Writing Op-eds & Letters to the Editor

The media center at the Communications Consortium website has a hot page on Op-eds & Letters to the Editor. This is a popular area with which to begin a nonfiction and freelance writing career. To define:

Letters to the editor allow you to offer a short rebuttal to an article or commentary, or add a crucial missing perspective. Most letters should be 150-250 words. ...
An op-ed is a column or guest essay published in the opinion section of a newspaper (Opposite the Editorial page). Most are between 500-750 words, and most outlets will take submissions by fax, e-mail or mail.

Although the piece is geared toward organizations, the tips about keeping your writing short, factual, and on-topic apply to anyone submitting such works.

Best of all, perhaps, is a chart of details on how to submit an op-ed or letter to the editor in more than a hundred of the largest circulation papers in the U.S. In the chart are addresses; fax/phone numbers; and hot links to email addresses, editors and the papers' websites. Need I point out that many of these publications will have book review sections and accept news releases on other writing-related topics?