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Providing Much-Needed Relief For Frustrated Writers

Being a writer is hard work. In addition to the often grueling creative process, writers who wish to be published also have to research markets, request guidelines, prepare cover letters, and track submissions. Finding a potential publisher is a complicated process that causes many writers to throw up their arms in frustration. Many writers love to write, but absolutely hate the business of writing. One has to wonder how many great writers are being stifled because of the administrative tasks required to get their work into print.

(PRWEB) April 29, 2005 -- Being a writer is hard work. In addition to the often grueling creative process, writers who wish to be published also have to research markets, request guidelines, prepare cover letters, and track submissions. Finding a potential publisher is a complicated process that causes many writers to throw up their arms in frustration. Many writers love to write, but absolutely hate the business of writing. One has to wonder how many great writers are being stifled because of the administrative tasks required to get their work into print.

Enter Writer's Relief, a unique business that caters to these frustrated authors. "We spend an enormous amount of time researching and targeting appropriate markets for our clients' work, freeing up their time to write. In addition, we work with our clients to prepare their manuscripts to meet industry standards," says Ronnie L. Smith, president and founder of Writer's Relief. "We help fill in the blanks so that writers have more time to write."    

Smith's team prepares and submits manuscripts for writers of all kinds. "Most writers are not good at promoting their own work," says Smith. "They're good at creating; we're great at marketing." In addition to helping writers prepare book proposals so they can query agents, Writer's Relief proofreads and submits poetry or short stories/essays to literary journals.

One of the toughest things that writers have to deal with is rejection. Writer's Relief has a different way of looking at the large amount of rejection that most authors have to go through at some point. "Rejection letters don't bother us," Smith says. "In fact, we view them as steps bringing a writer closer to publication. Each rejection brings you closer to acceptance."
   
Literary journals have a 99 percent rejection rate, but Writer's Relief's track record defies the odds. "You often have to make 100 submissions before you get one 'yes,'" says Smith. Out of their 300 current writer clients, Writer's Relief has gotten 268 of them published.

Writer's Relief was founded eleven years ago by Ronnie L. Smith, who created the business after a crippling bout with vertigo. As she slowly recovered through physical and occupational therapy, a friend asked her to submit the friend's poetry to magazines. "I'd literally crawl to the computer," Smith says. Much to her friend's delight, the poems were published in highly-respected journals.

Other clients followed, and a business was born. Soon, Smith moved from her mother's garage to larger offices. Today she has hundreds of clients and ten employees, ranging in age from 23 to 81. "Our business is unusual in that we all still like to come to work every day and so do our dogs," Smith says.

In addition to maintaining a worker-friendly job environment, Smith is proud of the work they do. "It makes me happy to give media voices to people who have none," says Smith, who is fearless when choosing to take on clients. She makes a special effort to work with writers whose "voices are traditionally not heard," such as people with disabilities, racial minorities, feminists, and gays. "Their work has a very particular voice," she says. "Our writers have a lot to say." Smith plans to continue opening doors for scribes everywhere.

For more information or to set up an interview with Ronnie L. Smith, please contact Jay Wilke at 727-443-7115, ext. 223.

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Source :  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb234322.htm