Arild Nygard

I was asked a question the other day on how to start publishing online and more importantly I guess an underlying question on how to sell the “works” online or make money if you like. Right at first I didn’t quiet understand what was behind this question but I pursued it and found that the person had been writing stories and articles for a while. Trying to get published off line is not easy. I still don’t know at this point what will come of it. I don’t even know what the person is writing about. I guess things will come to the surface eventually. It is a great pleasure for me to help out if I can but I really need some idea on where we are going with this if anything that I do is going to be targeted on the subject. It’s like looking for something in the haystack but not knowing what to look for.
I could imagine a scenario as follows;
So here we are, I have quit my day job and started to write for a living, full time or almost. I have been trying to get published for a while but no success yet. I have sold some articles to magazines and things are going ok for now (the bills are being paid). Sporadic work on other things takes me away from writing and lack of concentration on that is affecting the result. My short stories have been mailed out to publishing companies but are being sent back and I don’t even know if the have red, it doesn’t look like it! So now what? What can I do next? Should I try to contact some people and let them know what I’m up to and ask for help? I don’t know yet. Maybe a little bit of information can be obtained if I’m careful about asking. I have heard about publishing online – maybe that’s the way to go?
So how do I publish online? Is that the right question to ask? Maybe I should ask “How do I sell my work online” type of a question? I don’t know much about this at all do I?

I think the right answer for a person like this will be a multi stage type of answer.
Sitting down and talking about it for a while and maybe explaining what goes into working online might shed some light on the way to go. Draw up a plan, make a budget and last but not least, take action and start.
I will follow this a bit further as things evolve and post back here.

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