How To Make Money Writing Poetry

There are plenty of ways to make money from writing, but poetry is certainly one of the more unlikely ones. After all, most poets struggle to make anything at all, let alone a significant amount of money from their efforts.
But if you think laterally you can actually do quite well from this branch of writing. It may never be a full time career but there are people making a nice second income from penning a few rhymes and poems every now and then.
The secret is to make sure you are writing for the right markets. Read on to find out what they are.
There is one very large market for poetry that you probably look at virtually every day, and yet most people simply don’t realize that it exists as an opportunity to make money.
The market we’re talking about is greetings cards manufacturers. After all, how many greetings cards do you see that have simple poems inside them, conveying a message to the recipient which could be funny, heart warming, emotional or joyful? If you can come up with this kind of poetry then you could be well rewarded for each one you write that ends up being accepted.
There are two ways to find the best markets to write for. Firstly you can visit your local card stores and see which manufacturers publish cards with these types of poems on them. You might know that you have more of a talent with some rather than others, so concentrate your search on the manufacturers and publishers that create the cards you feel you could write.
Make a note of the company name and then do a search on the internet to find them. This is also the best way to find other companies who you may not easily find in the stores.
Not all greetings card companies will be looking for freelance work, but those that are will often have guidelines on their websites, so print these off and read them carefully in order to stand a chance of succeeding. You might find it helpful to jot down some ideas while you are reading them, since they may be looking for specific ideas or themes that you could work on.
Companies such as these usually let you send in a batch of ideas at the same time because of the brevity of the work involved, so make sure you have several to send in and take your time over them to make sure they are the best you can do. Editing your work is very important – even on items as short as these will be – since there is a lot of competition on many occasions and even the odd change of a word here and there could make all the difference between acceptance and rejection.
Persevere with your efforts too, because it might take a few attempts before you get anything accepted. The great part of making money from your poetry in this way is that you will get to see your poems on the cards in your local store once they are published – and there is no greater reward than that!
You could also make your own cards and sell them if you have a lot of poems you would like to use that are turned down by the card companies. A lot of people will pay handsomely for hand made cards and if you feel confident enough you could even charge a premium for writing unique poems for specific people.
If this has got your creative juices running then why not start jotting your ideas down right now? You’ll find it useful to keep a notepad with you at all times for writing them down whenever they come to you – but the first thing you should write is a comment for us in the box below!