The Pedestal Magazine

Writer’s write. That’s true, but they also submit their work in the hopes that more people will read what they write.

I’ve recently found a high quality online magazine that I think is well worth your time. The Pedestal Magazine publishes 6 times a year accepts submissions regularly all year round. Both poetry and fiction are accepted and their pay rate is attractive. Don’t be intimidated by the quality of work they publish, rather let yourself be inspired by a high bar that you can aim to achieve.

In a review written by Suite 101 writer Rickey R. Mallory, ”The Pedestal Magazine is a professional rate ezine, one of the very few I've seen on the Internet. They have a polished, quality look, and the site is easy to navigate.” It is also impressive that they respond within 4-6 weeks to submissions.

Go through the archives to see what kinds of things they have published in the past. This is helpful just to know, not to use as a model to follow. In their submission guidelines they make it very clear that they are open to works that are not at all like what they have previously published. “We are always looking for the original piece, the piece that defies categorization and egregiously asserts its uniqueness.”

If that doesn’t motivate you, maybe their pay rate will. They pay $40.00 for each published poem and $.08 per word for fiction.

Here is what they are accepting for the next issue: “Re fiction for the February 2011 issue (reading cycle December 28-February 14): we will be accepting both longer works and flash fiction, literary and genre work. Writers may submit up to two (2) flash pieces but are asked to submit only one (1) longer work (piece over 1000 words).”

Writers Write. 

They also submit their work.

Check out this online magazine!

The Pedestal Magazine

An Online Presence

At the Kentucky Women Writer’s Conference there was much discussion about a writer’s online presence. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and forums were the tools most talked about. I have also been at the edge of many conversations about article writing and article marketing, other online avenues for building repertoire as well as establishing your online presence. Then last night I attended a program at the university that featured a conversation between comedian David Letterman and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. Twitter. I have an account but haven’t used it in months…. Well, now I am re-inspired to spend some time with it once again.

Little by little layers of the whole online trend of society are being revealed to me. And I do mean little by little. On the one hand, it is complicated and amazing; on the other, it is overwhelming and intimidating. And yet, every now and then, I step out of myself and release all the words about it that clog up my brain. It is then that I realize that establishing an online presence does not require mastery of any of it. It is a process and we just have to putter around in it and get some feel for it that fits on a personal level. We can’t freak out over the speed at which technology is growing because unless you are 20-something, you simply won’t catch up or keep up. So just putter a bit. That’s OK!

The bottom line is this: writers do need to have an online presence.

You have to be familiar with the various tools because editors and publishers use them and expect you to be able to use them as well. Your readers may like to linger in bookstores, but that alone isn’t enough. There is a dramatic shift in what, where, and how we read and that shift is going online. None of us can stop that. So you need to join in, at least on some level. Connect with established fans and potential readers through one or more of these tools. Maybe eventually you will use them all and even more, but for now, just start.

Finally, keep in mind that you need to find a balance between constantly learning and doing and just being where you are in it all at this moment. Push and glide; push and glide. You will get there.

Today is a push day for me, how about you? 

The Future of Writing: Predictions

At our recent fiction writer’s meeting one member shared a list of predictions made by author Randy Ingermanson about the future of publishing. I thought they were very relevant to the theme of this blog which has to do with online writing. In particular, Randy predicted that 1) e-books will soon surpass books in print; 2) e-books will soon be the “minor leagues”, meaning that “writers will simply short-circuit the traditional route by e-publishing their first book”; and 3) beginning authors will e-publish first.


I couldn’t agree more based on what I read and hear in the writing and publishing field. This is precisely why I want to encourage you to increase your online writing! People need to know who you are and what your areas of expertise are. No matter what kind of writing you do, you can increase your online exposure in a variety of ways, in particular, through article writing and blogs.


Providing relevant information to a target audience establishes you in the field and that’s where you will be found by fans and publishers alike. To date, I have been published at least 400 times, not including any of my blogs or the work I did when I first got started and didn’t keep track of them. If I include those in my numbers, I have close to 1000 pieces of work out there on the internet. Many of those pieces of work were rewarded monetarily immediately, the rest of them have been rewarded in other ways including leads for more paid work. The other big reward for unpaid writing is promotional – the writing pieces are added to my repertoire and they serve to increase my overall online exposure.


