I have quite a few ideas for articles about writing, but I've never been published and I have no credentials. Would this be any more of a barrier for writing articles about writing than it would be in another subject?
If you wrote an article about fly fishing, I would (as an editor) expect you to have gone out at least once and given it a try.
If you wrote about cooking, I would expect you to have made that recipe.
If you have a travel piece, I would expect you to have visited the area.
Non-fiction demands hands-on experience.
Fiction does not. (I do a lot of research and fake the rest!)
Yesterday I was contacted by someone from a major news organization who wanted to do a TV report on me walking around a city and pointing out the places that appear in one of my book series. I let her know I'd been in that city twice and made the rest up with help from the library and Google maps.
As a fiction writer I can get away with it. (Apparently rather well, too!)
As a fact reporter, she could not, so I had to say no. Though I'd have
loved to do such a thing, I wouldn't lie to her.
An article on writing will hold more weight when you have sold something. You can take your chance and hope the article is good enough to sell, but expect the editor to look you up to see what else you've sold, fiction or non-fiction. If it's a choice between you (with no creds) and another writer (who sold a short stringer piece to his local paper) the other guy will probably get the sale.
Consider that your first bucket of cold reality. Write something and sell it, then write about how to write.
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About ten years ago a couple of high energy gals came to my writing group. It was a small group, five out of six were pro published; they were friends with the hostess and had wrangled an invitation.
They'd found a small publisher (no advance, pay in royalties) for their how-to book on writing. They'd put
work into it, gotten a professional edit, and hoped that the published pros in the group might trib a nice cover quote.
I flipped through the galley. My first question was the same as you'd get from any editor: "What else have you sold?"
There was so much spin tossed in that room it could have been a yo-yo convention.
After a bit--me repeating the same question, first in disbelief, then in growing annoyance--they finally admitted they hadn't sold anything, finished anything else, or gotten so much as a letter to the editor published. This was their first effort.
I then asked: "What's wrong with that picture? Is your publisher aware you've got absolutely no practical experience at writing, and yet you're attempting to sell a book about how to write?"
More spin. Their book was aimed at beginners in writing. Really
early beginners. It had info on how to set up a work space, how to organize your day, music and books for inspiration, and what kinds of food to nibble to keep the brain going.
Oooooo-kay. The cover copy indicated there was information on the submission process (a few lines inside rather than a chapter) and what to look for in an agent (get an honest one!), which I consider far more important than how to manage Post It notes and snacks. Their lack of experience prompted, "How can you in good conscience sell this to the public when you've never sold a word in the professional market?
No real reply. It was painful to watch.
My point taken, I said I could not, in good conscience, do a cover quote. If they came back in a year with *some* kind of pro sales under their belt and showed me a draft that included what they'd learned from the experience, then I would certainly reconsider. Otherwise they were a couple of virgins selling a how-to sex manual at the Mustang Ranch. (Not unheard of, but I'm sure such books are there as a joke.)
Later I saw them at a convention selling a book, but it wasn't THAT book. They compiled a list of hundreds of titles broken down by genre, author, author pen names, and general themes. In their original book, this section had only been a few pages long; this version was over 100 pages. The research was excellent, culled from their personal collections and that of their many friends.
They'd turned lemons into lemonade by writing about something they
knew, printing it at Kinkos. It made a big difference, and I even bought a copy.
Oh, the original book deal fell through. Seems their publisher was just as much an amateur as they and went out of business. I was not at all surprised.