3rd Quarter 2022 Work-from-Home #IncomeReport $2,776

Welcome to another work-from-home Quarterly Income Report from The Published Parent, aka Kerrie at the McLoughlin household. 

My Hopes for You

First of all, it is my sincerest hope that you are doing well in every possible way. I assume you're here because you are a writer... or are at least someone who loves words. I hope you find something here that helps you realize your dreams, whether that is a post about time management, a post full of encouragement, a post of writing markets for your teenager, a list of great resources for writers, or a post about a new writing market for your own pitching pleasure. As always, you can email me at mommykerrie@yahoo.com if you would like to suggest post ideas!

What I've Been Doing

I am still working from home proofreading (scroll to the end of this post to find out about Fiverr), blogging (The Kerrie Show, Kerrie the Kitchen Queen, Homeschooling Mommybot, and here), writing parenting magazine articles, and writing/self-publishing books on Amazon and other places. To be able to work and make money at any time of the day or night, to be able to wear whatever I am comfortable in, and to be able to do all of this anywhere I like (in bed, at the dining room table, in the car, on the deck, while traveling, etc.) is a dream come true! 

Things have slowed down since I've become more involved at our homeschool co-op, so I'm hopeful that I'll find more time this summer to work on projects that are a labor of love for me. In case you don't know this about me, I have 5 children, and I have homeschooled all of them all the way through. I have graduated my 21-year-old and my 19-year-old, and they are both doing very well!

Learn more about my Self-Publishing Journey.

Why Do I Share My Income Here?

The reason I share my income from home with you to show you that I am a real person — a wife, mother, teacher, daughter, friend, neighbor — with unique challenges/setbacks and actual successes. While I do not earn the equivalent of a full-time income right now, but I am not actually aiming for that. I am grateful that my husband is employed and that my main job is homeschooling. 

Now it's time to take a peek at my financial records! Then you can find all sorts of other income reports down the side of the blog (I report monthly and also quarterly and annually).

7 Time Management Ideas for Writers at Home

Tonight I was doing random household tasks and thinking about how much writing and proofreading work I still had to do. I thought about all the laundry, dishes, meals, phone calls, errands, and details I handle or take care of every day and how friends and family often express their amazement that I can crank out articles and ebooks while homeschooling my kids.

And it came to me.

We all have the same amount of time every day (see Laura Vanderkam's book, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think). The difference is what we prioritize and how we spend our time budget.

Here are 7 tips for fitting it all in:

Write for Clubhouse Magazine

Focus on the Family Clubhouse is a 32-page magazine designed to inspire, entertain and teach Christian values to children ages 8-12. The magazine, which has a circulation of over 60,000, reaches young readers and their parents all over the world. Parents trust Clubhouse to provide wholesome, educational material with Scriptural or moral insight. The kids anticipate stories with excitement, adventure, action or humor. Your job, as a writer, is to create work that pleases both parents and children.

Fiction
Focus on the Family Clubhouse is a 32-page magazine designed to inspire, entertain and teach Christian values to children ages 8-12. The magazine, which has a circulation of over 60,000, reaches young readers and their parents all over the world. Parents trust Clubhouse to provide wholesome, educational material with Scriptural or moral insight. The kids anticipate stories with excitement, adventure, action or humor. Your job, as a writer, is to create work that pleases both parents and children.

Write for The New York Times Parenting Outlet

Jessica Grose informed me that she is not the lead editor in the Parenting department at this time. She also says these guidelines are not what they are looking for anymore, but she doesn't know exactly what they need. This is the post that is still live, unfortunately!

"I am thrilled to announce the NYT Parenting newsletter! For the next month or so, we'll be publishing the newsletter and a handful of articles each week. Then in early May, we will launch a beautiful, robust website. We'll be covering fertility and pregnancy up through kids age 5 or 6 and your lives with them, and giving you evidence-based guidance, news, and personal stories every day. It is my sincerest hope that the site will prevent you from a panicked 3 am google that lands you on a BabyCenter message board telling you that crystals and essential oils will heal your baby's rickets. The full site launches in May.

For general submissions please send to: parenting_submissions@nytimes.com

Rates depend on the type of piece.

What is NYTParenting?

Modeled after what the Times did with NYTCooking, NYTParenting will be a robust section of the Times website (parenting.nytimes.com) with new and archival content and a newsletter. NYTParenting is set to launch in Spring 2019.

We will mostly cover topics ranging from fertility and pregnancy to kids through ages 5 or 6, but we'll also be doing a lot of coverage on issues that affect parents of young children. 

We will have articles and essays, as well as guides — which are a content form with a specific structure and which are meant to answer thorny parenting problems in a service-y, research-backed way. For now, we’re mostly coming up with ideas for guides in-house.

