The toughest challenge for most writers is not style, voice, technique, ideas, or other aspects of writing to the standards of today’s editors, but marketing. Its importance cannot be overstated. 

In our program, you are guided by a nationally published writer who knows the ins and outs of marketing to editors—one who is also trained as an instructor—on the road to publication. 

By “marketing,” we mean the crucial process of targeting a genre or category of writing, finding the “right” editors of your targeted publications, formatting your manuscript to each editor’s specifications, following that editor’s do’s and don’ts to the letter, and presenting your work to him or her in a clearly professional form. 

You’ll learn the process that gets your words accepted by editors, rather than rejected.

More than 1,200 of our students and graduates have been published across the spectrum of more than 1,800 publications that accept freelance writing—because we are very successful in integrating marketing instruction with writing instruction. You learn both of them together. 

As a student, eight of your assignments will require you to study and identify a specific category of publication, if not a specific magazine editor, as your “target market”—before you begin to write. 

Create manuscripts to meet the standards
of specific publications

These assignments are “real” and designed for publication. Hundreds of our students and graduates have revised these eight assignments, based on their instructor’s edits and critiques, and sold one or more of them.

You also study current publications from your target market, or genre, for content and “voice,” looking for flavor and style, among other things.We are in regular contact with all major editors who buy freelance work. They describe the profile of their readers, tell us what they want more of and which topics to avoid; they specify their allowable word count, their individual do’s and don’ts, and provide you with direct insights into their needs and preferences. 

We update and publish 744 pages of this valuable information every year, provide it to you as part of your course materials, and teach you how to use it to get your writing published.

At Long Ridge Writers Group, we regard publication as the definition of success, and we do everything in our power to help you to gain that goal. Publication is standard we use because publication demonstrates true achievement and professional recognition, whether or not you decide to continue as a freelance writer. 

And when your writing is published, you become part of that hallowed fellowship of men and women who share their stories and ideas with tens, hundreds, or thousands of readers.

Pass our Writing Test and Receive our Promise

We begin the process with a challenge: You must pass our Writing Test in order to enroll in our program. So, clearly, we begin with superior students. In passing our Writing Test, each of them has demonstrated the potential to produce publishable work. We then pair each student with a nationally published writer or editor, whom we have trained to teach our course, to work with you until you graduate.

By the time you finish our  program, we promise that you will complete at least two manuscripts suitable  to submit to editors, and you’ll also write a character  sketch, plans for six stories and articles, and eight complete manuscripts.