I just saw this story and had to share it with all of you.
This poor woman, just can't believe that this actually happens in this day and age, what a shame.
I just thought it was important to share.
(CNN) -- Three police cars pulled into Christina FourHorn's front yard one afternoon while working from home just before she was supposed to pick up her daughter at school. The officers had a warrant for her arrest.
"What do you mean robbery?" FourHorn remembers asking the officers. Her only brushes with the law had been a few speeding tickets.
She was locked up in a Colorado jail. They took her clothes and other belongings and handed her an oversize black-and-white striped uniform. She protested for five days, telling jailers the arrest was a mistake. Finally, her husband borrowed enough money to bail her out.
"They wouldn't tell me the details," she said.
Later, it became clear that FourHorn was right, that Denver police had arrested the wrong woman. Police were searching for Christin Fourhorn, who lived in Oklahoma.
Their names were similar, and Christina FourHorn, a mother with no criminal record living in Sterling, Colorado, had been caught in the mix-up.
I hope that hasn't happened to you! If you're submitting by email, it's best to submit your work in a locked PDF. If you're submitting by mail, watermark your pages. This won't stop a determined content thief, but at least it creates a barrier. Also, make sure to only submit to reputable publications and include "Copyright Richard E Mack, MD, all rights reserved."
To get paid for writing short articles, you have a few options: you can write the article and then submit it to publications until someone accepts it, you can send proposals for articles to publications that accept them, or you can find a client who needs articles written and write articles that meet their needs. Obviously, options one and two give you more creative control, but option 3 gives you a steadier income.
For children's books, you can either pitch your idea to an existing publishing house or self-publish and offer it for sale online.