How to Earn Money Writing Short Stories

It's enjoyable to write short stories. I love writing short stories so much that I often don't even know what I'm going to write until I sit down and start writing. I simply sit down and make stuff up as I go.

But is it feasible to write short stories and make money doing it?

If you know what you're doing, you can earn money from all of your writing. Over the years, my methods of making a living as a writer have evolved significantly, but one consistent source of income has been writing short stories.

Markets for Short Stories

To start making money quickly from your short stories, look for paying markets. Strive for well-paying markets that pay at least 5 cents a word. And never, ever pay to submit your work. You’re a professional writer and your time is worth money so you should be paid for your work. Whoever you send your work to will earn money from it,  more than they’re paying you (that’s how business works) so make sure you’re paid well for what you do and never pay to submit.

Types of Short Stories

Pick a genre that you’re comfortable writing in. No one can choose a genre for you because only you know the kinds of stories you like to write.

And you don’t have to choose just one genre. I’ve written horror stories as well as romance stories. These are two completely different genres but I enjoy writing (and reading) both.

Short stories can also differ greatly in length. Some markets want stories up to 10,000 words, which is great if they’re a high-paying market of 8 cents a word. Others want Flash Fiction of only 250 words, or Drabbles which are stories of exactly 100 words, which is only a couple of short paragraphs. 

Shorter story markets such as these can still be high-paying with up to $100 for just a few words.

A word of warning though; make sure that your copyright remains with you and that your story is yours to republish after a few weeks or a year.  These things will be in the the Ts & Cs of the publication you’re submitting to.

If you story gets rejected (and most will, it happens to us all), just keep sending it to other markets, even if you have to tweak it a bit to suit their guidelines.

Having your stories published in anthologies is great for marketing because those books will probably go on selling for years so it helps to  get your name known.

How Many Stories to Write

If you’re serious about earning  money, I’d suggest you write and submit one story a week, or one a fortnight if that’s too much. This helps writing and submitting to become a habit.

As well as submitting to markets that pay outright, there are also a few story websites (like Wattpad for instance) where you can upload your work and receive payments based on how many people read your story. I don’t have any experience submitting stories this way so I don’t know if it’s worthwhile or not, but many writers swear by it.

But you can keep submitting your stories to high-paying markets. Keep them on the market for at least a year. If they still don’t sell, or even if they do, you can publish them in your own short story collection and they can go on earning you money for years, which will increase year after year as you keep writing more short stories.

So keep writing and have a blast doing it.

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCWS1.html 

How I Schedule My Daily Writing

One of the hardest things for many writers (or wanna-be writers) is having a consistent writing schedule. I used to be the same. I kept saying I wanted to write every day but instead I got busy doing other things, telling myself that as soon as I had time I’d get my writing done.

And I didn’t understand my own reluctance to writing. I like to write so why wasn’t I writing every day? Why did I put it off all the time? 

The reason was that writing wasn’t part of my daily schedule, so it often didn’t get done. Yet all I could think about was the writing that I wasn’t doing, and that made me miserable and frustrated. So what I did was make writing a part of my daily schedule.

When I first began to write professionally, I had a job and a family so I fit my writing in around those things. But I still did my writing because I wanted to work as a writer, so I was doing freelance writing, and plenty of it.

I always told myself, and I thought it was 100% true, that I’d eventually stop working and write full-time instead. And I did. But it turned out to be so different than what I’d imagined.

In my day dreams about working as a writer, I was sat at my desk every day producing thousands of words and amassing a whole collection of published books. But in reality, I found it harder and harder to sit down and write every day, thinking that I needed to do other things first. My procrastinating got so bad that at one point I decided to give up writing and go back to work because I felt like I was just wasting my time every day. I was actually doing plenty of things, but none of it was writing.

But when I started to go through my files, deciding what to get rid of, I realised that I didn’t want to stop being a writer. I wanted to start being a writer. But I still had no idea why I was so reluctant to write when it was the thing I wanted to do. I even asked myself if I did actually want to write or did I just want to ‘be a writer.’

So I began writing again, but I also began reading books by other writers about their writing processes. And it turned out I wasn’t the only one battling the ‘wanting to write but never doing it’ problem. But no matter how much I studied the problem, I couldn’t find a solution. People just said they decided to take their writing seriously, or would sit in their writing chair no matter how unmotivated they felt.

I even tried forcing myself to sit down and write a certain number of words a day because that was the advice from several writers. But that didn’t work for me because I mostly write by hand so it was distracting to have to stop and count words all the time. Eventually, I settled for writing for a certain amount of time every day. But that became a problem too.

I’d tell myself that I’d write from 9am to 12am every day. But other things would happen and I wouldn’t be at my desk at 9am so I’d blow my schedule. I even tried writing at different times of the day thinking that maybe I wasn’t a morning writer but an afternoon or evening writer. But that didn’t work either because no matter what hours I scheduled for writing, things kept getting in the way. I also tried going somewhere else to write every day so I’d walk to the library or sit in the park, but the weather would often stop me by being too hot or too wet or too windy.

