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Wynelda-Ann Deaver

79 Paying Markets for Essays, Columns and Creative Non-Fiction
By: Cheryl Paquin
.PDF Format
Available only at: http://notes-to-self.com/orders.html
$7.95 Paypal Only (Master Card and Visa accepted)

I have never reviewed a book that was only available as an e-book. I guess I was just saving myself up to let you all in on a wonderful secret. I’m happy to announce that secret is 79 Paying Markets for Essays, Columns and Creative Non-Fiction by Cheryl Paquin.

As some of you may know, I dabble in non-fiction. Mostly essays, and of course my book reviews here. I’ve never quite known how to structure a personal essay, though. Somehow the topic sentence drilled into me during school didn’t quite seem appropriate. And even if I did manage to write one worth publishing, where would I send it?

I’ve seen the link for Cheryl Paquin’s 79 Paying Markets but never quite had the guts to buy it. That changed a week ago, and I do not regret it one bit. The article “How to Write Winning First-Person Stories” alone was worth the price of the e-book. It gives step-by-step directions how to write and structure a personal essay, and I have used it to start freshening up some of my essays. (There is another article on writing where you live included as well.)

The markets are broken down by category and are listed in alphabetical order. Information is given freely on each market, along with a web address for more information. The web addresses are clickable as well—if you have an open Internet connection, then they will take you directly to the page requested.

A few notes on the technical side of downloading the book. As it only comes in .PDF format, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader (a free download from Adobe) in order to read it. As mentioned in the details above, the only place that 79 Paying Markets is available is at: http://notes-to-self.com/orders.html. The only payment option is via Paypal. Personally, I used my debit card as a Visa and paid for it that way at the Paypal site (linked via the order page). I found it fairly easy, but that is only my experience. Others have not had good experiences with Paypal. Once payment was received, I was emailed my copy of the e-book within a few hours. If you are not able to download large attachments (it was 300 KB), then you may want to reconsider buying the book. E-books cannot be returned.

Still, if you sold just one essay, you would easily recoup the price of the book several times over. For me, it was well worth it to have the resources available to learn how to write the personal essay and the markets that are looking for them.