Co-published with the North Shoreian Magazine, February 2010.

By Judah Mahay

The popular craze of technology these days has driven forward a demand for products never dreamed of a couple of years ago. With the advent of the iPhone and its newly birthed competitors, namely Android based phones, artists have been blessed with an array of previously unimaginable tools. This article will begin the series “Best iPhone Apps for Artists” exploring this topic. Furthermore, “The Writer’s Spotlight” will focus on the iPhone apps for masters fiction. Writers have seen applications dedicated to them pop into existence on what seems like a daily basis. Let’s take a look at what is available at the moment.

Story Tracker | Submission Tracking Tool

I always like to start with my favorites. The submission process can be overwhelming, especially if you are dealing with simultaneous submissions and sending out multiple stories at the same time. You’re asking yourself if you should contact a magazine, but can’t remember when you sent the story. You finally get a story published and have to make phone calls to the other markets, but can’t find the piece of paper you wrote the list of magazines on. This nifty application helps you deal with just that and it does an excellent job at it. The tool lets you input stories and markets, at which point it lets you link them up with probable response dates. Beyond the basics it allows for a depth of information for each market and it tracks statistics such as work published, rejected, earnings, trunked stories, and more. A great tool and well worth the $9.99. Frankly, I would buy it even if it cost $20.

Price: $9.99 Read more…

The hard part is knowing how to ask the right questions in order to get the right answers.

By Charles H. Bush

They say “write about what you know.” Unfortunately, if you’re like me and don’t know much, you have to find a way know what you need to know. The method I use is “research.”

For years, before advent of the internet, I found research to be a daunting task, certainly not for the homebound or for the lazy like me. But now most needed research is rather easy. The hard part is knowing how to ask the right questions in order to get the right answers. I’ll give you several case studies a bit later to demonstrate what I do. There are several tools I now use to do my research, so I’ll just jump right in. Read more…

"Do not...talk...about an unfinished manuscript." Shirley McKee

Written by Shirley McKee

There will be a time when you will have opportunities to meet with editors and agents. The Professional Attitude is more important now than at any other time. A meeting with an editor should begin with eye contact and a firm handshake. If you are proposing a book, be able to summarize the book in one or two sentences, including the genre. They will tell you never to be negative, but what I’m going to say will sound negative. Read more…

Co-Published: BeYourArt.com and The North Shoreian Magazine, The Altruism Issue, Volume 1, Issue 11, Practicalities of the Surviving Artists, November 2008. Written by Pamela Reese.

Photo By Nino Andonis

The faltering economy has impacted most segments of business and industry, and those involved in the arts have not been exempt. Nevertheless, fiction publishers have taken action to provide new options to aspiring writers. Publishing has begun to affect a myriad of changes in an attempt to remain relevant and competitive in an increasingly tight struggle for entertainment dollars.

Given the current volatility in the book business, smaller profit margins and the need to entice a new generation as the avid readers of the baby boom are aging; publishing is at last seeking solutions to longstanding difficulties.

The publishing industry, deeply entrenched in long traditions and reluctant to initiate sweeping changes in a tight economy, is experimenting with ways to eliminate some of their most vexing issues. Those solutions may have a very direct impact on writers and their art. Read more…