Posts Tagged ‘Thousand Pounds’

CASHING IN ON TRUE LIFE TALES

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Got a true life story which you think might make the tabloids sit up and beg? You know the type, My devil worshipping granny turned lesbian at 80! or My partner kept his underage lover in our coal cellar! They are more common that you think and with the huge payouts they command, it is little wonder more than a few writers have turned their eyes to this type of writing!

Payment for these kinds of magazine articles far out strips anything else on offer, typically anywhere from a thousand pounds upwards and the additional prospect of a byline in a magazine with a circulation of many thousands is a further attraction.

How hard is it then to break into this type of magazine writing? If you have something like a husband with a mistress in the coal cellar, pretty easy! Once word gets out, you will probably find buyers coming to you, but there are plenty of agencies and brokers who will be more than pleased to help you sell your story for a percentage of the fee.

These are industry professionals with good contacts. For a percentage of the fee, they will negotiate the best price for the story on your behalf, a little like a book publishing agent, but there the similarity ends because unlike the world of book publishing, it is highly unlikely that you will be allowed to write your story!

This is not a problem if you are only interested in the cash and have no real writing aspirations, but if you are seriously interested in writing for magazines, you will want to do your own writing and build a portfolio of creditable clips.

Your attempts to hold to the truth will largely go unheeded and it is very likely that you will also have to agree to photographs of yourself being spread all over the centre pages.

The good news is, you can earn a reasonably good living writing for magazines without having to paddle in these somewhat murky waters!

As long as your writing and research skills are of a reasonable level, there are plenty of magazines and websites offering good payment rates for articles.

Neither is it hard to begin making sales. The reason why most new writers struggle is they simply do not understand the business side of writing and how to provide the types of articles that will sell magazines.

You will find there is a lot of help available so do plenty of back ground reading on writing for magazinesbefore you start submitting your articles.

To point you in the right direction, you will find the two main provisos are a listing of marketswhich pay for magazine articlesand a good understanding of how to submit and make appropriate queries. Many creative writing communities compile frequently updated databases of paying markets while you can get a free copy of Mags & Rags, an excellent, course on writing for magazines which will ground you in all the basics of selling articles to magazines.

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Beginnning a football programme collection

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

To effectively launch a collection of football programmes, an individual needs to choose a specialisation to his or her collection. There are thousands of football programmes available in the United Kingdom, and even more worldwide. To give a collection some sort of purpose a theme ought to be adopted to avoid pointless accumulation and to keep to a designated budget.

Of course, it will sometimes be the case that you come across a football programme that joins or crosses two themes at the same time. These are likely to prove to be valuable purchases in future years as they represent a special or historical occasion, which will revive memories for football fans from across the world in the future.

The programme is a great way to remember a memorable event at a particular match. This could be in the form of some sort of achievement such as a player milestone, which is featured in the programme. Player milestones come in many forms, such as an appearance record, a goal scoring record, the end of a players career, a number of years of service by a player, and much more.

The darker side of football is also often recorded in match programmes. These tragic events interest collectors who see them as poignant reminders of the past. They are highly collectible and valuable as a result. The disasters at Bradford, Ibrox and Hillsborough have valuable programmes associated with them, not only for the day itself, but also the subsequent commemorative matches.

A very valuable set of football programmes to own are those related to the Munich Air Disaster involving the Manchester United team and Busby’s Babes. The programme from the match against Partizan Belgrade who Manchester United were playing on the tragic trip can sell for over a thousand pounds. A similar amount can be achieved for the programme against Sheffield Wednesday directly after the disaster, where the players list wasn’t filled in for the Man United team.

Notable events are usually reflected in the content and style of the programme. Important football programmes to collect are final games in an old stadium, or the first issue within a new one. Most programmes of this type are easily available with interesting articles and historical information, making them a gem in any soccer programme collection.

Programmes often mean different things to different collectors. You may value a prticular programme highly due to entirely personal reasons and memories which they may conjure up. For other collectors the pursuit is one of passion, finding out more about the history and traditions of a football team that they support. Whatever your reason, collecting football programmes is a very rewarding hobby, and comes highly recommended to any football fan.