Then I read an article by an author about her writing schedule. She is a prolific and award-winning novelist and she says that she writes for 2 hours a day. She doesn’t set the hours she writes except whether she writes in the morning or afternoon/evening. Some days she writes for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon as well. But she has her 2-hour daily schedule and sticks to it. She also said that if something else comes up in the morning and she doesn’t get her 2 hours done, she does her 2 hours later. And she also said she’s surprised when people call her prolific, but her simple writing routing does allow her to write more than most others.

I thought that was brilliant. A writing schedule with a set number of hours, but no exact time to do it. So I did the same. I wrote up a loose schedule of 2 hours every morning, minimum. Two days a week, my schedule is to write 2 hours in the afternoon as well. And it doesn’t matter what I’m writing just as long as I’m writing. And it works out well because some of that time may be taken up with online work, or correspondence, or any number of other writing-related tasks. But I don’t have to worry about getting them done because I know I’ll get to them during my writing schedule.

And this frees me up to get on with other things when I’m not writing. And when I am writing, if I’m deeply into what I’m working on, I carry on as long as I need to.

So after all my years of trying to figure out the best time for me to write, it turned out that my schedule was just too strict. So every morning I know I have to write for 2 hours, so I need to be sitting down by 10am at the latest. And if my schedule also involves the afternoon, then I know I have to be sitting down by 3pm. I usually sit down well before these times, I mean, why wouldn’t I?

And this schedule gives me plenty of time to do other things, like chores. I cannot sit down and write if the dishes aren’t done or there are other outstanding things that need doing. But my schedule gives me time to do them which frees up my mind to write without the distraction of things that have been left undone.

I also have several writing projects on the go all the time, so if I get stuck on one, I move on to another. I find that taking a break from a piece of writing can free up my creative brain so that by the time I get back to it, I’ve got fresh ideas.

Also, having an established daily writing habit, means that it’s something I want to do every day. They say that we don’t miss something unless we’re used to having it, such as, if you ate a piece of chocolate cake every day, you’d miss it if you gave it up. Or if you go for a run every day, you miss it on days when you can’t do it.

Which is probably why I like to write short stories at night. I don’t know why, but after my shower, which I usually take after dinner, I like to sit down and write short fiction or read for a while (maybe an hour). Again, it probably comes down to routine. It’s something I started doing a long time ago and I still do it. It’s so routine that as soon as I’ve had my evening shower, I look forward to either picking up the book I’m reading, or I get out my folder where I keep my short stories and carry on with the one I’m currently working on. It’s like my own private little quiet time that I always look forward to at the end of the day. Yet at the same time I used to struggle with writing during the day.

I used to think that I couldn’t sit down and write if I didn’t feel inspired. But that’s just BS. Stephen King put it best when he said, “Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon, or seven 'til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he'll start showing up.”  
~ Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

And he’s right. Just sitting down, getting out all my stuff ready for writing, and looking at what I’m currently  working on, gets me straight back into my writing. Which is why his other quote is true when he said: 

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” 

It’s all about starting. Starting isn’t hard. It’s making yourself start that can seem hard. I know that I have to sit down and write for a minimum 2 hours a day, so I’ve stopped giving myself excuses like, “I just don’t feel like writing,” or “I don’t have any idea what to write,” or “I haven’t been shopping today and there’s loads of stuff I need to get.” I know that all I have to do is sit down and I’ll soon be writing. Sometimes, if I find I can’t sleep and I wake up in the early hours of the morning, I go and get myself a cup of herbal tea, sit down at the dining table, and start writing. This helps to focus my mind and after an hour or two, I’m either tired enough to go back to bed, or I’m enjoying what I’m doing and I keep writing till breakfast time. Either way it’s a win-win. And I still sit down and do my 2 hours later because a schedule is a schedule so I need to stick to it.

So if you’re struggling to sit down and write, just decide how long you’re going to write every day, put it in your schedule, and stick to it. And before you know it, writing daily is a habit and you won’t want to stop or you’ll miss it.

Great News! I'm Back

I haven't blogged here in a while but the great news is that I will be doing so again, starting right now.

The reason I stopped blogging was because I had taken on too much with writing books, blogging, writing articles for my website, freelance writing, and putting together my writing newsletter every month. 

It was not only a lot of writing, but it meant my mind was jumping from one writing project to the next and trying to remember what I had to do, what I hadn't done, and what to do next. And in between all that I was trying to have a life.

So in the end I let the blog go. And you might be wondering what changed my mind?

Well, I've just finished working on a whole new revamp of my website, and the new site won't have any more articles. Instead, I'll be posting all my articles here on the blog. The links to the old articles are still active but, going forward, all new articles will be here.

You can check out the new-look website at https://ruthiswriting.com. 

