About this Sell Your Nonfiction site:
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This site is owned by Laurie Winslow Sargent. Articles here are based on lessons taught by Laurie for over 20 years at writing workshops.
Here she offers tips for aspiring writers who are eager to get their magazine articles, personal experience stories, and nonfiction books published.
To find articles on specific topics, click in the box under Blog Posts/Article Topics (R navigation bar).
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About Laurie Winslow Sargent
IN A NUTSHELL Laurie is a:
- multi-book author, writing and blogging on parenting — See: ParentingByFaith.com
- magazine article writer since 1988
- workshop instructor on nonfiction writing & PR
- blog editor and sometimes contributor for FindingGodDaily.com (devotional) and ThinkingAboutSuicide.com (suicide prevention): both owned by Linda Evans Shepherd
- . . . and a freelance publicist.
- You can also find her on Twitter as @LaurieSargent and @Tips4C_Writers, and on Facebook.
If you care to know more detail:
Laurie has been in the writing and publishing industry (CBA) since 1988, learning from many fellow authors, editors and agents along the way. From magazine article writer, to book author, to blogger, she has found ways to connect with readers while also serving as a connector for other writers (to resources, others in the industry, etc.)
Although currently still trying to squeeze in a bit of writing time herself, her current focus has been in work as a freelance editor and publicist. For one client she focuses primarily on WordPress blog editing/SEO (Right to the Heart Ministries), and for another client, print/broadcast PR.
Publications
Laurie’s own writing experience includes two nonfiction parenting books published by Tyndale House Publishers: The Power of Parent-Child Play, and Delight in Your Child’s Design.
She has also contributed to eight additional books, published by Zondervan, Multnomah, HCI (Chicken Soup for the Soul) and others. (To see books Laurie has written/contributed to, click HERE.) Laurie has also enjoyed publication in 28 magazines, with circulations of up to one million readers.
Broadcast Media
Laurie has had the privilege of being interviewed on radio stations located in nearly every US state, on parenting and writing topics, so knows the ropes when it comes to lining up and preparing for interviews. She is as eager to connect audiences with authors she promotes as she been in the past to connect with them herself.
Education
Laurie’s education includes a Bachelor of Liberal Studies (with Journalism Minor) from Iowa State University, and an Associate of Applied Sciences in Occupational Therapy. However, her most valuable training has come from two decades of involvement in the magazine and book publishing industry, including membership in AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association). She is very grateful to all the fellow authors, editors and other publishing professionals she has learned from over the years, at various outstanding Christian writers conferences and through online writing groups.
Sell Your Nonfiction 
Posted by Dennis Copson on December 15, 2014 at 6:43 pm
Hello, Laurie:
Just came upon your site and I love it. So I am going to take full advantage of your expertise. (I HOPE!)
A friend has written a book and I was the editor. He self-published it using iUniverse in Dec 2012. It is sold on Amazon, eBay, Books-a-Million, etc. Barnes & Noble sells it online, not their stores because it is a POD book. My friend made sure he bought the guaranteed return policy with iUniverse. Still, I’ve had the local manger of B&N tell me, emphatically, “Your book will never make it to my shelves because it is POD” (We drink socially so I know her well.)
The Marine Corps Exchange has the same policy; therefore the book, a Marine Corps story about my friend’s thirty-six year career beginning as a high school dropout entering the Marine Corps as a Private and ending up as him retiring a Colonel. This book, a 562 page account of that amazing accomplishment, is really a leadership manual related in a personal manner based on his experiences and told form the ground level, not a stuffy account by some self-aggrandizing military elitist. Not that assisting in the writing of it and having my name as” Edited by…” on the Title Page has affected me in any way, but do believe the book is an interesting, well-written account of life as a United States Marine is truly like–the good, bad, and the ugly. It is a natural candidate for any bookstore, but especially a military exchange(PX).
My question to you, publishing guru that you are, is how does one overcome a seemingly well-entrenched, negative attitude on self-published books, and how prevalent is that?
The title of the book is: “We’ll All Die As Marines: One Marine’s Journey From Private To Colonel”
Thank you.
Major Dennis Copson, USMC (ret)