What technology skills should the modern journalist have? Earlier in the year Tony Johnston, of the Press Association, gave a talk online for a “Teachshare” session for Vital. It was fascinating, and a few things stood out for me:
Read More
John Betcher is publishing a series of top tips for self-publishers, in batches of 5 at at a time.
It’s all good stuff. John seems to do a lot of experimentation, and then reports back on how things worked out, warts and all.
Read More
You’d think this would be a no-brainer, wouldn’t you? Yet just about every week I read an article by some editor or other bemoaning the fact that would-be contributors don’t appear to have done any research into the publication, preferring instead to offer an article regardless of how well it fits.
Read More
To write, you need a couple of tools. On the low end of the scale, paper and pencil will do. Typewriters are good. Word processors are better.
Read More
"This is on the level of an 11 year old." That was the verdict of an article I'd written as part of a writing course I'd been invited to attend by a magazine I was writing for at the time.
Read More
It seems to me that one crucial difference between a professional (in all senses of the word) writer and others is that the professional will always meet the deadline set by the editor.
Sometimes, of course, this isn’t possible. For example, I was recently commissioned to write some articles about
Read More
In the first post in this series, I made it clear that by “professional” I was referring to the strict definition of the word, ie that payment is made for your services. But there is also, of course, another meaning of “professional”, which is to behave and conduct oneself in a particular way.
Read More