The Qwertyrash Blogs

One of my assignments for my writing course involved making a list of ten useful websites for writers. I decided it would be good to post it online here as well.

My suggested top ten websites for writers and editors are:

A Newbies Guide to Publishing
jakonrath.blogspot.com
Joe Konrath is a author of crime fiction who shares his thoughts and experiences on writing. As an active writer, he provides thought provoking, challenging, and inspiring advice to writers at all stages of development. Joe does not pull any punches, telling it like it is, such that recently he discussed a an email from a reader who felt discouraged enough to give by the truth of how much work is involved in being a writer.

Victorian Writer’s Centre
www.writers-centre.org
The VWC “assists writers through the various stages of their development” by providing information on writing services and resources, including for a subscription, a monthly newsletter.

Lulu
www.lulu.com
Lulu provides an entirely new way to self-publish books. Authors upload their book and it is then printed on an as needs basis. Further, Lulu provides an online shop for the sale of books in its catalogue. Using Lulu, means self-publishing authors no longer have to print and buy a minimum quantity of their book.

FirstWriter.com
www.firstwriter.com
Firstwriter.com provides resources for writers to help get them published, such as databases of competitions, publishers, manuscript checking services and so on. To gain full access, Firstwriter.com charges a small monthly fee.

theWritersSite
www.thewriterssite.com
Another writers’ resource, this one though includes a list of writers’ blogs.

The Next Big Writer
www.thenextbigwriter.com
The Next Big Writer is a site where writers can post their work and other members will critique it. If it is particularly good, readers will also rank it. There is a small subscription fee for members who want to post work for review.

National Library of Australia
www.nla.gov.au
The National Library of Australia’s website provides help for researchers, historians, students and others to find information in their catalogue of 2.7 million books. Searches provide full information on books which can then be used to locate the book at other more accessible resources – assuming you don’t live in Canberra. If you can get to the NLA, online request can be made to view works in the NLA’s reading rooms.

Freelance Writing
www.freelancewriting.com
Freelance Writing provides information and resources for freelance writers, such as a magazine guidelines database, containing guidelines for over 700 different magazines.

Langberg Dictionaries
dictionary.langberg.com
The Langberg Dictionaries provides easy lookup of many online word services such as: Rhyming, Crossword, Scrabble, Quotations & Cliches, Anagram, Computing, Law, Synonyms, Antonyms, Related, Spelled Similarly, Similar Sounding, Substring, In Definition of, Connections, Intersection

World Book Online
www.worldbook.com
World Book provides a concise version of their knowledgebase online for free, but for US$49.95, subscribers get full access to the knowledgebase. There are also short term 3-day and 1 month subscriptions.