Articles

  • Feb 4 2011

    Introduction to the Marketing & Publishing Resource

    Welcome to the NASW Marketing and Publishing Resource. These articles aim to help NASW members take advantage of the new opportunities for marketing and publishing their articles and books, whether they self-publish or work with a commercial publisher.

  • Oct 28 2010
    William Wordsworth

    Words' Worth market database

    The Words' Worth database is a place for NASW members to report their own experiences with freelancing clients and find valuable information from other members about what they did, what they charged, and how it went — information that can help you improve your business.

  • May 18 2013

    Free Julian Block tax travel guide

    Do you travel to interview researchers or attend conferences? Moving for a new job? When tax time rolls around, lots of perfectly legal travel write-offs are available — but only for those who know how to cash in on them. Until midnight PST tomorrow, Sunday, May 19, you can get a free Kindle download of Julian Block's Tax Deductible Travel and Moving Expenses. Block is a nationally recognized tax attorney and regular contributor to NASW's ScienceWriters magazine.

  • May 16 2013
    © iStockphoto.com/David H. Lewis

    What writers need to know about video

    Sabrina Doyle writes on the Canadian Science Writers Association site about the differences between reporting as a writer and reporting for video, such as sound: "When you’re working alone, it can be overwhelming the number of things you need to check — focus, lighting, composition, white balance, and let’s not forget what the person is actually saying — but adding audio to the list of priorities is crucial. If the sound’s bad, nobody’s going to listen."

  • May 15 2013
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    Pitching journalists via comment links

    Gini Dietrich writes on PR Daily about a novel approach for getting attention from journalists — a "response campaign" of commenting on stories by targeted writers: "If you are consistent and post intelligent comments once a week, you'll soon develop relationships with journalists who call you when they need someone to interview. Yes, it takes some time. Yes, it's hard work. Yes, it requires you to keep up with your reading. But it works 100 percent of the time."

  • May 14 2013

    Is a new science magazine an omen?

    Does a new science magazine, Nautilus, signal a new golden age of science journalism? In CJR, Curtis Brainard argues that the rebirth was already happening online: "In fact, some of the blogs that are driving the renaissance in science writing have been around for a decade, and critics have long recognized their role in the revival." Also, Nautilus advisor Sean Carroll says what he thinks of the site's main backer, the Templeton Foundation.

  • May 13 2013
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    How things work for freelancers

    This should prompt some knowing nods. Walt Kania has compiled a tongue-in-cheek list of Freelancing Rules of Thumb addressing such details as pay rates, deadlines, expenses, and of course pitches, such as this nugget: "For every ten new people you talk to, five will call you back. Three will try you on an assignment. One will turn out to be a long-term client with a decent budget. Somewhere in there will also be a lunatic. Just hope it’s not the one with the money."

  • May 12 2013
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    When transparency is a bad thing

    Poynter's Roy Peter Clark writes that, like a magician, a narrative writer shouldn't disclose too much about the reporting: "Over the course of say, five minutes, that beautiful lady will disappear and be replaced by a tiger. 'How did he do that?' we wonder aloud. But since the purpose is mere entertainment, we succumb to the illusion and return to our ordinary lives. Succumbing to an illusion is, I would argue, a requirement of the successful experience of narrative."

  • May 11 2013
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    Pithy quotes on writing from writers

    From Maria Popova comes a collection of quotes from famous authors on writing. Can you match the writers (Hemingway, Susan Orlean, Stephen King, Isabel Allende) to their words? "You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it." "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops." "All bad writers are in love with the epic." "Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too."

  • May 9 2013

    From ScienceWriters: Communal writing: an idea grant at work

    In some ways, writing a book (the Science Writers Handbook) with 30 other writers was easy compared to sole authorship. Each of us had only a chapter or two to write. But in other ways, it was incredibly difficult. How do you make so many individual voices cohesive, and how do you weed out the overlaps or resolve differences of opinion? It quickly became a balancing act of delegating work and decisions, coordinating many moving parts, and heavy doses of diplomacy.