WRITING-WORLD.COM: A WEBSITE REVIEW
When I became familiar with the Internet, one of the first web sites I looked for was none other than Writing-World.com. In between classes in college, I would trek down to the basement of the building that housed the English department and go to the computer lab.
Writing-World.com drew me in and taught me a lot more about writing than I had learned in freshman comp and even in reading Writer’s Digest. It still draws people in.
Benefits of the site include a free monthly newsletter. Articles for the newsletter are written by Moira Allen, who maintains the site, and other freelance writers. As a side note, Writing-World.com is a paying market.
According to the contributor guidelines on the site, there are over 600 articles archived. They are divided by type, date, and level of experience. The articles deal with such topics as the business of freelance writing, screenwriting, and publishing your book, to name a few. Articles discussing fiction are further divided by genre.
If you are a subscriber to the Writing-World.com newsletter and have had a book published, there is a section on the website where your book could be listed. There are instructions on how to contact them to get it listed on the “contact us” page, which opens in a new window, so be certain you either don’t have pop-ups disabled or press the control button on your keyboard while you click the “contact us” link.
The main disadvantage to the site is all of the ads that figuratively jump out at the reader. There are eight ads going down each margin, a medium-sized banner ad at the top of the page, and a very large banner ad at the bottom. Most of the navigation links are under the Writing-World.com banner at the top and are not affected by the ads. However, with the animation and changing colors, they are still distracting.
According to a report from Dead-Links.com, there are over 300 broken links on the site. In taking a closer look at the report, most of the broken links lead to Amazon.com and are likely to books being removed because of Amazon’s POD policy or because they are out of print.
Honestly, ads and broken links aside, I’m glad to have rediscovered this site. I have some reading to catch up on. Be careful when typing the address, though, and include that hyphen. Otherwise, as I discovered, you’ll land at a website advertising writing classes.
Rating: * * * *
# # #
Jen Nipps writes from Ada, Oklahoma. She is a member of the Tulsa NightWriters, McAlester McSherry Writers, and Web Writing Wonders. Her web sites are www.jenifernipps.com and www.theideapocket.com.
———
(Previously published in the OWFI Report, March 2009.)
Filed under: revisions , Jen Nipps, jennipps, Oklahoma Writers' Federation, OWFI, reviews, writing, Writing-World.com
