Making Money from Writing

There will never be another now -
I'll make the most of today.
There will never be another me -
I'll make the most of myself.
Helen Keller

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In today’s world of fast paced cutthroats, writers need diligence to get them to make money from their writing. A good writer makes little money from all of their hard work whereas a great writer makes an income. Now an excellent writer is, well, you know, sitting around his pool drinking Mai Tai’s basking in the glory of all his/her published works.

No, I don’t really believe that is what the excellent writers are doing. Is that really how you envision Stephen King or Dean Koontz? Sitting around in the lap of luxury without a care in the world? I see them as writing. They continue to write their hearts out no matter how much money they have garnered from a previous published book. It’s a tried and true method for them to keep on writing. No write, no money.

Now before you can start writing for money, you are going to need material that is publishable. And it must be good enough for somebody to WANT to pay for it. Ask yourself a question. “Would a publisher be interested in spending money on MY work?”How many times was King rejected before someone finally took the manuscript of Carrie and made it a successful publishable piece of work? Over twenty times! He has the wallpaper to prove it. (King says he has wallpapered his room with rejection letters to keep him writing better.)

A publisher is taking a risk in spending thousands of dollars on you, the unknown, so make your work worth a large amount of money. It has to have some value before you can expect someone else to want to publish your work.

It will help if you have a story that a reader can’t take his/her hands off of and easily put it down. A story that the reader can't put down is one that could inspire a publisher to see the potential in book sales. The same is true for a script. Sometimes the writer must pitch the idea to get the publisher, agent or producer excited about the potential of their work.

The Internet is full of markets where you can sell your work. Whether it is a short story to a magazine or an agent for your novel, or a publisher that you can query. Writers are not only writers they are small-time archeologist! They need to dig, dig, dig to find the precious gem that will give their work life and an abundant glory of profit. I’ve used writer’s as archeologist twice this week!

And whatever you do fellow writer, DON’T GIVE UP! Did Indiana Jones? NO! Stephen King? NEVER! Now get to writing and selling, marketing and publishing! You can do it!