赚钱写作：规划下一篇文章的技巧-CSDN博客

If you have expertise with web technologies, there’s good money to be made writing for online publications like SitePoint.

如果您具有Web技术方面的专业知识，那么可以为SitePoint等在线出版物撰写丰厚的收入。

Don’t worry if you feel you’re not a great writer. The most important thing is your knowledge and enthusiasm for your subject.

如果您觉得自己不是一个伟大的作家，请不要担心。最重要的是您对学科的知识和热情。

As an editor for SitePoint, I’ve compiled a list of the most important things to consider when planning and pitching your article idea.

作为SitePoint的编辑器，我整理了一份最重要的清单，以供您计划和推广您的文章构想时考虑。

决定写些什么 (Deciding What to Write About)

Not every topic is suited for an article, so start with some planning and research. Here are some things to focus on.

并非每个主题都适合一篇文章，因此请进行一些计划和研究。这里有一些重点。

了解你的主题 (Know your subject)

Think about what you’re best qualified to write about. Sure, you can do some research on a topic you don’t know much about and then knock out an article. But it’s better to write about something you’re intimately familiar with, as it lends depth and authority to your writing.

考虑一下您最有资格撰写的内容。当然，您可以对不太了解的主题进行一些研究，然后撰写一篇文章。但是最好写一些您熟悉的东西，因为它可以为您的写作增添深度和权威。

选择一个合适的话题 (Pick an appropriate topic)

The internet is full of amazing blog posts on all kinds of topics, some of them pretty niche — which is fantastic, and long may it last! But when writing for money, it’s important to remember that your publisher can’t afford to pay for content that few will read.

互联网上到处都是关于各种主题的令人惊叹的博客文章，其中有些非常漂亮-太棒了，而且可以持续很长时间！但是，当您花钱写作时，请务必记住，您的出版商负担不起很少阅读的内容。

You can help your chances of getting published by ensuring there’s widespread interest in your topic. As an expert in a particular area, you should have a feel for what’s trending, and the kind of information people are currently looking for.

您可以通过确保对该主题的广泛兴趣来帮助获得出版机会。作为特定领域的专家，您应该对流行趋势以及人们正在寻找的信息类型有所了解。

For programming languages, there will always be new specifications, libraries, modules and APIs to explain, new techniques to explore, better ways to get things done, and new solutions to common problems. And there will always be a demand for new insights into Design and UX, Accessibility, Entrepreneurship, Content and Marketing.

对于编程语言，总是会有新的规范，库，模块和API来解释，探索新技术，更好地完成工作以及针对常见问题的新解决方案。始终需要对设计和用户体验，可访问性，创业精神，内容和市场营销有新的见解。

A good way to gauge current interest in a topic is to look at what’s happening on news groups, social media, forums and so on. I often get pitches for topics that used to create a buzz but are now basically old news. Ask yourself whether your proposed article could have been written one or more years ago. If so, it’s probably better to focus on what’s changed since then — especially given how fast web technologies and practices are evolving. (Of course, a new take on an old topic is an exception, but it takes skill to make a splash with these.)

衡量当前对某个主题的兴趣的一种好方法是查看新闻组，社交媒体，论坛等上正在发生的事情。我经常向那些曾经引起轰动但现在基本上已经是老新闻的话题发声。 问问自己，您提出的文章是否可以写在一年前或更多年前。 如果是这样，最好关注此后发生的变化，尤其是考虑到Web技术和实践的发展日新月异。 (当然，对旧主题的新见解是个例外，但要用这些技巧引起轰动，就需要技巧。)

以前做过吗？ (Has it been done before?)

Ideally, choose a topic that needs more coverage generally. If a topic has recently been done to death across the web, it may not be the best choice, even if your publisher is yet to cover it. At least try to offer something new on the topic, or a different angle, and highlight this in your pitch.

