Profit From Writing

If you’re passionate about writing and want to make it your career, you need to be resourceful, professional, determined and self-motivated to succeed. Writing for a living isn’t easy and unless you’ve already landed a five figure book deal for your latest novel, you need to be as creative in generating income as you are with your words.

To help you profit from writing, here are a few opportunities to explore:

Write Greetings Card Verses

Greetings card companies often seek original verse or prose for their range of cards. If you have a forte for writing short humorous or meaningful passages, this could provide a successful opening for you.

My tips: Take a look at the verses in greetings cards to study their style. Create a few sample verses. Note the name of the greetings card publisher and contact them for their current requirements.

Writing for Magazines
This is the starting point for many freelance writers who want to be published and paid. Magazines require good content and many editors still rely on freelance writers to provide it. Although the market is competitive, if you can produce well-researched, original articles to suit the magazine’s style and readership, you’ll have a greater chance of winning a commission.

My tips: Focus on writing about what you know, drawing upon any specialist knowledge or interests. Use the Internet to study publications all over the world to increase your markets.

Create Copy for the Business Sector

One of the more lucrative writing opportunities is copywriting for businesses and public sector organisations. If your writing is concise, clear and fresh, you’ll find there is a market for your services producing leaflets, guides, press releases, advertising copy and web content.

My tips: Produce a portfolio of your work to show the diversity of your skills. Attend a business network event to market your services.

Take a Staff Writing Job

Freelance writing is great but if you prefer the relative security of a regular income and the warmth and vitality of a creative office environment, you might consider applying for a staff based writing position. Many opportunities exist for journalists, copywriters, web content writers, editors and feature writers. Recently, a major company even required the services of a dedicated letter writer! The skills of a quality writer are in demand and you’ll find that most salaries reflect this.

My tips: Spend time writing a professional CV and produce some sample writing. First impressions count!

Become a Ghost-writer!

Some writers make a reasonable living ghost-writing other people’s life stories. You can receive payment on a work-for-hire basis or on a royalty share agreement. If you enjoy interviewing people and writing at length, this will have great appeal.

My tips: Speak to other ghost-writers and research the book publishing field so that you gain a reasonable working knowledge of the current trends.

Compile Crosswords, Puzzles and Fillers

Writing short filler material, from anecdotes to puzzles, can be quite rewarding. Many publications feature a regular crossword to entertain their readers. Although considered to be quite a closed-market, it is worth approaching publications with ideas or samples for consideration.

My tips: Research your markets carefully. Target new publications where there may be openings. Offer fillers and puzzles relevant to the target readership.

Expand Your Range of Services

Some writers find it easy spotting typos or English grammar mistakes. If you’re one of them, consider taking a course in editing or proofreading to expand on your range of wordsmith services! There is often a decent demand for these services so it will provide an additional source of revenue.

My tips: Take a course and gain a qualification. Contact publishing companies as many now use the services of freelance copy editors and proofreaders.

Self-Publish

If you have specialist knowledge, consider writing and self-publishing a book or a series of guides or newsletters! With the right topic and good marketing, you can build a niche publication. For example, some authors have turned their hobby of walking into providing guidebooks and newsletters on local walks. You could do something similar, whether your interest is sewing, cycling, cooking or woodworking.

My tips: try print-on-demand publishing or publishing electronically to keep costs down while you’re building your publishing venture.

Good luck in your career as a writer! With the right approach, you’ll find there are many opportunities to become a successful wordsmith.

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How to Become a Motivational Speaker

Steps:

   1. Evaluate your special message. Consider what it is that you have to say that would be of value to others--have you experienced great adversity, or received some special education? In order to succeed as a motivational speaker, you must have something special to deliver.

   2. Carve out your niche. Motivational speaking is, in many ways, a product that must be sold. Why should someone pay to hear you impart your message? Be able to articulate your unique experiences and explain exactly how you can inspire others.

   3. Create an outline of your presentation. This will be used not only to provide a framework for your talk but also as a marketing piece for potential clients. Furthermore, many people are visual learners and can gain more from a visual representation than a spoken one.

   4. Contact large, not-for-profit corporations and professional groups and make it clear you are available. While there is nothing wrong with directly asking for a gig, announcing your availability will let them feel privileged to work with you.

   5. Contact speakers' bureaus and notify them of your availability. Some speakers' bureaus charge you to list your services, others charge nothing. Most bureaus take a percentage for acting as your agent. Search for "speakers' bureaus" on the Internet.

   6. Be willing to work for free to get your name out. Once others hear your interesting story or experience, they may want to hire you. Inform everyone you know that you are looking for organizations who want a good motivational speaker. Volunteer to speak at service clubs in your area.

