By Span Glers
The glossy pages of a magazine never fail to catch the attention of readers, passerby, fashionistas and hobbyists. Moreover, despite the Internet, there will always be a market for this reading material. Therefore, better brace up because writing articles for magazines will always be in.
If you are a budding writer aspiring to land a job in some glossy magazines, what must you know to land an opportunity?
• Decide on a niche. Just like the Internet, you need to know what interests you. Passion and interest are important when deciding on a niche. Writers will never tire of writing articles about topics they love or passionate about. Knowing what you love to write about can also send you to the direction of the magazines you want to become a part of.
• Keep a list of ideas. Keeping a list of topics that you can write about just pops in your mind. Any grain of an idea, no matter how crazy it sounds, can carry grow into a full-blown article when a writer is really prolific, has the gift of gab or powerfully uses tools to develop topics into informative articles.
• Research to find an idea and to streamline ideas. Research is every writer’s tool in gathering ideas and information. Systematic writers use research to spot and determine topics where there is wide readership. These can teach writers the current news and being-talked-about topics that can be a good take off point for an article or as a juicy teaser to get readers’ attention. Research is also a powerful tool in streamlining ideas and gathering information to make a meaty article.
• Think about your readership. Intelligent writers think about their readers – what they like to know more about as well as what interests them. While smart writers have the intuitive idea about their interests, there are techniques to know what your readers are looking for. Conduct surveys or research your readers’ demographics to determine what their interests are.
• Work out an outline. Some writers can think and organize better when guided by an outline. It keeps them close to their topics. Drifting from the topic can lead your article astray so that it misses what the title connotes and what the readers expect to find or read. An outline gives a writer a direction.
• How long would you want the article to be? Some clients will tell you how long they want the article to be. Some don’t; they will just let you decide as to how long will be most effective in your perception. Do not make it too long or short. An article of 500 to 600 words is good enough to present main ideas with some details. Longer than that and it can be boring; shorter, it can be too inadequate or fail to drive home a point.
• If you are going to write the article, ask someone else to proofread or edit the article. Generally, we get too close to our own style so that it is hard to see our simple mistakes. It takes someone not used to our own style to see the flaws or the better ways to string the words.
• Sleep on it. If and when words or ideas are hard to come by, have a break, relax or sleep on it until such time that you are ready to return to writing. Frequently, fresh ideas and creative juices start to flow after a while. You can see a lot of new ways to re-write the topic after a brief break.
So, what else is new? Well, nothing much, but your passion for the topic and the writing. Your passion for writing articles for magazines will give the most difference and freshness. Your enthusiasm is so inspiring and contagious when you like what you are doing and writing about.