. If the main body of your article has laid out a logical argument but not yet answered the question raised, the closing paragraph is the place to answer it.
The s e cret to good article writing is to understand how to plan and structure a piece before you write it. A well-structured article allows you to use your writing skills to best advantage and communicate your ideas correctly, concisely, clearly, coherently, and completely. The key to good structure is good planning.
How to Write Articles That Sell A how to be an article writer Beginner’s Guide to Freelance Writing by Austin Hackney The Writing Cooperative
If you find you have more information than you can fit to the article’s length, don’t cram it in at the expense of clarity and coherence. Select the essential facts to support your argument and cut the rest. You can always use the information in another article. I wrote this article for publication online. That means most readers will discover it via a search engine. So the title structure includes popular search terms known as “keywords”. The keywords in this article title are: Let’s look at each element in more detail. Follow 231K Followers · Write For Us New To Medium? Directory Patreon About Get started Open in app How to Write Articles That Sell: A Beginner’s Guide to Freelance Writing Everything you need to write content editors want to buy Austin Hackney A good cover letter is as simple as this: The first time check all your facts are correct. It’s risky to rely on memory. If your article includes quotations from another work, proper nouns and dates, verify your facts using multiple sources. If an editor buys an article and finds it’s misleading or inaccurate, you’ll never sell another article to that publication. And remember, editors talk to each other. It’s in everybody’s interests you make sure you get your facts straight. Please consider the word article, for publication in . Each paragraph should have a central idea. Explain the idea and support it with facts. Vary the lengths of paragraphs to manage the pace of your article. The main body should be coherent, with each idea building on the one before it, starting with the attention-grabbing opener and progressing to a satisfying conclusion. Now put your article aside once more. The following day give it one more pass to make sure it’s in keeping with the publisher’s guidelines, reads well, is logical, clear, and complete. You might like to copy the following checklist. If your title has done its job, the editor will read on. The first paragraph is the most important part of your article, and the first sentence is the most important part of the opening paragraph. The first paragraph has a lot of work to do. It should: Writing Writing Tips Freelancing Productivity Creativity More from The Writing Cooperative Follow A global community of people helping each other write better. When you write the main body of your article, use the same style as you did for your opening paragraph. In a short piece the body may contain as few as three paragraphs. In a long-from article you might write dozens. But in every case the logical flow of ideas from one paragraph to the next must be seamless. It’s hard for new writers to sell opinion pieces. I recommend you stick to factual articles at the outset. If you want to learn how to write articles that sell, remember the market for information is bigger than the market for opinions. It’s also easier to plan a well-structured factual article than an opinion piece. Take the title of this article as an example. Choosing keywords people type into search engines is essential if you want readers to find your article online. If you’re writing for the web, your title should include at least one keyword. But you must incorporate the keyword or keyword phrase in a way which seems natural. While it’s important to make your title easy for search engines to discover, you must remember your readers aren’t search algorithms but people. A good closing paragraph is often short. While researching and writing your article, focus on what you are trying to say and say it fully and clearly. Don’t introduce new information in the closing paragraph. If you’ve done your job well, there should be little left to say when you reach your conclusion. Treat the title for a print article in a different way. cricket articles online
How to Write Articles That Sell A how to be an article writer Beginner’s Guide to Freelance Writing by Austin Hackney The Writing Cooperative
If you find you have more information than you can fit to the article’s length, don’t cram it in at the expense of clarity and coherence. Select the essential facts to support your argument and cut the rest. You can always use the information in another article. I wrote this article for publication online. That means most readers will discover it via a search engine. So the title structure includes popular search terms known as “keywords”. The keywords in this article title are: Let’s look at each element in more detail. Follow 231K Followers · Write For Us New To Medium? Directory Patreon About Get started Open in app How to Write Articles That Sell: A Beginner’s Guide to Freelance Writing Everything you need to write content editors want to buy Austin Hackney A good cover letter is as simple as this: The first time check all your facts are correct. It’s risky to rely on memory. If your article includes quotations from another work, proper nouns and dates, verify your facts using multiple sources. If an editor buys an article and finds it’s misleading or inaccurate, you’ll never sell another article to that publication. And remember, editors talk to each other. It’s in everybody’s interests you make sure you get your facts straight. Please consider the word article, for publication in . Each paragraph should have a central idea. Explain the idea and support it with facts. Vary the lengths of paragraphs to manage the pace of your article. The main body should be coherent, with each idea building on the one before it, starting with the attention-grabbing opener and progressing to a satisfying conclusion. Now put your article aside once more. The following day give it one more pass to make sure it’s in keeping with the publisher’s guidelines, reads well, is logical, clear, and complete. You might like to copy the following checklist. If your title has done its job, the editor will read on. The first paragraph is the most important part of your article, and the first sentence is the most important part of the opening paragraph. The first paragraph has a lot of work to do. It should: Writing Writing Tips Freelancing Productivity Creativity More from The Writing Cooperative Follow A global community of people helping each other write better. When you write the main body of your article, use the same style as you did for your opening paragraph. In a short piece the body may contain as few as three paragraphs. In a long-from article you might write dozens. But in every case the logical flow of ideas from one paragraph to the next must be seamless. It’s hard for new writers to sell opinion pieces. I recommend you stick to factual articles at the outset. If you want to learn how to write articles that sell, remember the market for information is bigger than the market for opinions. It’s also easier to plan a well-structured factual article than an opinion piece. Take the title of this article as an example. Choosing keywords people type into search engines is essential if you want readers to find your article online. If you’re writing for the web, your title should include at least one keyword. But you must incorporate the keyword or keyword phrase in a way which seems natural. While it’s important to make your title easy for search engines to discover, you must remember your readers aren’t search algorithms but people. A good closing paragraph is often short. While researching and writing your article, focus on what you are trying to say and say it fully and clearly. Don’t introduce new information in the closing paragraph. If you’ve done your job well, there should be little left to say when you reach your conclusion. Treat the title for a print article in a different way. cricket articles online