A bit about us, philosophically:

• We are for parents who want evidence-based solutions to problems with their kids or with their own lives. We recognize that you had a baby — not a lobotomy. Your wants and needs still matter.
• We are for mothers AND fathers. Almost all parenting products are explicitly or implicitly gendered. Through design, editorial choices and framing, we will not be. We recognize that every family is different, and we are mindful of that.

What we're looking for:

Essays and articles in the 1,000 to 1,200-word range.

For articles, we're looking for timely ideas, whether they're cultural or trendy (What's the next baby shark? Why is everyone feeding their kid European formula?), based on new studies and how they affect parents (Are you really supposed to monitor your kid while they brush their teeth til they're 8?), or second-day stories on news events (How does family separation affect brain development?).

While we cover fertility through age 6, and will assign on topics affecting kids and parents in that range, we are especially focusing on the following topics in the near term for essays:

--How parenting has changed your identity, or how your identity has intersected with your parenting experience
--Relationships (with your partner, with your parents or in-laws, with your friends, with your first child when you have a second...)
--Life with babies and toddlers

We're also trying out an essay series called The Hardest Part

The Hardest Part will be a series of essays about the parts of parenting that you’ve found to be the most unexpectedly difficult, and how you worked through them (or didn't).

The tone can be as serious or as funny as the subject matter requires. It can be as straightforward as, "The hardest part of parenting is dealing with my kids during the winter," or "The hardest part of parenting is handling my kid's severe allergies," or as esoteric as, "The hardest part of parenting is how emotionally spent I feel at the end of each day.""

Have files of article reprints that you own but no clue where to start reselling them? Have ideas for some fantastic new pieces but no idea who might want them? Check out my resource with 600 markets! You can grab my instant download of "The Mother of All Writing Market Books" here.

Write for SheKnows: Parenting, Food, Home, Travel and Lifestyle + Black Mind & Body

SheKnows is looking for parenting, food, home, travel and lifestyle pitches. 

A fellow writer shared this about the pay rate: 

"The rate for lifestyle stories is $75-125 depending on length and whether or not the piece requires reporting."

How do Illustrated Children's Books Promote Holistic Learning?

 

Illustrated children's books are rich sources of information. They facilitate rich engagement and text construction, promote interaction between parent and child, and allow for meditation. These benefits can be attributed to recurring visual themes. In this article, you will learn how recurring visual themes in picture books promote holistic learning. 

Increases Reading Interest 

An illustrated children's book offers multiple sensory experiences that help children develop a strong sense of story. Children hear the story and see the pictures, and they can touch and smell the pages, all of which contribute to developing their sense of narrative. In addition, children can relate to stories about events and situations relevant to their age. Ultimately, picture books are an excellent way to promote holistic learning.

Write for Girls' Life Magazine

Girls' Life Magazine Writer's Guidelines from their website

Writer's Guidelines

For freelancers…
Want to get your pitch accepted? Read our “How to Pitch” article, courtesy of mediabistro.com!

The Rules
1. Girls' Life accepts unsolicited manuscripts on a speculative basis only. First, send an e-mail or letter query with detailed story idea(s). No telephone solicitations, please. Please familiarize yourself with the voice and content of Girls' Life before submitting.

2. Girls' Life magazine does not accept poetry submissions.

3. Every story should have a title, blurb and byline. Author's complete name, address, phone number and e-mail address must be provided on submission. Referrals for art sources are appreciated, if applicable.

4. Girls' Life conforms to The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. Manuscripts can be e-mailed in Microsoft Word. Documents should be double-spaced in 12-point Verdana font.

5. All research must rely on primary sources. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a complete list of sources, telephone numbers and reference materials, if applicable.

6. E-mail queries are responded to within 90 days. Girls' Life cannot be held responsible for the return of any unsolicited material.

7. Unless submission is stated to be a possible work for hire, submission will be considered property of Girls' Life magazine.

8. A memorandum of agreement is to be executed by both parties before payment is made.

Send all Girls’ Life magazine queries to:
Karen Bokram
Founding Editor and Publisher
Girls' Life magazine
3 S. Frederick St. Suite 806
Baltimore, MD 21202
writeforGL@girlslife.com

Write for Fit Pregnancy and Baby Magazine

As of the February 2016 issue, American Baby is no more and has merged with Fit Pregnancy to form ...

FIT PREGNANCY AND BABY!

Here are the submission guidelines from their website! 

FIT PREGNANCY  is a website covering health, nutrition, exercise, psychology, food, fashion and beauty issues related to pregnancy. It also includes editorial for parents of babies up to 2 years of age.

Queries should be specific. Read our website and be clear whether you are presenting an idea for a feature or a specific column.

