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The Ins and Outs of Free Writing Contests
(free writing contests)
Free writing contests are available by the thousands. They are virtually a dime a dozen on the Internet. No matter what your niche is in the writing community there is a free writing contests out there for you. How do you know which ones to enter and which ones are legitimate? That’s simple. You do what you do best-- research.
While providing the story for the free writing contest will probably be the easy part, researching the thousands of available contests will be a daunting task. If this is un-chartered water for you, you have the start at the beginning. Finding what free writing contests are available. Grab a notebook or start a word document and list the contests that are available. Beside each contest name you will want to put what kind of writing they are looking for and when it needs to be done by. By doing this first you will be able to eliminate any that do not coincide with your writing niche or with your schedule.
Now the free writing contest research begins. Finding out if a contest is worthwhile and legitimate is comparable to running a background check on a person. First check the contest website. Do they have all contact information available? Do they tell you what company is hosting the contest? If they are not, you will have likely found warning number one that it is a scam. So scratch those off your list or at least move them to the bottom until you can find out more information on them. Start asking around to colleagues and writers groups. Search the writing forums and the Internet scam sites. The Better Business Bureau is also a good place to look.
Once you narrowed the free writing contests down to the legitimate ones, read the contest rules and regulations. Some contests require you signing over all rights to a story even if you don’t win. Are you willing to do this? Giving up rights to you writing is a lot easier to do when you are getting something in return. After you enter there is no going back, so make sure this is what you want to do.
The final thing you need to look for is if the contest is just a cover up to get you to buy services or products. This does not necessarily mean they are a scam or don’t actually award winners. It simply means that they will try to entice you to use their critiquing services or offer you a book at a reduced fee that your work will be published in. Being published sounds like a great deal but is it a book that carries prestige that people are going to see?
Many authors think that writing contests will launch their career into a successful endeavor. This is not the case, especially for free writing contests. Even winning the grand prize of a smaller known contest is not going to affect your literary journey. Even though they may not springboard your career, there are good reasons to join writing contests. You will get unbiased opinions and valuable feedback from the judges. If you make it into the higher rounds, editors could also see your writing.
Ultimately whether you enter a free writing contest the choice is yours. Just ask you self if the time spent writing and researching the piece you choose to enter is worth writing for free in most cases. The critique and feedback may be the most worthwhile thing you receive from the contest. But then again the judges opinions are a dime a dozen just like the contests.
Free Baby Stuff Requires a Visit to Babies Online Babies online is the page on the Internet when it comes to free stuff for the baby and new parent. The page offers any parent resources about the growing baby. Anything from personalized weekly calendars, over calculators to articles and information can be found on this web page. All the information offered on the page is freely available to anybody who signs up for their free membership. Under the top pages offered by babies online are pages that contain links to other free baby web sites, fun birthday facts, a weekly pregnancy calendar, due date calculator, baby’s first year, baby photo contest, baby names and meanings, baby freebies and a baby’s online blog. These pages are visited by the most users and are also most frequently used by members of the page. All these pages offer information around pregnancy and the infancy. Some of the pages offer advice on many of the questions that parents have in their first year of parent hood or before during pregnancy. The baby pages section of the website offers anybody to have an online birth announcement for the newborn, to read other peoples birth announcement and even to create or read other women’s pregnancy journals. Anyone can create his or her own and then sent links to all their friends to show off their little one over cyberspace. Not only does this save the writing and buying of all those birth announcement cards, it also saves the stamps and printed pictures that generally are included in birth announcements. The freebies page offers users links to free baby websites, links to free baby product samples, free pregnancy wristbands, free photo prints, free baby coupons and even freebie alerts. The free baby’s web site section lets parents create a web page that is completely centered on their new addition and give the new parents a chance to share their precious with all their friends and family. In the free baby product sample section a parent can find anything from free magazine subscriptions to those famous parenting magazines, to formula samples and children’s books. Due to the ten year anniversary of the page the web site offers pregnant mothers a free pregnancy bracelet. It is not only sleek and fancy, but is also there to alert any doctors or other personnel of the mother’s pregnancy status in any kind of situation, such as fainting, unconsciousness or an accident. A link to a related photo-processing place offers free photos for parents. Shipping as well as the prints is free to anyone that signs up to receive this offer. The online photo page offers any of the services a local photo store or photo lab might offer. Cards, picture prints, enlargements, photo gifts, calendars and more can be bought from this online site additionally to the free prints. On the online babies coupons and sample page users can find links to good deals, links to coupons and links to free samples. This part of the page is sure worth checking out. Some of the deals are for baby gear and baby food, while others also have links to places that offer deals on toddler’s and younger children’s clothing items. Even if it is just the beginning of pregnancy, checking out what is available online; especially on babies online can have great advantages. Some of the links offer new parents and parents to be many samples of different formulas, if this is going to be the choices to feed the baby, parents have a chance to try the different formulas and additionally get coupons for their favorite one. Not just the coupons, but also the free tools and journals on the web page make it worth to check it out. So go ahead and surf the web page to get up to date with newest baby information. Preparing Questions to Ask in your Upcoming Job Interview When you get ready for a job interview, chances are you have spent a lot of time trying to guess the questions you will be asked and prepare your answers to them. How will you explain that gap in your work history? What will you say when they ask you why you left your last job? In the rush to make sure that you have all of your answers perfectly prepared and ready, don’t forget to prepare a few questions of your own to ask the person who is interviewing you. Asking questions is an important part of your interview. When you get asked the old “do you have any questions for us” one, it pays to actually be able to come back with a few questions instead of a, “no, I don’t think so.” Asking questions will show that you are engaged in the interview and have done some thinking about the position, plus, the questions you ask will help you elicit valuable information you need when you have to decide whether or not to actually take the job, should it be offered to you. The first thing you should want to find out is why the job is open in the first place. Is the job you are applying for a new position? That means you can expect to have a lot of transitional bumps along the way as you are integrated into the company. If the job is not new, and the person before you was fired, then you can expect things to be in a state of disarray when you take over and that you will have to spend a lot of time up front cleaning up spilled milk. If the job is open because the person who had it before you moved up in the company, then you will know that this is a job with a lot of future potential. Next, find out a little bit about the person who will actually be your boss if you get the job. Sometimes, this person will be involved in the interview, but often they will not. Finding out how high up in the company chain you will be reporting will help you gauge how important the position for which you are applying is to the company. Also, it helps to know a little bit about the personality type of the boss to be. If you like to keep your head down and do your work, and your potential new boss is one of those “wacky” types, then you may want to look elsewhere. From there, ask about the kinds of responsibilities you will need to take on board right out of the gate. When companies are hiring for a new position, they usually have a few ideas about what that person will need to start working on right away. Getting a clue about your first project will help you decide if this job is right for you. This is also a good time to ask the interviewer about their job and why they like working the company. You may find out that this really could be your dream job, or you may end up sensing from your interviewer that you should run away, fast. Last but not least, ask your interview when you should follow-up on your interview. Don’t open the door for a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” kind of interview closing. Let the interviewer know to their face that will be making the effort to contact them again. You may get the vibe from your interviewer that the job probably will be going to someone else, so you can move on quickly, or you may end up being offered the job on the spot. Either way, you will have opened the lines of communication to take the next step. |