理想情况下，选择通常需要更多报道的主题。如果某个主题最近在网上引起了轰动，那么即使您的发布者尚未涉及它，它也不是最佳选择。至少尝试提供有关该主题的新内容或其他角度，并在您的演讲中突出显示。

It’s also a really good idea to check if your topic has already been covered by your publisher. Search their site, either through their internal search tools or via Google, like so:

检查您的主题是否已被发布者覆盖也是一个非常好的主意。通过其内部搜索工具或通过Google搜索其网站，如下所示：

site:sitepoint.com my topic idea

If the topic has been covered, all is not lost. You could argue the previous articles are out of date, or that you have a different slant on the topic that’s worth publishing. This can be very helpful to the editor.

如果涵盖了主题，则不会丢失所有内容。您可以说以前的文章已经过时，或者您对值得发表的话题有不同的看法。这对编辑器可能非常有帮助。

考虑你的听众 (Consider your audience)

To communicate effectively, it’s important to be clear about who you’re writing for. Ask yourself the following questions:

为了有效地进行沟通，重要的是要清楚您要写的是谁。问问自己以下问题：

What should the reader already know in order to be able to follow along?
读者应该已经知道什么才能继续学习？
What skills or knowledge should the reader come away with after reading?
读者阅读后应该掌握哪些技能或知识？

You’re not ready to write your article until you can answer these questions. Having a clear idea of your audience is critical for choosing a topic and how to approach it. A successful article meets readers where they are, and makes it clear where you’re taking them.

在回答这些问题之前，您还没准备好写文章。对受众有一个清晰的想法对于选择一个主题以及如何处理它至关重要。一篇成功的文章可以满足读者的需求，并明确说明您将他们带到何处。

When pitching a topic to your editor, the more you can demonstrate you’ve considered the points mentioned above, the better the chances of your topic being approved.

向编辑推荐主题时，您能证明自己已经考虑到上述要点的内容越多，则主题获得批准的机会就越大。

撰写大纲 (Writing an Outline)

Along with your topic pitch, I highly recommend you include an outline of your article. This really helps an editor assess the viability of the topic. It also helps you to plan your writing and to ensure it has a clear purpose and goal.

除了主题演讲外，我强烈建议您附上文章的大纲。这确实有助于编辑人员评估主题的可行性。它还可以帮助您计划写作并确保其目的和目标明确。

An outline is like a skeleton, showing an article’s limbs and bones. It’s similar to what you’d glean by quickly scanning a finished article: the title and main headings give you a sense of what the article covers, and the first line of each paragraph gives you a bit more detail.

轮廓像骨架，显示了文章的四肢和骨头。这与您通过快速扫描完成的文章所要收集的内容相似：标题和主要标题使您对文章的内容有所了解，每段的第一行为您提供了更多细节。

Try to write an outline without referring to notes. If you can’t, it probably means you’re not quite on top of the topic yet, and that you need to do some more thinking, planning or research.

尝试写大纲而不参考注释。 如果不能，则可能意味着您尚未完全掌握该主题，还需要进行更多的思考，规划或研究。

So let’s look at the elements of an effective outline. At the end of this section, I’ll include the outline I used for this article as an example.

因此，让我们看一下有效大纲的元素。在本节的最后，我将以本文使用的大纲为例。

标题 (Title)

An editor will help you with the title, but it’s still a good idea to put thought into this yourself. A title can make or break an article. Try to capture the essence of the topic in a way that will attract readers and also maximize its SEO potential. Longer titles of around 50 or 60 characters are preferable to shorter ones.

编辑会为您提供标题的帮助，但您自己想一想仍然是一个好主意。标题可以使文章成败。尝试以吸引读者并最大化其SEO潜力的方式捕捉主题的本质。大约50或60个字符的较长标题优于较短的标题。

介绍 (Introduction)

A good introduction is crucial. It gives readers a clear idea of what the article is about, why it’s important, whether or not it’s relevant to them, and what they can hope to learn from it.

一个好的介绍至关重要。它使读者清楚地了解该文章的内容，为什么重要，它是否与他们相关以及他们希望从中学到什么。

Your outline should include a brief list that covers these points clearly.

您的大纲应包括简要列出这些要点的简短列表。

标题 (Headings)

The main headings of your article are really important, and you should be able to list them in an outline when pitching a topic. Readers often scan headings to get an overview of an article, so they should give a clear sense of what the article covers.

文章的主要标题确实很重要，在推介主题时，您应该能够在大纲中列出它们。读者经常浏览标题以获取文章的概述，因此他们应该清楚地了解文章的内容。

As with the main title, word them carefully, so that they clearly summarize what’s to follow.

与主标题一样，请谨慎地对它们进行措辞，以便它们清楚地总结要遵循的内容。

列出讨论要点 (Listing discussion points)

Under each heading, list the main points you’ll be making. These list items may or may not represent actual paragraphs, but it’s useful to think of them like that. Often readers will scan headings and then the first words of each paragraph, which should give a sense of what they contain.

在每个标题下，列出您要提出的要点。这些列表项可能代表实际的段落，也可能不代表实际的段落，但是像这样考虑它们很有用。读者通常会先扫描标题，然后再扫描每个段落的开头的单词，以便对它们所包含的内容有所了解。

结论 (Conclusion)

It’s always good to round off an article with some concluding thoughts — such as ones that help to elucidate, clarify or reiterate the main points made in the article, and that point readers to what they can do next.

最好以一些总结性的思想作为结尾，例如有助于阐明，阐明或重申本文中要点的思想，使读者了解下一步的工作。

Your outline should include a simple list of these concluding points.

您的大纲应包括这些结论点的简单列表。

演示大纲 (Demo outline)

As an example, here’s the outline I put together for this article. I didn’t want to start writing until I had this clear overview of the article.

例如，这是我为本文整理的大纲。在没有这篇文章的清晰概述之前，我不想开始写作。

[title] 
Writing for Money: Tips for Planning Your Next Article Pitch

[intro]
- good money to be made writing for online publications
- knowledge and enthusiasm more important than writing skills
- in this article: things to consider when planning and pitching your article idea


## Deciding What to Write About

### Know your subject
- focus on what you're qualified to write about

### Pick an appropriate topic
- some blog topics are too niche to work as articles
- focus on what's of current interest/trending: specs, libraries, techniques etc.
- avoid "old news" topics

### Has it been done before?
- has the topic been done to death? Has the publisher covered the topic already? Try at least to offer a unique angle

### Consider your audience
- be clear about what you expect your audience to know, and what they'll get from the article


## Writing an Outline
- helps you and your editor
- provides a skeleton for scanning
- if you can't write it without notes, do more planning

### Title
- think about appropriate titles

### Intro
- put your readers in the picture

### Headings
- your headings should provide a summary of the article

### Listing discussion points
- Under each heading, list the main points you'll be making

### Conclusion
- list concluding thoughts that round off the article

### Demo outline
- use this outline as a demo


## Other Things to Consider

### Don't skip the outline
- jumping straight into writing is tougher for you and the editor in the long run

### Be flexible
- remember the business side of article writing. You're serving readers, not yourself


## Wrap-up
- don't be put off
- take responsibility for quality control; write about what you know well
- demonstrate your understanding of the topic and audience with a logical outline

其他要考虑的事情 (Other Things to Consider)

The two main things I wanted to cover in this article were choosing a topic and writing an outline. But there are some further points worth mentioning.

我想在本文中介绍的两件事是选择一个主题并编写大纲。但是还有其他几点值得一提。

不要跳过大纲 (Don’t skip the outline)

If you know your topic really well, you may be tempted to skip the outline and just write the article. However, it’s much harder to rework a finished piece of writing than an outline.

如果您真的很了解您的主题，那么您可能会想跳过大纲而只写文章。但是，重新编写完成的作品比大纲要困难得多。

The outline for this article started much longer than it ended up. It originally included tips on how to write an article, but I quickly realized this was better saved for another article, and that I should just start by focusing on article pitching. The outlining process made this obvious, and it was a lot easier to tweak an outline than a whole article.

本文的大纲开始的时间比结束的时间长得多。它最初包括有关如何撰写文章的提示，但我很快意识到，最好将其保存在另一篇文章中，而我应该从专注于文章推销开始。概述过程使这一点显而易见，并且调整大纲要比整篇文章容易得多。

Submitting a pitch as a full article also makes things more difficult for an editor. Your editor needs to have a say in the direction and focus of an article, and that process is much easier with an outline. If a completed article needs too much reworking, there’s a greater chance your pitch will be rejected than if you’d submitted it as an outline. And it’s less painful to have an outline rejected than a full article that you spent hours working on!

将文章作为完整文章提交也会使编辑人员更加困难。您的编辑需要在文章的方向和重点上有发言权，而有了大纲，这个过程就容易得多。如果完成的文章需要太多的返工，则比您将其作为大纲提交时，您的建议被拒绝的可能性更大。与您花费数小时编写的整篇文章相比，拒绝提纲要容易得多！

(Even if you’re just writing posts for your personal blog, I still recommend writing an outline first. It will help you organize your thoughts, and may save your editor a lot of work — in this case, you!)

(即使您只是为个人博客写文章，我仍然建议您先编写大纲。这将帮助您组织思想，并可以节省编辑者的大量工作-在这种情况下，就是您！)

胸襟宽广，灵活 (Be open-minded and flexible)

Writing articles for money isn’t a branch of the creative arts (at least, not primarily!) It’s business. If an editor asks you to change things, or rejects your topic, don’t assume it’s because they don’t appreciate your genius. Usually, it’s because they’re trying to serve their readers as best they can and to reach as wide an audience as possible. For commercial reasons, they have to make sure a topic will attract enough readers to pay the bills and justify the money they pay you.

为金钱写文章不是创意艺术的分支(至少，不是主要！)，这是业务。如果编辑要求您进行更改或拒绝您的主题，请不要以为是因为他们不喜欢您的天才。通常，这是因为他们正尽力为读者提供最佳服务，并尽可能扩大受众范围。出于商业原因，他们必须确保主题能够吸引足够多的读者来支付账单并证明他们付给您的钱是合理的。

Of course, you can argue your case, but it really comes back to the strength of your pitch and the research you’ve done in advance — as mentioned earlier.

当然，您可以争论您的情况，但实际上，它可以归结为您的宣传和事先进行的研究的力量-如前所述。

结语 (Wrap-up)

Hopefully these tips haven’t made it sound like article pitching is too hard. It’s really quite easy to send off an email proposing an article topic — and I encourage you to give it a try.

希望这些技巧不会让文章听起来太难了。发送一封提出文章主题的电子邮件确实非常容易，我鼓励您尝试一下。

Just don’t leave all the quality control to your editor. Your chances of getting published, and of producing something useful for readers, will be much higher if you do the sort of prep work I’ve described.

只是不要将所有质量控制留给编辑器。如果您进行了我所描述的准备工作，那么您被出版和产生对读者有用的东西的机会将会大大增加。

So start with your expertise and love of the subject. Then consider how relevant it is today, and how wide an appeal it might have. Some authors tell me “this will interest people” without giving any obvious reasons why — and that’s not enough. Your editor may not be as much an expert in your topic area as you, and will have misgivings if you can’t speak with some authority on the topic’s relevance and likely appeal.

因此，请从您的专业知识和对这一主题的热爱开始。然后考虑它在今天有多重要，以及它可能具有多大的吸引力。一些作者告诉我，“这将使人们感兴趣”，但没有给出任何明显的原因，但这还不够。您的编辑可能不像您那样是您所在主题领域的专家，并且如果您不能就该主题的相关性和吸引力提出某些权威的意见，您将感到疑虑。

Lastly, put some effort into your outline. An editor really needs to know that you’re on top of the subject and have the skill to argue it out logically. A few random dot points about the topic aren’t enough to demonstrate that you know the subject and where you’re going with it. An editor may be willing to coach you through this process, but ideally shouldn’t have to. You’ll certainly get brownie points for taking the initiative!

最后，在轮廓上花些力气。编辑者确实需要知道您处于主题之上，并且具有逻辑上加以辩驳的技巧。关于该主题的一些随机点不足以表明您知道该主题以及该主题的发展方向。编辑可能会愿意指导您完成此过程，但理想情况下不必这样做。您一定会因为主动采取措施获得布朗尼积分！