Nancy Hendrickson

Shorts (not the boxer variety!) are 500-700 word articles that are generally found in the front part of a magazine or published as a blog post. If you’re new to a publication or blog site, the editor will probably assign you a short rather than a full-length feature. Once you’ve proven yourself, you’ll get the longer and better paying 3000-5000 word assignments or blog jobs.

Some people love writing shorts, and I’m one of them.

My natural style tends towards shorter pieces, so the more shorts the better. True, some authors feel that shorts or blog posts aren’t worth the money, but in my experience I can research and write a short piece quickly enough to keep my “pay per hour” rate high.

For self-published authors who wanted to get their work in front of Amazon’s massive traffic, putting their work on the Kindle platform seemed like a no-brainer.

At the beginning of 2009, almost anyone with a U.S. bank account and an article or book in digital format could publish to Kindle—including the bad, the good, and the ugly.   The Kindle was like a lawless frontier boomtown  – - anything goes.

All through the spring months of 2009, I encouraged entrepreneurs and small business owners to write a great article or book and get it on Kindle; after all, having your work on Amazon IS a credibility builder in any business. Sadly, some of those people did publish, but the quality of their work was  . . . . shall I say . . . . crap.

In the end, Amazon brought a sheriff to town and the wide open field of “publish anything” came to an end.

Tina Nocera, founder of the Parental Wisdom blog, and the author of Because Kids Don’t Come With Manuals: Contemporary Advice for Parents, recently shared her experience of using her blog to promote her book.  

NH: Why did you start blogging?

TN: Interestingly, the book is a conversation on parenting; something I mention in the introduction. A blog seemed like a natural progression to continue that conversation and have a more interactive discussion with parents on current issues.