I’ve been teaching City of Denver employees the ins and outs of navigating social media, and I’ve found that – just as with Great Escape members and workshop attendees – people have the same questions about how social media works. So, I thought I would share what seems to me to be some essential details on making social media happen in your life.

Guidelines are an editor’s way of getting what he or she needs from a freelance writer in order to produce a publication that contains the kind of information it’s known for offering, in a format that works for the publication and its readers. They’re carefully and thoughtfully crafted, specific to the point of being obsessive-compulsive, and packed with useful information that can connect a good writer with a byline. Let’s look more closely at some of the requirements of sample guidelines:

Sending your story or query to a publication without checking its guidelines is, simply put, a sad and annoying waste of an editor’s time – and yours. In the first of this two-part series, we’ll talk about why guidelines are so important.

When to send a story is one of the things that gets writers all in a tangle, but it doesn’t have to be so hard. There can be some immediacy required, though, and so it’s nice to have a sense of when the editor might be looking for stories for a particular issue or event. So, here are some other things to consider when deciding on the timing of a story or pitch

There often seems to be a disconnect between what we have experienced and what we think we should write about. But you can easily come up with 100 stories from any one trip, because as with most travel, there are almost endless possibilities for showcasing pieces of the trip, rather than trying to offer the whole enchilada.

Novice writers often display an insecurity about what should be included, and so in a “spaghetti against the wall” kind of way, they tend to throw everything up there to see what will stick. Ultimately, this takes away from a cohesive and coherent story. Here are three tips that will significantly cut back the extraneous stuff from your story.

When beginning writers suffer from “craminitis,” characterized by the overwhelming desire to ensure that nothing is left out by cramming absolutely everything into a story, it’s time to start thinking about ways to drill down to what the story should really be about. Here are some strategies for honing a travel story so that its intent is clear and appealing to readers.

Writers who are agreeable to working with a publication on requested changes are usually the most successful long-term – they get a reputation for being easy to work with and for striving to understand why changes might be necessary. Here are some tips for being the kind of writer who can take constructive criticism and use it to improve and prosper.

If you’re unwilling to try out an unfamiliar skill or add another competency to your repertoire, it can cost you – editors are famous for rejecting submissions from writers because a critical area of expertise is obviously missing. Here are five things every freelance travel writer should know how to do effectively.