Make Money Writing: I=Interview

April is all about making money writing! Different magazines will often pay for interviews. Lots of bloggers have a background in interviewing authors, but this isn't usually what people pay for. I made $50 article for a while doing interviews for little league sports teams. Since I knew nothing about sports, I had to ask around to find out what kind of questions made for good sports writing. The other thing I've learned about writing solid interviews that keep you booked is that feature interviews are the most desirable, most interesting, and have the strongest readership. On a blog, you will often see a list of questions and answers. This is referred to as a q&a, and no one pays for it. (Or they might but I don't know about it.) Writing good open ended questions that allow the person being interviewed to go into a story is the first step to writing a feature. But the most important component of a feature--the reason people pay for it--is that it's a story. It will have quotes from the Q&A woven it but it should tell a story and explain something, complete with a message. This is a good skill to have.

Make Money Writing: H=Horoscopes

April is all about ways to make money writing. "Beth, what do horoscopes have to do with writing?" Well, that's simple. Someone has to write them, and lots of magazines and newspapers use horoscopes. Think about some of the places you have noticed horoscopes. Those publications will sometimes mention looking for horoscope writers on their websites. Horoscope writing gigs sometimes come up on freelance websites too.

This is one gig, I've honestly not done. But I've seen some magazines pay for them.

Have you ever written horoscopes?

Make Money Writing: G= Gigs, Ghostwriting

April is all about making money writing. Ghostwriting is not awesome pay, but it does pay. A lot faster than waiting on a royalty check. Another good thing about ghost writing is that it gives you experience writing. To be an expert writer, you need to write one million words. I define this more narrowly. If you need to write a million words to be an expert writer, you need to write a million words of fiction to be an expert fiction writer. For that reason, I don't even count words I write for anything else. The perks of ghostwriting besides a quick pay check? It helps you gain that experience. Best of all, if it sucks, because you're learning? It doesn't have your name on it!

One more thing. Search gigs on sites like elance to find ghostwriting opportunities, ghostblogging opportunities, and article writing work. You can also open up craigslist and go to gigs. You'll sometimes find interesting opportunities there. I even snagged a couple of long term clients in 2014. The thing is they may be looking to pay $10-$20/week for a guest blog. That wouldn't be listed as a job but you can find it under gigs. Blog posts usually take me 15 minutes to write so $10 is fine for me. Also, we all know that writing has hot beds in certain parts of the country and writing opportunities can be virtually non-existent in other parts of the country. With the internet, lots of these opportunities are virtual, so don't be afraid to open up New York's craigslist and look even if you're no where near New York. FYI: Austin, Texas gets some decent writing gigs too.

Make Money Writing: F=Flash Fiction, Freelance

April is all about making money writing. Flash fiction and freelance work are a couple of ways.
Flash fiction is awesome for a couple of reasons: 1)short 2) can pay well. Those are good enough reasons for me. We talked about Duotrope earlier. It's a good place to find markets for flash fiction. For romance, I think Woman's World is awesome flash fiction market at $800 for 800 words.

Freelance work can be another good way to make money writing. You can use sites like elance to search for things that interest you from article writing to ghost writing.

Do you freelance? Have you ever sold flash fiction?

Make Money Writing: E=Educational Writing

April is all about ways to make money writing! Educational money is a good way to make money writing, partly because it's so useful but also because lots of writers are also educators. Teaching is a common day among writers.--I"m not saying all writers teach, but many teachers write.--Educational writing comes in a variety of forms. Believe it or not, many religious affiliations buy curriculum from companies who use educational writers. You query these companies the same way you would query a book. You offer a writing sample and your qualifications. Companies buy chapters of a textbook, workbooks, worksheets and other supplemental materials from education writers. McGraw Hill and Pearson are a couple of big educational publication companies in the US. If you're looking at religious educational writing, Lighthouse is a reputable company. We live in a digital age. You can also self publish your educational materials. List it as a reasonably priced ebook. (Teachers are poor.) Or use Teachers Pay Teachers.  TPT has become the amazon of educational publishing. It's a good place to buy interesting lessons, and it's a good place to sell interesting lessons. TPT allows you to set the price and you can offer some free products just like amazon. (I don't think they demand exclusivity either, so you could potentially do both.)

Is educational writing something you've done? If not, would you consider it?

Make Money Writing: D=Duotrope

April is all about ways to make money writing. And D is for Duotrope. Haven't heard of it? A few months ago, I hadn't either. Duotrope is a great way to find submission calls and publications open to submission. I think the membership is like $5/month but they will give you a week or two for free. This is an awesome place to find submissions for flash fiction in some genres, less so with romance. But we talked about articles earlier this month, and it can be a good place to find a fit for your article or even submission calls looking for articles.

Have you ever used Duotrope? Do you know of similar services?

Make Money Writing: C=Cards

I've dedicated the month of April to finding ways to make money writing. If you've ever bought a card for any occasion, you've probably noticed they tend to be well written. Sometimes, they're humorous and pithy and other times they're poetic. Yeah. There is a reason for that. Greeting cards pay writers to write those messages. They may have a full time writer on staff but a lot of times they'll post on their website they're looking for messages for a certain occasion. They usually post the pay and how to submit. Let your creative juices flow.

Have you ever written for a card or known anyone who has? Is card writing something you've thought about before? (Be honest, I'm trying to make sure these posts are helpful).