Features (1,000 - 1,800 words) cover broad, timely topics. Features for which we accept freelance writing include:

Prenatal Fitness:
Pregnancy-safe workout programs

You and Your Baby:
• A feature story about postpartum issues.
• A postpartum exercise story (often includes weight loss).
• A story pertaining to breastfeeding issues.
• Baby Pages (baby-care issues, with emphasis on the first six weeks)

Parenting Journalists Conference May 20, 2022 (online)

Do you want to:

* connect with editors of top parenting publications, 

* discover a community of writers and creators who make a good living doing what they love, and 

* learn insider secrets to promoting your work, getting paid to speak and more? 

Register today for the live, online Parenting Journalists Conference on May 20 and unlock a package that includes interactive workshops and networking opportunities, roundtable conversations, master classes and access to a private Facebook group.

We’re excited to be joined by writers and editors for publications such as PBS Kids, New York Magazine, New York Times, Parents, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Post and more for a one- day conference that’s designed to be accessible to as many people as possible. Each workshop is by journalists, for journalists, offering clear takeaways and actionable advice. 

How to Organize Your Published Magazine Article Tearsheets

Are tearsheets even a thing anymore? I checked YouTube to find out how to organize my published magazine article tearsheets and just found out how people were organizing pages they'd torn out of magazines for later reading. 🤔

Back in the olden days, you needed them to send out with queries to show that you had worked with a magazine, but these days so much is online or they don't even care what you've done before. It's rare that they even get sent out anymore. But, according to this piece, The Basics of the Magazine Tear Sheet, you should definitely still be keeping them.

Now the challenge is this: how do you organize them?

If you're like me, you keep at least one tearsheet from each article you've had published. But when you've got over 125 articles published, how do you organize them so you know which reprints to resend each year to editors in a timely manner so they can consider them for upcoming issues?

Well ... I used to file everything in a stand-up system like a milk crate or a tubs where you can store hanging file folders. I spent a lot of time creating ONE manila file folder per article. After over 100 articles, that turned into a bit of a mess—and here's why... 

I tried to organize them by topic, which got confusing and arduous for my already overtaxed brain. A birthday tearsheet easily went into the BIRTHDAY, but a tearsheet about sending teens to camp would be both a TEEN and a CAMP piece. What if your TEEN has a BIRTHDAY at CAMP? Forget about it because now your brain has just exploded with too many organizational possibilities! 😂

Now take a little dance break and 
check out Suzannah Windsor Freeman's 
piece titled 
6 Organization Tips for Disorganized Writers

Tell me about your article organization system (digital and physical paper). Or come on over to my Parenting Magazine Writers Group on Facebook and share there!

Image by Ro Ma from Pixabay 

My Self-Publishing Journey with Amazon and Beyond

Self-publishing is such a deep subject! There is a lot more involved than just the writing. Marketing, for example, is very important, as are editing and proofreading. I'm currently considering hiring an AdWords management company to help me with my marketing efforts so I can really get the word out about my self-published books.

I asked my writer friend Chris Lienke if I could use her questions as a basis for this post, then I'll sprinkle in some others as well. She says, "I'm considering publishing a writing book ... but need some details like this before spending too much time on it."  Here are some of her questions:

Write for Western New York Family Magazine

 

Western New York Family Magazine is looking for writers for their 2022 issues. See guidelines below, and click here to see the specific information about their 2022 needs.

Western New York Family

Buffalo, NY – monthly

http://wnyfamilymagazine.com

michele@wnyfamilymagazine.com

Current as of July 2020 

Thank you for your interest in Western New York Family Magazine, which was founded in 1984 as an 8-page newsletter called "Mother's Lifeline." Now running 64-80 pages per issue, WNY Family is a 90% freelance-written, subscription and free courtesy copy publication — both in a conventional "hard copy" print edition and an online "3D" digital edition. Our print edition has a monthly audited circulation of 20,000 copies concentrated in Erie and Niagara Counties of the Buffalo, New York metro area. As of July 2020, we have almost 7,000 digital readers monthly. 

The Published Parent 2021 #IncomeReport

Welcome to my 2021 income report. I love to know how others are doing in my industries, and I enjoy sharing my own successes and challenges. I hope this inspires you in some way!

I'd love to hear your income goals for 2022, so please share those in the comments. As I get more organized in my homeschooling, my home, and my business, I'm finding more time to work on passion projects that can bring in money, such as my cookbooks and books about things like homeschooling with less stress and more fun, etc., although I have to admit this year will see me working on a handbook for our homeschool co-op and also an operations manual (both sorely needed!).

My income was down this year due to taking on more at the homeschool co-op and taking on the teaching of two high school classes (Grammar/Comp and Modern World History), but every bit is helpful around my place! Here are the figures from 2021: