4RV Reading, Writing, & Art News: Building Your Platform

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Building Your Platform – Finding Markets

By: Stephanie Burkhart

An author always needs to be receptive to expanding their platform. It's not easy to develop ways to find more exposure. One way is to write essays, poems, short stories, and other works for print journals or magazines.

The Benefits: It gives you exposure to the market you want to target, and oftentimes the journal/magazine pays for your content. This technique helps you develop a fan base, and a fan base will want to seek you out.

Some print journals/magazines that are always looking for new material which target the "Children/YA" audience include:

HIGHLIGHTS

6-12 age range. Circulation: 1.5 million. Publishes: monthly. Seeking: humor, folktales, holiday, stories, sports, historical, adventure, mystery, science, crafts, puzzles, games, etc. Payment: $100. Min for fiction, $150. Min. for nonfiction. $25.00 for activities. Find submission info at: http://www.highlights.com/contributor-guidlines

JACK AND JILL

7-12 age range. Circulation: 200,000. Publishes: bimonthly. Seeking: adventure, contemporary, folktales, history, nature, sports, science, animals, comics, poetry. Payment: .30 cent per word for fiction and nonfiction, $25-50. For poems, and $25-40 for activities. Submission info at: http://www.uskidsmags.com/writers-guidelines.

Other print media magazine/journals to consider: Ladybug, Spider, Cricket, Calliope, Faces, Boy's Quest.

IDEAS:

Put your hobbies (nature, gardening, history, sports) to good use and expand your platform by exploring journals and magazines and submitting articles.

If you're looking for more options you can always do an Internet search for Children's / YA journal/magazine websites.

TIP:

Buy a few magazines 2-3 before you start to submit and read them so you get the feel for the content they are looking for.

Reference for this blog: Writer's Digest, MAR/APR 2014, "34 Markets for Genre Short Stories," Complied by Tiffany Luckey, pgs. 28-30.

Author Bio: Stephanie Burkhart is a 911 Dispatcher for LAPD. She loves chocolate, adores coffee and likes to take walks. She'll be doing the Santa Clarita, CA "Walk to End Alzheimers" on 20 SEP 2014. Her stories, "The Giving Meadow," and "First Flag of New Hampshire" are published with 4RV Publishing.