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.

In his book for freelancers (that includes information on marketing strategies), Michael Sedge relates the story of a fellow-writer who wrote nothing but shorts, without decreasing his annual income.

Sedge’s friend said “ I’d say that 80 percent of today’s magazines use short news, humor, and human-interest items. For a lot of editors—including those at top-paying publications—this is an area in which they are desperate for material. . . I can put out one or two short items a day, in most cases with little research. The best part is I normally make $1 a word.”

When writing the blog post, keep in mind that every word counts. This is the time to use your editing skills and chop every unnecessary word you find. Shorts require the skill of pulling out the most important points of the story—there is no room for flab.

Once you hone your “shorts” skills, you may be surprised at the broad subjects that can be written as a short. Some of mine include the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Wild and Wacky Collectibles, Keeping Fit With Your PDA, and Collecting Elvis.

Structuring the Short

You can easily write a short (500-700 word) piece by following a simple structure.

Allow yourself approximately 100 words for a dynamite lead, and 100 words for a wrap-up.

What’s the most fascinating fact about your short? Find it, and then pop it up to the lead sentence.

Next, figure out how many points you want your article to cover.

For example, if you’re writing about a new handheld computer and you know you want to include information about its capabilities, software, and price structure, then you need to cover three points.

Give each of those points 100 words, and you’ve got a 500-word article. Or, give two of the points 125 words, and 50 to the third. Just divide wordage depending on the importance of a particular point.

A short doesn’t give you the luxury of four paragraphs to get into the body of the article. You’ve got room for a few sentences at best, so make them count.

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Want to learn more about freelance writing. Check out the video below.

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.

Today, if you want to publish on Kindle, you still can, but before your work is actually accepted into the Amazon fold, it now goes through a quality-monitoring process.  When you push the PUBLISH button, a message pops up telling you that in order to give customers a quality experience, your work is now being reviewed, and Amazon will let you know within 48-72 hours if it will really be published.  Now, I’m guessing  all the unedited, poorly written & grammatically incorrect junk  goes into the tank.  Busted!

I’ve seen comments from other authors that this monitoring process is taking weeks (guess Amazon’s sheriff is up to his tin star in documents), but I’ve been fortunate to see my articles published in about three days.

In retrospect, I kinda hate to see the lawlesss town shut down – there’s something exciting about the wild frontier.  But,  my assumption is Amazon was getting so many returns on Kindle articles and books that they had to get some laws in place.

So, was 2009 a boom or a bust for self-published Kindle authors?  For me, I’ll say boom because I published 16 articles (mostly on history-related topics) and most are selling well.

But for the James Gang “writers” I’d say it was a bust; guess they’ll have to look for an easier bank to knock over.

*Note: This post is part of a group writing project sponsored by Daily Blog Tips

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.

To listen to what people have to say. Example, in a post from yesterday – - very interesting situation. I have something in my book called a "Stupid Ticket" and a mom received one and was rather upset. I used the blog as a way to explain it from her point of view and also soften and explain the message. I would not have had any other opportunity to reach others if not for the blog.

NH: How did you build your readership?

TN: I connected it to my website and I also host a parents daily inspirational phone message where I often mention that they can visit the blog and write a comment as the blog and daily message are often the same.

 I periodically offer free information which requires readers to sign up to my site. Once on my site, I offer a weekly email message – always with a very catchy title so it gets opened (running at nearly 50% opening the message). Shortly I plan to offer very unique content (I have 2 U.S. Patents on Child Development for my website and database) and will run EzineArticles on that as well.

NH: Have you submitted your blog to blog directories?

TN: I haven’t but it is something I should do. Like everything else – this is a constant learning process.

NH: Do you post on other blogs?

TN: Yes, I would recommend it, but haven’t done very much of it. It’s great exposure.

NH:  Is there something about blogging to promote your book that you’d like to share with other authors?

TN: I suppose it’s the David vs. Goliath theory. You know the story about David and Goliath, right. Everyone said the little boy couldn’t possibly beat the giant. They told David, "Look at him and look at you, you can’t possibly win." David said, "Yeah, look at me and look at him. I can’t possibly miss!" I see blogging as evening up the odds for attention.

Authors – do you need help with your book project, blogging strategies, or social media marketing? Contact me for information about my coaching programs. Get started today and get that book out into the marketplace.

What’s a “niche” writer?

A niche writer is one who specializes in writing for one or more markets. Although the majority of writers work in many markets, a niche writer has build a name in a specific market.

For example, I frequently write for one genealogy magazine. Recently I did a Spotlight piece for Writer’s Digest on the genealogy market. The editors I interviewed recognized my name, even though they hadn’t worked with me before. Once you write a lot in a particular field, most of the editors in that field know your name.

You say that you originally fought against specializing, but later embraced the idea. Why?

I’m interested in just about everything, so to me specializing meant missing out–even though I saw the benefits. However, it finally dawned on me that I could specialize in more than one field. So, I picked the areas I like the most, and set out to build a name for myself in each of them. Today, I write almost exclusively about genealogy, history, computers and collecting.

Let’s say I have a passion for pets, but I’m certainly no expert on the topic. Can I reasonably expect to become a pet writer? How?

Absolutely. You know, most editors don’t expect writers to be experts, but they do expect writers to know how to find and interview experts. In fact, many new writers are surprised at how easy it is to find experts–and how willing they are to be interviewed.

But back to your pet example. Let’s say you want to specialize in writing about horses. One of the things you can do is join horse-related mailing lists. When you need expert advice, post a request to the list. People are generally very helpful. If they can’t help you, they often will refer you to someone who can. You can also use those lists to collect those great anecdotes that we all like to include in our articles.

As long as you can locate and interview experts in a field (and this is easy to do), you can reasonably expect to succeed in as a specialist in that field. My book covers how to best use mailing lists, and the other sources for finding experts.

One of the factors cited in how more Kindle authors can become “rich” is the (relatively) small number of Kindles currently on the market.  Although Amazon won’t release sales figures, it’s estimated there are about a half-million Kindles currently in use.

I totally disagree that the number of Kindles sold will impact the possibility for author success.   Why?  Because when Amazon made a Kindle app for the iPhone, they opened up the Kindle store to more than 20 million new readers.

It’s not the number of Kindles on the market, it’s how well you’re marketing to people who have access to the Kindle store.

What do you think?