Holiday Gift Ideas for Flat Broke Writers

You’re a writer, the holidays are creeping up and your bank account is so empty, it echoes. Being a participant in involuntary simplicity doesn’t mean your friends and family go gift-free. You have the skills and savvy to make their holidays brighter without setting your stocking on fire.

For everyone

Throw down some words. We’ve all had non-writing friends and relatives ask what we do for a living, and when we say “Write,” they always ask “Did you write a book? Have you met Stephen King yet?” Ha ha, Grandma.  But actually seeing something you’ve written gets the message across, and it’s a gift from the heart. Pen a lovely poem, sarcastic haiku or even a bit of flash fiction starring your father and that Dodge Charger he gave up when you were born. It could be the nudge he needs to forgive you for existing, and if that doesn’t express the holiday sentiment, nothing else does. Extra points if you print something out and frame it. People love frames.

For readers and writers

When you write, your first go-to move for gifts usually involves books. It's easy to drop fifty bucks (if you have the cash) on a couple of hardcovers at the bookstore, but you can trump that with the wonder of the Internet. We live in a glorious world of free ebooks, digital entertainment as far as the eye can see. We’re not talking piracy, either, because that’s wrong and an erudite grizzly bear will smack you in the face with a rolled-up newspaper filled with bologna if you do it. Every major book selling site offers freebies, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, All Romance, etc., and don’t forget classic sites like OpenCulture and Project Gutenberg.

It works best if the giftee shares a home with you, so you can download books to a reader on a shared computer or their personal ereader. If they know how to manage data transfers, you can save the goodies to a flash drive and wrap it in some snazzy paper to make your gift look even cooler. When giving free ebooks, don’t focus on scoring their favorite authors, although you’ll occasionally find one or two offering freebies. You’ll have better luck matching them up with new reads and fresh voices in the same style or genre they already enjoy. You may introduce them to a new favorite author or two, and they’ll buy more books. Yay! Everyone wins!

For writers

Don’t worry about the taxidermied rabbits dressed like Pride & Prejudice characters that you just spied on eBay; the best thing you can give writers is attention. Designate a “Pimp Day” for each of your writer friends and publicize their work. Give them a lovely Amazon review, tweet their book links, splash their book covers on Pinterest, talk them up on Goodreads and Facebook. If some of your friends don’t have books, pimp out what they do have! Comment on their blogs, share their articles, and let the world know how talented they are. Your gift will distract them from obsessing over their inboxes and drinking wine in the morning. Helpful hint: tell them about their Pimp Day first, so they have something for you to promote, and only do one Pimp Day a week on all your social media outlets so you don’t overwhelm your own readers. We all crave attention, but no one wants to be the spammy coal in the bottom of the stocking.

Photo: Kristina Alexanderson

Three More Free Gifts for Writers

Last year I received great feedback with my Free Gifts for Writers post, so I’m doing it again, with three different ideas.

Let’s face it, money is still tight for a lot of people, especially those whose job description includes the words “starving artist.” Before you grab the glue and spray-paint and turn a few blocks of ramen into bookends, try these suggestions. All of them are guaranteed to draw fewer bugs than glitter-soaked noodles.

Goalbook or Planner

No matter what the genre, writers live and die by the deadline. Make 2012 easier by creating a planner to keep your writer organized. (Hint: if you have kids, this is a great family activity.)

Dig up a 3-ring binder, a hole-punch and some card stock or construction paper for dividers. Print out a calendar for each month or go all the way and print out every week. (Microsoft Publisher will print calendars, and there are tons of free, personal-use calendars on the Net.) Also print out several blank pages with headings like “Goals”, “To-Do” and “Ideas”. Make sure each month has plenty of space to scribble notes, and separate each monthly section with the card stock. Include quotes from his or her favorite authors or other motivational sayings. Decorate accordingly. Just takes a couple of hours and some creativity to make your writer weep like a Barbara Walters interviewee.

E-books

I have a lot of friends who are e-book authors, so let me put this out there: if you can buy an e-book or two (many cost less than three bucks) then please do so. If that’s out of the budget, welcome to the world of free e-books. Project Gutenberg has always been my go-to for great, zero-cash reads because you can find so many irresistible and esoteric books besides the classics everyone claims they read in school. Feedbooks and Smashwords are also great resources, and I’ve found a few new fave authors through them.

Don’t have a smartphone, e-reader or tablet? No worries. You can download books in a variety of formats at Gutenberg and make a file folder on the computer for your giftee. Amazon, Kobo and B&N also offer freebies if you have their particular reader software. Remember, stay legit with your downloading, because good karma is the gift that keeps on giving.

Office Party

Working from home is wonderful, because the dress code runs from casual (Scooby Doo PJs) to extra summer casual (powdering your butt so you don’t stick to the chair). There is one thing writers miss out on, though, and that is the office party. Throw a tiny shindig by your writer’s desk. Bake some cookies, put up a few decorations. Let your writer talk all he or she wants about work: editors, publishers, magazines, etc., and don’t tune it out. Invite a couple of friends or family members over if you want, but it’s more fun when it’s intimate. Keeping it to yourselves also avoids those nasty “crazy people” rumors, too. You’ll be surprised how much it will perk up a writer’s spirits just to talk, laugh and have their own little holiday ritual.

Photo credit: Flickr.com/TMAB2003

Gimme more, more more! Four fave free tools for writers

Writers and free stuff: it's a natural relationship. For a writer, feast or famine isn't just a saying, it's a life cycle. Whether you're going through the lean times or just remember them vividly, these free online tools will help as you toil in the word mines, hammering together those manuscripts.

1. iGoogle. How did I live without this for so long? This handy tool allows you to create your own pimped-out homepage from hundreds of widgets, including a preview of your Gmail. Writers will appreciate many of the add-ons, including Literary Quotes of the Day, Shakespearean insults, a Dictionary.com search box, or the excellent and handy Writer's Unblock prompts. Also add any flavor of news, from Fox to NPR, weather, horoscopes, moon phases, and nearly anything else you can imagine. I tried out the Office Paintball game widget, which was great fun but a bit noisy, but the Magic Trick of the Day shows promise. Tired of searching page after page on Craigslist for writing jobs? Add the Craigslist search widget, tweak the settings for your needs, and gather job leads whenever you have a spare moment between queries. Having all the widgets on one page saved time for me, because now I don't surf over to three or four sites in my usual procrastination routine, and I actually start working a little earlier in the day.

2. Project Gutenberg. All the fun of a book sale, without having to cart heavy boxes home. Sure, you're familiar with all your favorites here: Poe, Twain, Austen, Dickens, Joyce, Kafka, and the rest of the gang. But have you ever searched for writing texts? I was thrilled to find an early book on freelance writing, originally published in 1920, complete with example essays ripped from the current publications of the time. It was a fascinating read, and so much of the advice remains the same. Do a bit of digging, and you'll find books on short story writing, screenwriting, American literature, Italian poetry, and many other treats, all free for the downloading. An extra bonus for the holiday season: the site has an online advent calendar, with a different children's book under each day that you and the munchkin can read together.

3. NaNoWriMo. Yes, November is over, and most people consider this an event. But I truly consider it a great writing tool; each year, I'm amazed that I've finished this truly crappy novel by December 1. Writing a crappy novel in a month teaches you all sorts of things about writing, including how to just get the words out on a page, and how to wrangle characters so they do what you want. Starting this year, sign-ups for NaNoWriMo will be available all year long, so you can sign up, hop on the message boards, and get involved with writing and editing, or jump straight into procrastinating for 2008. Each regional lounge is also open so you can communicate with other writers in your area. The NaNofather, Chris Baty, has a knack for inspiration, so when you're dragging a bit, check out his pep talks, or peruse this year's pep talks from Neil Gaiman, Sue Grafton, Garth Nix, and other notable authors.

4. Rainlendar (and other software). This program is a writer's dream. It will display several months in advance on your desktop, a great thing when your body is in December, but your mind is in March or April planning queries. The free version also has to-do lists and alerts, and you can customize it with skins. Bump up to the paid version if you want Rainlendar to network with Outlook or Google Calendar. Other freebie must-haves that get a brief mention: OpenOffice, a free and very handy office suite, and FoxIt PDF Reader, which takes up a lot less room and works faster than Adobe Reader.

For a bonus freebie, I'll mention another calendar I can't do without: the annual Free Writer's Planner from Julie Hood and Organized Writer. Even though I never make it through step one of her five-step daily checklist, I still love her newsletter, and print out the planner every year in a burst of New Year's-resolution-I can-do-it frenzy. I try to carry it in the car with me at all times, so when I'm stuck waiting on the hubby I can whip out my planner and make a few notes. Thanks to Julie, and when the wind is just right, I almost feel....organized. Then the universe notices my self-satisfied feeling and drops a dab of chaos right on my head.

Even if you've seen some of these free tools before, take a second look and get the most out of them. After all, you can't beat the price.