Guest Author - Melissa Weise

Of course, the only thing a writer really needs is his or her imagination a pen and a piece of paper but to share it, you need a little more. Traditionally, it is very difficult to get published in a magazine or to get your book published, but there are many resources that can help you share your writing in a variety of other ways. Here are some of the best things I have found. At the end I have also listed things you should beware of as a savvy writer wanting to share.

Café Press (www.caefepress.com)
If you want to see your book or book of poems printed and bound, you can sign up for CafePress to do this for you. You will have to pay for it, but it will give you a honest to goodness copy of your work. You an also set up an account to sell it to others. CafePress takes a chunk of the money to print the book and make a profit, but you get the rest depending upon how expensive you want to make the book.

Writers’ Market (http://www.writersmarket.com/)
This is the ultimate resource for serious writers. It is online but also printed as a yearly book with updated contact information for almost every place you could submit your writing including book publishers, agents and thousands of magazines. It also gives you great hints and advice on how to submit your work.

Discovery Girls (http://www.discoverygirls.com/)
This magazine is for real world girls and also welcomes submissions from girls. You can be featured on their website or in the magazine itself. There are also lots of contests you can submit your writing to.

Teen Voices Magazine (http://www.teenvoices.com/), Shameless Magazine (http://www.shamelessmag.com/contribute/), and Teen Ink (www.teenink.com)
These three magazine are one hundred percent written for teens by teens. They each have slightly different requirements, but give you an opportunity outside of the more difficult adult venues.

BeMused Magazine (http://www.bellaonline.com/review/)
This online literary magazine is sponsored by this website: BellaOnline and accepts a variety of stories, plays, art, articles, and poems four times a year.

Blogs
There are many sites including Facebook, Classmates, MySpace, and other blogging and social networking sites where you can showcase your writing. They are almost always free, easy to set up and require no submission rules. Just be careful to not share too much personal information on the web for safety purposes.

Red Room (http://www.redroom.com/)
This is a writer’s socialization site where you can sign up, post your profile and interact with other writers and even famous authors.

BEWARE OF:
Any contest that makes you buy something, they are usually a sham.
Posting too much personal information online, it is unsafe. Even famous celebrities and writers don’t share where they live.
Self publishing because it requires a lot more work and sometimes money than they advertise. And sometimes they even steal your work.