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To Enter or Not to Enter Writing Contests (writing contests) If you are a freelance writer, it is because you love to write. Why not put those abilities to use and enter a writing contest? You have nothing to loose and a lot to gain. You can find writing contests by simply searching the Internet. Writing groups and message boards may also have listing for these contests. No matter what you writing genre maybe poetry, fiction, non fiction, there is a contest out there for you. Read about them and choose which ones are right for you. It is not necessarily about winning or loosing but about the experience and knowledge that you gain to get there. Whether you win or not there are still valuable things that can be learned or gained by entering into contests. Entering writing contests will help you hone the skills that you have. Try something new, you may choose to write in a niche that you normally wouldn’t. You get constructive criticism from someone new. Someone that doesn’t have to worry about hurting your feelings and that is unbiased can be a wonderful asset to your career. The feedback you receive can be invaluable to you. It will get your name out there and give you a place to showcase your work. Depending on how good your story, if you make it to the next round your writings could be in front of editors and agents. This feedback and criticism is even more important than the first. Do not your eggs all in one basket. Enter a couple contests to get multiple feedback sources. Not every editor or agent is going to agree. By entering multiple contests and find common points about your writing that need perfecting you will be able to concentrate on a general consensus about your abilities. There are some downsides to entering writing contests, too. Chances are that a simple contest is not going to launch your career into star status. Do your research just as if you were going to write an article about contests. For many contests you give up your rights to your entry whether it wins or not. You need to decide whether or not you are willing to give up all rights to your story. If you win it is not a big deal, but if you loose your giving your work away. Are you willing to do this? Research the contest. You can search the Internet for reports or opinions on contests run by the company. You can find valuable information on if the contest is legitimate, if entering has had any effect of previous entrant’s careers, and if it is really worth it in the long run. The bigger and well-established companies will give credibility to your work if you win. But the bigger and more well know the companies are will also bring in tougher competition with well know authors. Some companies offer contests as a disguise. Yes they will give away prizes and declare winners but their main goal with the contest is advertising. It can be in the form of offering you to buy obscure book featuring your contest submission. Sometimes it is an editing company that offers a discount for its services or a company that will offer you discounts on writing classes. A writing contest is just a possible stepping stone. Whether it helps you or not is the unknown, but it definitely won’t hurt you. It may help you reach the next level of your career. You and only you will be able to make the decision on whether or not writing contests are a good move for your career.

The Options For Online Creative Writing Courses (online creative writing courses) Online courses are ever growing in popularity. Many consumers don’t have the patience, money, or time to attend regular college classes, so many of them has turned to the Internet as their means of education. The online course phenomenon is especially helpful for many writers, as more and more writers find it both convenient and helpful to take online creative writing courses. Online courses are also known as distance learning courses, because of course the student is not in the classroom, or even the school when the course is taken. These distance courses have been seen as one of the best ways for a busy writer to brush up on their skills or learn new ones. Taking creative writing courses gives writers many options, such as working at their own pace. Many writers are too busy to attend class and enjoy the freedom giving by online courses. The distance courses give students the freedom to work at their own pace while learning everything that is needed. Students also don’t have a set time for the courses, so they may choose when they want to learn. An online course gives the writer time to fulfil all of their other duties. Online creative writing courses are easy to find, and there are plenty of programs offered by online writing schools. Writers Weekly University is one online school that offers creative writing courses for the busy writer. The university offers e-mail courses for freelance writers and aspiring novelists. They offer courses such as The Art of the Press Release, Finish Your Novel in eight Weeks, and How to Write a Cookbook and Sell It. Published writers and editors usually teach the online courses offered by Writers Weekly University. The courses may be inexpensive, and typically range from $25 to $745, but the price is based on the length and complexity of the course. Writers’ Village University is also a school that offers online creative writing courses. Writers’ Village University is one of the most popular sources for online writing courses, and offers more than 250 courses. The courses offered by this university are paid for in a non-traditional way. There is no payment required for the actual courses taken, but instead a membership fee, which gives writers unlimited access to hundreds of online creative writing courses. The Writers’ Village University is also one of the most inexpensive with a membership fee of $69 per year or $10.99 per month, which for many is less than the cost for Internet access. The university offers courses in fiction writing, comedy writing, literature, business writing, and poetry. However, the schools for writers don’t stop with the Writers’ Village. There are many more online schools that offer writing courses to consumers. Writers Online Workshops is also an online writing university that offers writers the creative courses they want and need. This university is facilitated by Writer’s Digest, and the courses are said to be taught by the best writers. The creative writing courses at this university range from fiction writing to business writing to poetry to composition. The Writers Online Workshops are far more expensive than other online creative writing courses, and typically start at $200. The courses provided by this university also require textbooks, so students will feel as if they are attending a regular university. Online creative writing courses may not be for every writer, but they can help a writer improve their skills while obtaining some education in the field they love. The courses may not be foolproof, but they may be a great benefit to every writer who wants to take them and wants to learn more about writing.

Got Java on the Brain? Get Free Coffee Products! There are many wonderful web pages on the Internet that help their users and visitors to free products. Some of the pages hold links to free samples; others offer coupons and advice on how to get free products. If it is Java that is on ones mind and one is looking for free coffee products, there might just the right web page on the Internet for that. Finding pages that offer free java, is as easy as drinking a cup of coffee. Internet savvy persons just need to enter the words free coffee into any of the Internet search engines and a variety of great pages will pop up on the search screen. Coffee pages offer samples, links to samples, coupons and more on their sites. Any coffee lover has the chance to try a great variety of new and fancy coffees. The Internet pages that offer free coffee samples are updated frequently, so that links should not be outdated and new products are listed as soon as they appear on the market. As with so many pages on the Internet, these web sites rely on their users to help out with new sample tips, coupon tips and promotion dates. Users are asked to contact the web page master whenever there is a link that is not working, so that that link can be fixed or removed. Users are also encouraged to send in any data about free samples, links to company pages that offer free coffee and even links to coupons and deals that are unbeatable. Since free coffee is sometimes hard to get too and there are only that many free samples that coffee lovers can get a hold of, many of the free coffee sites also offer other great free deals and links to coupons and samples, so that it is anyways a good idea to visit the free coffee sites. For coffee lovers it is also important to check out their local coffee stores. Many of the stores have promotions, such as an advertisement campaign, where free coffee in connection with other products might be available. Just recently one of the major coffee chains had an ongoing promotion, where coffee lovers bought their friends a coup of coffee and they themselves received their drink of equal or lesser value for free. This might have been a way of the company to lure m ore new customers, but in the end it meant a free coffee for one of the two friends. Sometimes it is a promotion at one of the local festivals, where coupons and vouchers for free coffees are handed out. How about a free coffee with breakfast? Some of the major breakfast places offer a free complimentary coffee, when a breakfast or a breakfast sandwich is bought. For the person that every once in a while or maybe even every morning gets a breakfast sandwich, a bagel or a doughnut at one of the many restaurants this is a good deal. By the way, if coffee is not the desired morning drink, but rather teas, the websites and coffee shops also offer free tea and free tea samples. Even though it is more rare, the pages also offer samples for hot chocolate and new chocolate drink creations that can replace coffee or tea for the ones who rather like it sweet and chocolaty with their breakfast. Whichever one if desired, it is well worth checking out the Internet pages online that offer free samples. Free samples are the way for the customer to try without buying. After all, no one would buy a car before it was not test-driven, so here is the chance to test-drink coffees and more.