When submitting to a publisher or an agent, it’s vital that your proposal and manuscript indicate the proper word count for your genre.
There are factors involved in why certain genres have varying word counts, including the cost for printing and how long a reader’s attention can be captured.
While each publisher may have their own limits and standards, this list can get you started. There are more rules for word count within sub-genres, and certain publishers may want word counts outside of this. Be sure to double check before submitting.
It’s Serious Writer’s birthday and we’re giving the presents to you! One winner will receive a free conference or one-day tour stop registration to a Serious Writer event of their choice, along with access to every course currently offered in Serious Writer Academy.
One Christian Voice is a network of local news divisions, sharing information and inspiration with the Christian community, and we would like to invite you to be a part of it.
Sharing the Gospel and Strengthening the Tribe
Our primary mission is to lead people to Christ. We do that through publishing stories about the saving grace of Jesus Christ and also through our affiliate, 365 Day Bible, in which we share on every division, a daily Bible verse with a link to a daily Bible reading.
Our secondary mission is to be a vessel to inform, inspire and connect the Christian community through news sharing. Just as the Israelites were one nation of various tribes, united under one God, we are also a people from various locations and denominations, who serve under the lordship of one God. The Israelites were strong because they honored God, supported one another and stayed connected. Part of the mission of One Christian Voice is to be a vessel that promotes this God-honoring unity and connection.
Writers are Influencers
We hear what’s going on in the world and in our cities through the words of our journalists. Words are powerful. We get to know our God through the Words He wrote to us. The written Word of God has the greatest power known to man and the written word of man also has power. It has influence. It has authority. It changes minds, directs paths, enlightens the spirit, elicits emotion, empowers hearts, informs people and changes culture.
We are in need of Christians who, through eyes that see and ears that hear, can tell today’s stories: word people who are willing to go out into their communities, observe their surroundings and tap out the stories.
Publishing in One Christian Voice
If you would like to use your gift of writing to publish a story in One Christian Voice about someone or something happening in your community, here are the three easy steps to transition from fiction writing to journalism:
#1. Find a topic
Have you met someone whose faith and deeds inspire you? Did your church sponsor a unique or successful activity that had an impact on your community or brought people to Christ? We would love to inspire our readers with stories about those people and activities. We often share these stories across the other divisions to spur others on in their faith and inspire new ideas.
We also publish Magazine-style articles. If you have an expertise in any particular field such as education, health, business, technology, sports, or any other field, we would love to share your knowledge with our readers.
#2. Tell the Story.
Your article does not have to be lengthy. We publish articles starting at just 500 words. The attention span of average readers is shorter today and few people read to the end of an article that exceeds 1500 words.
If you want to write a story that gets read, include some conflict. The conflict can often be found in the former life of a believer and the resolution—a changed life. Other conflicts might be outside forces at work against the church or problems common to church communities today. Sometimes it’s not easy to find the conflict. Don’t make it up, but do a search for it and include it in your title.
Other factors that influence whether an article gets read include strong emotion, familiarity (or fame) of the people, proximity to the audience, size of the audience affected, and uniqueness of the content.
Put the important facts at the top. Unlike novels that slowly build to a climax, in journalism, the most important information comes first, with each successively less important piece of information following.
If you interviewed anyone, include several quotations. If you are writing about an event, try to get even one quotation from the performers. A great way to end a news article is to end it with an impactful quotation.
#3. Find the nearest division of One Christian Voice and email your story to the Editor.
If you have a love of writing and want to be a voice in the world today, we would love to publish your articles. The goal is not perfection. It is connection, so don’t get hung up on making it perfect. Take a look at what we publish, find out what is going on in your community and tell us about it. It is that simple.
If you do not find a local division of One Christian Voice near you, and if you have a solid grasp of both the Christian Bible and the English language, please prayerfully consider applying to launch a division near you.
Twitter announced another rules update coming on March 23. Many times, these rules updates and changes have no significant effect on us as writers and authors, but this time the changes will hit closer to home.
There are two major things to consider:
Multiple accounts cannot post the same content.
Recycling tweets is a no-no.
First, people who run multiple Twitter accounts may no longer copy content across all accounts.
To control accounts who artificially inflate trending #hashtags, Twitter will watch to see if the same content is being copied across multiple accounts. Social media schedulers that have allowed this process will no longer allow this.
For instance, if you maintain both a personal account and a business account, or book account to promote your book content, you may not duplicate tweets on both accounts. You can, however, retweet content from one of your accounts to the other.
Second, if you only run one Twitter account, you are not allowed to recycle or duplicate your content.
