I included two inspirational quotes this week because I felt strongly about both of them and the way they interact with each other is compelling to me. Writers have long had the reputation of not being stable or particularly sane. A reputation that Byron helped develop and solidify.

However both Lord Byron and Jeanette Winterson are arguing for the relief that writing brings, even if it is only temporary. Writing can allow us to say things on the page that we would never be able to say in person. It can let us say what we deeply feel and move on to a better place.

In the industry new journals are called fledgling journals and they tend to be more open to the work of less established articles. You take a chance on them, and they take a chance on you.

Moon Magazine publishes 12 issues a year and the first issue was published in November 2012, so they are now a little over six months old.

Moon Magazine is focused on themes and they publish a wide variety of work related to that theme. For June’s them of “Animal Intelligence” they published two interviews with renowned animal doctors as well as short stories, a rat video, and poems.

Upcoming themes include: “The Future of Food,” “In DIVERSITY There is Strength,” “Death: The Final Frontier,” “The Call of the Wild,” “Spiritual Politics,” “Making Peace with the Enemy,” “Right Livelihood,” “GRRRL Rising,” and “Focus on Fiction.”

They are accepting submissions related to any of these themes but they also welcome queries.

To submit to Moon Magazine one just has to email the editor, as they don’t have a submission manager. Their submission page is a little hard to find on their site so I have included a direct link here: http://moonmagazine.org/submission-guideline/

The work they publish tends to be closely linked to the theme, not just tangentially related. They also seem to gravitate towards more personal poems which is a little out of favor in the literary community at large right now.

In conclusion Moon Magazine is a good journal to submit to because they are new. They are also good to submit to because they care about good writing and their monthly theme. You can visit Moon Magazines website at: http://moonmagazine.org/2013/03/

Slice is a non-profit magazine that was established in 2007. Slice prints two issues every year. They publish short stories, poetry, and essays. The essays and short stories they publish are up to 5,000 words in length.

The issues always have themes, but not all of the work they accept goes with the current theme. This reading period the theme is Escape. How you choose to interpret that theme is up to you. This reading period started on the 1st of June and will end on the 1st of August. They do not read work outside of submission periods.

The work they tend to publish is not very experimental, or genre heavy, instead their focus appears to be on good writing.

Slice wants to bridge the gap between emerging writers and more established ones, so they publish both in their magazine, often side by side. If your work is accepted by Slice, they will pay you $100 per essay or short story or $24 per poem. This is much better pay than most non-profit journals offer for your work.

Slice accepts less then 1% of the work submitted to them, so to be published by them is a considerable achievement. They generally respond to submissions with a month, but it can take them up to half a year in certain circumstances.

Submitting to Slice is easy because they use Submittable, the most popular submission manager out there. All work you submit should be previously unpublished, but you can simultaneously submit the work elsewhere.

In conclusion you should submit to Slice because they publish a good mix of authors, pay their writers, and have an excellent reputation. They also have a large distribution network, which means that more people will get a chance to read your work if it is published in Slice. To submit please visit their website: http://www.slicemagazine.org/submit-your-work/

This exercise is all about conveying two plot points. The first plot point is that two bank robbers enter a bank. The second is that two bank robbers exit a bank. Now a lot of plot can happen between these two points but these two points must be included in your piece.

Even though this exercise seems very straight forward there are a lot of different pieces to work with here. There is the bank robbers who could be hardened men, or drug addicts, or delusional children or any number of other things.

Then there is the bank robbery itself. Just because the robbers enter and exit the bank doesn’t mean that they get away with the crime. They could be leaving in cuffs, or empty handed. Or perhaps they are successful, if they are, how did they manage to pull that off?

Some writers will turn this into a funny piece, others into a tragic one, or one filled with action and adventure, but the wonderful thing with these two plot points is that they could go any number of ways. The way your piece turns out is entirely up to you.

Social media has become the quickest and most popular way to get the word out. I strongly urge all Indie Publishers to turn to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. to promote their work.

Facebook: Facebook allows writers to create pages, which is perfect for creating an ‘Author Page’. Writers can use this page to host and promote events such as book signings, and book giveaways. Book giveaways are the easiest way to get people to spread the word about your work. The first one I hosted boosted my likes from 25 to almost 150 which then lead to my first 50 sales.

Twitter: Once you’ve set up a Twitter account you can use it to get the word out about your author page. By following other writers on Twitter, I have found a way to help my fellow writers and drive more traffic to their sites as well. You can also link your Twitter account to just about every other site you establish. By doing that, you send out automatic tweets each time you post on any of the other sites, which cuts down on how many things you have to pay attention to.

Pinterest: Pinterest is a new and unique form of social media. Its main way of grabbing the attention of viewers is through photographs. With Pinterest, you have to get a little more creative to gain ‘pinners’ which are the folks that will follow you and spread your pins. I created a board I call “Storyboard”. I pin pictures that inspire the things that I write, and leave little excerpts of my books tagged to them. The best part? You can tag a link to your books for sale, and every time that pin is repinned, your link follows it!

Reviewer Copies: It’s also a good idea to purchase some of your own books and hand them out to people you know. I did this, too. I purchased 25 copies of my novel. Inside of each copy I wrote down all of the sites that I am posted on and left a polite message for each reader to pass the copy along to a friend when they’ve finished reading. I don’t mean for you to give these copies to just anyone. I passed mine out to previous college professors, small business owners that I have befriended along the way, and trusted friends. Whatever you do, DO NOT autograph these copies. People will be less likely to pass them along if they think you might actually make it in the business!

Official Site: It’s important for all writers to establish an official author site. Many of these sites are costly because they advertise for you if you pay them. If you are working without money to spend on these things, word of mouth is key. I found this site to be helpful:

http://www.webs.com

You don’t have to be a design guru to click, drag, drop and upload images. This site makes it easy and less stressful to create one, and then connect it to your social media sites. Promote it daily to drive traffic to your site. Later on, when you’ve sold books and can afford to pay for the site, their rates are cheap and their advertising is great.

About the Author: Amanda Wakefield is a self published author of a new genre in horror.