If you don’t want to write articles, that’s fine. There are still many ways to write online to increase your reader base while practicing your art. Everybody is online these days – so that’s where you will find your readers, advocates, fans, and publishers. Blogging is one of the best tools because it is steady and consistent: you write and post regularly and as you do, you and your work get noticed.


The bottom line is this: if you are truly passionate about your writing, you will write. The more you write, the better you become. If you want to keep it all private, then that’s your choice, but when you are ready to be noticed, go online because what Randy Ingermanson says about the future of publishing is hot on the target: the future of publishing is definitely via the electronic avenues whether we want to believe it or not.


Thank you, Judy, for sharing this information with our group. I am happy to pass it on to readers of the Nitty Gritty of Writing.

Here is the link to Randy's website.

Here is the link to Randy's predictions.

Article Writing

Article writing is one of the most “secure” jobs in the writing field. Absolutely everybody online needs articles. “Article marketing” is one of the biggest buzz words in the online industry.

Think about any Google search you have ever done – if you are looking for information, you find articles. Nearly all those articles include a link to some sort of website. This is how online business people promote their bubusinesses and attract new customers. All these businesses need writers for all these articles.

As a writer, you can do the same thing. Simply post articles in article directories that yu have written and include a short bio box at the end. People will find you.

Article writing is a numbers game: the more you write, the bigger your reprotoire and the more chances you have of being found. So write several articles about the same broad topic so that you have many avenues to one subject. This increases your exposure and over time, establishes you as an expert in the field.

Article writing is also a words game. SEO stands for Search Engine Optomized and is how the search engines rank information on the web. Use SEO keywords in your title and again throughout your article with more concentration on them in your introductory paragraph. This will push your article higher on the list of hits when people search for information related to your article.

Your articles stay online forever, so it’s not like you get one big bang for your buck and then its gone. Online business people know this, so they are constantly adding articles to their business. If you establish yourself as an article writer, you will always have a job!

Online Exposure: Article Directories

Article Directories are online sites that have a stock load of articles about every topic imaginable and then some more. They serve two main purposes that are two-way benefits for writers. First of all, the articles in article directories are (for the most part) well researched and well written. So when you need some information about something you are writing about, you can usually find it through an online article directory site. They serve as a resource for your writing. Secondly, article directories offer an excellent source for you to get published online and build up an online portfolio. In addition, if you have a blog or website, you can link directly to it from your article. This is like free advertising for your site(s).

Like everything else online, the greater volume you produce, the better results you receive. Don’t let the idea of volume overwhelm you though, because even one article is a start. Start with one article an add another. Keep at it and you will become more comfortable with the writing and publishing online process and more familiar with the various article directory sites. Keep at it and before you know it, you will have a nice collection of articles under your name.

At the time of this writing, there are over 560 article directories on the internet. No doubt that number is steadily increasing. For a comprehensive list of article directories, go to Top 50 Article Directories. From this link, simply click on several article directories and browse around. Find out which ones you like as a reader. Check out the search engines – type in several key words for each article directory you visit and read through some of the articles that show up. Note if there are a lot of articles available for the key words you put in; note also the quality of those articles. Are they informative and well written? Are there sources you can follow for more information? Take notes, then choose a couple of article directories you like and submit your own articles there to see how you like them as a writer.

One of the things about online article writing is that technically, you can write one basic article and then tailor it several different ways so you end up with a lot of articles for the effort it takes to write just one. That way, you can submit to several different article directories each time you write an article. You just have to be sure that each article is different enough that it doesn’t cause a red flag for the plagiarism control. Some writers “spin” their articles. There is spinning software that allows you to put in your basic article and then it spits out a new one – same meaning, different words. In theory, you can spin an article over and over. I only tried this once through some site that offered free spinning, but I didn’t like the result, so I haven’t tried it again. I think that it might be worth spending some time with, but I haven’t returned to that task yet. If anyone out there has more knowledge and better experience with spinning, I welcome your comments and feedback.

The two article directories that I use are Ezine Articles and Goarticles.com. I think that goarticles.com is a bit more user friendly, so I tend to use that one the most.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. Maybe you will like other article directories and you can recommend them to me. Together we can explore different article directories and increase all of our online exposure.