Also, I'm no longer going to be compiling and sending out my writing newsletter every month. The reasons for this are several, but mostly because it takes a long time to get all the information together and because it doesn't generate many clicks (interest) from readers. Don't get me wrong, subscribers are clicking on the links in the newsletter (writing news items, free offers, writing markets, etc), but not enough to make it worthwhile, so I can only assume that the information isn't as useful as it could be.

So, long story short, I've decided to ditch the newsletters and spend the time blogging, doing more freelance writing and writing books.

One popular part of the newsletter, it seems, was my opening editorial where I talked about what I'd been doing each month. I even suspect that it's the main reason that people were reading the newsletter, so I decided that it would be just as easy to put the information up here on my blog.

But you don't have to remember to come here to read it. If you're already one of my subscribers,  you'll now automatically receive updates to my blog so that every time I post here, you'll get an email about it, just as you probably received an email about this blog post. If you did, then it's working.

And if you want to know what I've been up to lately, well it's been quite a bit of dog sitting (for friends and neighbours, not for money) as well as writing and working on the new Ruth Is Writing website which is now online.

It's also been extremely hot and humid weather here in Queensland Australia. Most days it's been too hot to go out and we've been running the air-conditioning a lot more than I like too because it's so expensive and I prefer to keep the windows open and have fresh air, especially here on the coast where we often get a good breeze, although the breeze these days is hot and uncomfortable.

But as of 1st March, we are now officially in autumn. I just wish someone would tell the humidity that. But the day time temperatures have dropped a degree or two and the humidity is slowly abating. And because of all the heat, everyone has been coming down with flu-like illnesses. Thankfully, Dean and I are quite healthy, we eat well, get plenty of exercise, and are not on any prescription medications, so the virus going around touched us but it was just a sore throat and a bit of a blocked nose, while everyone around us having been dropping like flies.

So what am I working on right now?

I'm currently working on a horror novel which is the first one in a series of three. They will be three separate novels, not a trilogy. They just all have a horror theme.

Now I'm going to get back to working on my novel, and working on a short horror story about clowns that I'm currently working on.

And it's time for you to stop reading and start writing too.

What I Do to Write Fiction When I Have No Ideas

My desk buddy, Marvin The Martian

Last year I told you that I'd downloaded a copy of the eBook, Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline, by Dean Wesley Smith.

It's an absolutely fascinating book about how to start writing a story with nothing but a character and a situation/setting. So for instance, a female ballet dancer at a truck stop, or a recovering alcoholic standing outside a bar wondering whether or not to go in.

And when you've got your character and setting, you just start writing without any idea where the story is going.

I had to read the book twice before I gave it a try because it seemed insane, but I figured if such a prolific writer as Dean Wesley Smith could do it thousands of times AND earn a lot of money from it, why not give it a go.

But it wasn't easy because I'm an avid outliner when it comes to writing. I can easily spend a couple of days writing nothing but my outline before I even begin writing a book.

So I decided to start small with a short story.

And it worked.

I tried it again only this time I went online to a random word generator page, got my 3 words, and started writing.

And I have to admit it was quite a blast. I was writing with no idea where I was going, but I did have to pause once or twice to try and think.

Since then I've done it several times and each time it gets easier, probably because it doesn't feel as scary the second, third, or fourth time.

I'm also quite surprised at how creative I am and how quickly ideas can actually come to me.

And funnily enough, all this writing short fiction into the dark, is what I do in the evening. For some reason, even though I'd swear I'm a morning person and it's when I do most of my writing, the evenings seem to be for fiction writing, which is another thing that surprised me.

I still don't think I could write a whole novel this way because my short stories have to be done in just one or two sittings. After that, my ideas start to fade.

It's probably why I prefer writing outlines for my books because once all my ideas are captured in my extensive outline, I can relax and write, knowing that nothing will be left out, and even as I write, more ideas keep coming to me.

If you haven't tried writing short stories "into the dark" give it a try.

You don't have to show your work to anyone else. It's just some fun writing for you to do.

I find it's a great way to start writing even if I don't have anything to write. I just get my 3 words and start writing. It means that I can write anywhere, anytime. All I need is a notebook and pen/pencil (I prefer to write by hand, me and Stephen King both I discovered), 3 random words, and I can write for hours.

I bet next time I have to take a long train ride into the city (which usually takes over an hour) I can write a brilliant short story during the journey there and back, even if I don't have a clue what I'm going to write before I get on the train.

What I'm going to do with the stories I've written so far I have no idea. But if I find a freelance market looking for a story like one of mine, I'll submit it. I may also collate them into a book of short stories.

Who know?

For now though I'm going to keep on writing, because that's the most import part of being a writer.

And being able to write into the dark anytime I want to, is a game changer.

NOTE: The photo above is of my little desk buddy, Marvin the Martian, who I complain to when I'm struggling to write, or who I smile at when I'm inspired to write and getting loads done. :)