   7. Write and publish articles or books if possible, in order to establish yourself as an authority in your subject. You do not need to publish a book people will find in the local bookstore. Post to websites like wikiHow and submit to on-line magazines and blogs.

   8. Draw up a written agreement, or contract, for all engagements. The written agreement should contain, among other matters, how the fees will be paid (e.g., cash, check, over time), how long you are expected to speak, whether you will be reimbursed for travel expenses, and the time and date. This will help to avoid any disputes at a later time.

Tips

    * Join a local Toastmasters Club. You will learn and practice everything you need to know when presenting a Motivational Speech, as well as any other type of speech.

    * Dress consistent with the perception you wish to convey. If you want to convey professionalism and success, business attire is probably best. Some motivational speakers use clothing to make a point in their presentation.

    * Speak clearly and repeat your main messages at least three times.

    * Keep it fun and lively. Audience participation is a great way for adults to learn, and you can do this in any number of ways. For example, one speaker handed out raisins and slowly took the audience through the life of that raisin and all that had to happen for that raisin to be in their hands. This kind of activity makes the audience feel part of the speech and facilitates learning. Remember that any activities must be relevant to the topic you are speaking on.

Warnings

    * If you forget what to say or begin to get nervous in front of a large crowd, stop, take a deep breath, and speak from the heart. Your audience will be happy to hear your honest experiences.

    * One of the best ways to overcome nervousness is to focus on how you can serve your audience instead of worrying about what they are thinking about you.

The Art in Writing

Every day, I have to contemplate my lengthening career as a writer. I used to also be an artist, back before I became physically disabled in 1998, and regularly drew pictures in pen and ink. I was thinking of transferring over to some computer pad-style drawing technology so I could create graphics and artwork on the computer directly. But since becoming what they call “physically challenged,” I have a hard time with drawing. It’s easier just to type, edit or otherwise work with a keyboard. And I have an over twenty year long career as a writer and editor to draw from as I continue to write every day.

It fascinates me as a ghost writer and an editor the many subject areas that my clients are willing to create books about. One will want to write his or her life story, such as the author who approached me recently regarding his life story as a transgenderal person. He changed from female to male, and he is now married and a father of two children, not his own, as the surgery doesn’t yet allow transgenderal persons to procreate. Another will want to write a children’s fantasy chapter book, an adult science fiction dark fantasy warehouse party series of books, a how to book on beauty and fashion, a book about the Nazis and a Jewish uprising against them, a book by a former Nazi who wants to tell us about what it was like being forced into the party…etc., etc., etc. There is no limit to the types of subjects my authors, many of whom are putting out their very first books, will want to write about.

Some are the type of book which may or may not sell all that well, while others are almost a guaranteed best seller, having a crowd of buyers ready to purchase the books. I almost prefer working with the first group of authors, even though their books don’t pay as much money as my more lucrative authors’ books do. It warms my soul to support first timers who have an interesting and valuable story to put out before the reading public. I usually only charge $3000 for people like these to ghost write their books for them. But when it comes to a potentially lucrative book, I charge a percentage of what the author makes over time from the book sales. These types of books are the “coffee table” type you have heard of, such as a book by the gentleman who took the nude photos of the “other woman” in an infamous murder case. They sell well, but the material in them is often only timely or flashy, and immaterial over time as earnest literature. I much prefer working for people who have books in their souls that contain stories worth the telling, more so than the stories worth money to a flashy author with a coffee table book.

I make enough money at my regular writing projects to support my habit of preferring to work with the first time author crowd. Some of those people’s books do sell well over time, and it’s worth it to me to put the time and effort into ghost writing or editing them that it takes to really polish their work to a gleaming shine and make it productive and meaningful as timeless literature or educational material. This means more to me than a large check paid for the type of book I truly hate to see my name associated with, and I feel very proud to have more of the first timers’ works on my record than those. I guess in the end it’s a tradeoff: timeless creation of worthy literature versus timely production of flashy, self-gratifying stuff that may not make me feel good to write it. Not that I don’t regularly take on that kind of project. I need those books to get by and make money. But it always gladdens me when I can write something that really makes the author feel like he or she has produced a very fine book, and which is something that will truly lend credit and greater credence to my professional name and career as a writer.

I think it lends the greatest justice to my lengthening writing and editing career to help people get out the work that holds the most promise over time, not the most best selling work that is only timely and lucrative and which will soon gather only dust somewhere. Writing is an art form, not a mass market for producing coffee table books that sell.

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