Just in case any of my minimal readership is interested, there is a book review contest being hosted at Nightcap Syndication. Write a good book review and you could be the winner of a freelance gig with a major US newspaper. If you enter, I get absolutely nothing. In fact, it only broadens the pool of people against whom I’ll be competing. So…please enter but write crappy reviews, because I could sure use that $150 a shot. Details at the link and, for the sake of completeness, below the fold.
TIM WORSTALL SAYS:
You are one of those bloggers that wants to get published in the newspapers, correct? You are also one of those bloggers capable of writing something that the newspapers would like to publish, yes? However, you don’t know any editors and don’t know how to approach them even if you did.
Excellent, we can help. Here at Nightcap Syndication we have partnered with one of the top 20 newspapers in the USA. The Books Editor is looking for more reviewers and we’re going to run the competition to help him find them.
Yes, we realize, doing a book review isn’t quite what you had in mind, you’re holding out for the New York Times to offer you Paul Krugman’s slot. Or Maureen Dowd’s (please!). However, time for a little reality check here, this isn’t going to happen immediately. It is also true that book reviews have a long history of being a way into the journalistic citadel: the most difficult sale of your writing, the hardest one to ever make, is the first.
So what exactly is it that you have to do? Simple. Write a 650 word review of any book that takes your fancy and post it here at Nightcap Syndication. At the end of July the Editor will read through all of the entries and offer freelance book review contracts to some or all of those who meet his standards.That’s it. There are no entry fees, no reading costs, nothing to purchase and nothing to pay. Simply take a book off your shelf, review it and see if you get a contract out of it.
Details are below the fold.
Details Schmetails.
Book reviews can vary in length but this particular editor likes 650 words. 647 or 652 is fine, 600 or 700 is not. For non-American writers (and there is no problem with your being outside the US. I have just been hired to write for this paper and I’m English and live in Portugal: globalization you see!) please make sure you set your spell-checker to US English. There is more to the difference than dropping the occasional “u” from UK English.
You can review any book you wish. Our categories are here. Our general rules for reviews are here. An ironic or satirical review of the Old Testament will show your skills just as well as something on the latest Chomsky. Fiction, non-fiction, business, self-help, whatever takes your fancy.
What will you get if you “win”? Why, in fact, “win”, not win? This isn’t really a competition for only one slot. Our partner editor needs a number of reviewers in a number of specialities so he may well decide to take on as many people as show that they have the requisite skills. What you get will be the standard freelance book reviewing contract. No, unfortunately, these don’t actually make anyone rich. The fee is $150 per review and you have to sign over all rights. However, the paper then assigns back to you (for no royalty) all subsidiary rights so that same review can then be sold on to other, more minor papers. If they themselves syndicate it then further payments will be made. You also get a free copy of the book, of course.
We’d like to make sure that everyone understands this point properly. We at Nightcap will have no part of your contract directly with the newspaper nor of any money you make from it . We are offering purely (and entirely for free) an opportunity for you to strut your stuff in front of one of the United States’ first class commissioning editors.
We here at Nighcap are working with ScooptWords to try and build a syndication system that will make such further sales much simpler. That’s going to be a little time in coming.
Finally, please look at this technical note here. When you post your review please do, if you should so wish, add in a link to your Amazon (or other retailer) affiliates account.The purpose of our review section is that writers get a chance to make money from their reviews. As a general guideline you can review anything you like here, not just books, and we’re delighted for you to earn the commissions that result from people purchasing.
So that’s the deal. Review a book, post the review, maybe make a little from your affiliate links. If you’ve got what it takes to do this professionally, we’ve organised a professional, one actively on the lookout for new talent, to look the reviews over and offer proper commercial contracts to those that interest him.
There is no limit on the number of reviews you can submit.
This is probably the easiest way you’ll ever come across to try out for a job on a major newspaper. Good luck and we look forward to reading your reviews!
HOW TO ENTER ON NIGHTCAP
1. Login.
2. Select the Submit Competition Entry from the User Menu at the bottom right.
3. Select the competition that you wish to enter: in this case Book Review 06/06.
4. Please note on your entry, which of our Book Review Categories best fits your review (this will make it easier for us to reassign it when the competition is over).
5. Write your entry and then click the Disk Icon.
6. Come back and write some more!