If you retweet previous content you have posted, this also violates this new rule. The language is particularly ambiguous about how long a time frame this covers. Is it don’t retweet every few minutes, twice a month, or ever?
Here’s the specific wording from Twitter regarding the no recycling content rule:
“if you post duplicative or similar content, replies, or mentions over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account, or create duplicate or similar accounts”
If that seems vague to you, I agree. I’m not sure why the wording is so ambiguous, but the reality is that Twitter can and will limit your account for recycling content, no matter the timeframe between the tweets.
What exactly is “Recycling Content”?
Authors and writers who wish to promote their most recent blog posts, or mailing lists, and publications will want to post them more than once.
Recycling evergreen tweets, to slip in with new tweets on occasion, has been a standard approach in the past. This ability to run content more than once was an easy way to get content in front of new eyes.
If you are trying to grow your account, it’s likely that you are gaining a large number of followers each day and recycling gives you an opportunity to get that material in front of those new eyes…not to mention that it’s a timesaver to recycle older posts to maintain consistency on the platform without creating brand new content.
The staff at MeetEdgar, a social networking scheduler, explains to their users in this blog post what is taking place. This section is particularly important:
“In the past, actions like recycling your Tweets by posting them again and again over time have been considered problematic only in excess, like a user posting the same Tweet every couple of minutes. By comparison, posting the same Tweet that you posted a day, a week, or a month ago has generally been considered fair game–even to the extent that major brands and media companies have made it a staple of their content strategies. But that won’t be the case for long.”
Crackdown on Purchased Followings
The ability to purchase followers to inflate the importance of one account over another has affected results. And people who have desired to manipulate the system have done so without retribution. Inflating trending hashtags and social network numbers will now be the cause of sanctions on your account.
For example, Social Media Today shared the following on their recent post:
“As we’ve reported, recent research has estimated that fake profiles make up around 15% of Twitter’s total user count, which, as per their latest earnings results, would suggest there are now around 49.5 million false Twitter users. That’s a significant problem, and with people so able to buy Twitter followers and/or inflate their importance, it erodes the value of platform audience, and makes it harder to determine which voices are actually worth listening to.”
Because of such abuse, Twitter now intends to lock down this manipulation and the simplest way to accomplish this is to force scheduling apps into changing their programs. Following the rules is the only sure way to not be muted or even deleted.
Frustrated?
I hear often from writers who are on the last nerve with social media—what a timewaster it is, how difficult it is to find time to manage it well when there are so many platforms, and that they’d rather be writing.
Don’t despair!
Recent changes to Facebook Pages, and now to Twitter, are a good thing.
Real people engaging with other real people and building real relationships is the actual goal of all the social media work we do as writers and authors building our platforms. You might think hundreds of thousands of followers is necessary but if you haven’t built trust and a good rapport, those followers will never translate into sales.
Build relationships and the sales will naturally follow.
Enforcement of the new rules will begin March 23, 2018.
Victoria Duerstock grew her Twitter following by over 400% in a six-month time period without buying any lists or leads. Get Victoria’s “Explode Your Growth on Twitter” course for FREE by clicking here!
A MidSouth transplant from sunny Florida, Victoria Duerstock is living out her “one day” dreams. An avid reader from way back, she has a voracious appetite for all things bookish. She reads fiction and non-fiction alike but well-written fiction that makes her solve a mystery or gives an unexpected ending really grabs her attention. She’s even read a manual or two. Ok really, she reads all the manuals.
As a teacher and speaker, Victoria’s mission is to inspire hope and ignite bigger dreams for God’s purpose and His glory in each of our stories. She enjoys speaking at a variety of venues.
As a writer, Victoria is excited to pursue publication of her novel Fractured, the first of three books in her clean read crime/suspense trilogy. She’s busy exercising her non-fiction muscles as well and is published in the following devotional anthologies:
Let All Nature Sing, Worthy Publishing, 2016
Just Breathe, Worthy Publishing, 2017
Words to Cheer Your Heart, Worthy Publishing, March, 2018
Victoria is a wife and mom of three amazing kids. They keep her busy with their schedules and business ventures, and she enjoys her work with the Serious Writer Team where she wears a couple different hats depending on the day.
The third Serious Writer Tour Stop was held in Tallahassee, FL this past week and we were so encouraged by the amazing people we met. It was truly a pleasure to teach the classes, but more importantly, to spend time getting to know the attendees.
As is tradition, Michelle Medlock Adams got a group shot with her selfie stick!
If you’re excited about a Tour Stop coming to your area, be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Each week we send out valuable content and upcoming event information. We also give away free courses and prizes!
