Earn Money Writing For Hard-Copy Publications

Writing is the only profession in which you’re expected to work (sometimes 12 hours a day) without any pay at all for months on end. I’ve told you about this before, how a certain publisher kept my manuscript for 11 ½ months (that’s almost a year) before saying they weren’t interested.


While creating our books we need to find other writing-related ways to make some money. However, even if we are earning from writing, most of us have other jobs because the money we make simply isn’t enough to live on. This is why I’ve decided to include some potential earning links here on A Blogger's Books.

The first set consist of sites which invite you to submit work to them for a chance to be published, sites running writing competitions with winning and runner-up prizes, and sites which list articles and material to help you get your work accepted and bought by magazines and other publications. Remember these are mainly related to hard copy works because the online versions are easy to find.

Manuscripts: Hard Copy Only

I often wonder how it benefits writers for Literary Agents to request hard-copy manuscripts only. We toil at the computer from morning until night time. We neglect our families and hair appointments so that we could finish that all-important chapter (all the chapters are important, right?). We stalk Agents’ sites and listings so that we could pick the perfect one for our genre. We find one after hours of searching, only to read, ‘Sorry e-mail submissions of manuscripts not accepted.’

Bummer!


Manuscripts submissions

Okay, I know there are two sides to this story. Happily (it depends how you look at it. Work with me here), I don’t know the other side. What I do know is that this puts pressure on our already skint resources. If you haven't heard the word ‘skint’ before, look at a writer's larder and you'll see what I mean.

We have to print several copies of our manuscripts and stamp each one not once, but twice so they could be easily returned. (I don't want them returned!) In fact, some agents insist you’re not a proper writer if you 'don’t take the time' to include an SASE in your submission package. Notice it’s now a ‘package,’ not just a ‘letter.’

After all the writing – on a computer with a broken ‘E’ key; editing – in the cold, because the heating bills haven’t been paid; printing – off a cousin’s office printer when her boss stepped out for a ‘meeting’ from which he returned with lipstick on his collar; post office visits – in the old banger with the duct-taped side window; posting – with money borrowed from the weekly shopping budget; we’re expected to wait for nine months for a reply about the 'hard-copy only manuscript'.

Some of this is exaggeration. Okay, most of the last paragraph is exaggerated (apart from waiting for nine months for a reply). But you see where I’m coming from. I asked in one of my early posts on my older blog, 'Do I Need A Literary Agent?' Can you blame me? I’m sure you’ve asked yourself this very thing.

I don't dislike Literary Agents. Honest.


Have you tried submitting your manuscript? How do you manage to post it each time without wincing. Have you got any advice for us writers on how to get around the 'hard-copy only' manuscripts' submission? Please help us all out by leaving a comment below. 


If you're an online writer here's a page of writing opportunities to help you earn a bit extra.