Giving It Away †Nothing for Nothing

Giving It Away – Nothing for Nothing I’m going to take a stance here that may rub some of y’all raw. Quit giving away your work. It’s an old mantra with me . . . one that FundsforWriters was founded upon. You cannot make a living giving yourself away. Doctors don’t give away their expertise. Lawyers charge for their services. So do teachers, plumbers . . . even hookers do it. But you need exposure, you may say. No you don’t. Not that kind of exposure. Do you know what you look like when you pitch an editor or agent and the only items on your resume are: 1) Your serial novel on your blog;2) Your articles on websites that do not pay;3) Your poetry for free on your website;4) Your free short stories on anyplace that will take them. But you keep trying to sell your work and nobody buys it. So you figure you’ll post it online and somebody might discover it. Here are the flaws in that logic. LOGIC A. The people hungry for your free work usually aren’t the type willing to pay. Think about it. They’re usually trolling for free work, and continually seek the good deal. They have no desire to pay full price for a book or subscription, maybe not even one copy of a magazine where your work appears, because there’s ample free material available. LOGIC B.Editors and agents do not visit those freebie places. Not unless you happen to be that one in a million writer who trends on Twitter or manages to garner tens of thousands of readers. Not hundreds†¦thousands. Your odds are better pitching to editors. LOGIC C. If you are publishing for free because you keep getting rejected, then your writing might need work. People willing to pay for writing expect to receive a good return for their investment, so your work has to be refined and polished to rate their hard-earned dollar. LOGIC DIf you are publishing for free because you don’t want to learn the ropes of how to submit to publishers and markets that pay, you might not be made of strong enough material to weather this business. Argue with me. Go ahead. Then tell me how much money you’ve made from that â€Å"exposure.† I’m all ears. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. On the contrary. I want you to make a buck at this business. But too many writers think that giving their work away is â€Å"exposure† or a means to â€Å"getting discovered† when in reality, they usually end up sitting in place and waiting for nothing†¦and doing it for a long time. It’s understandable you need to be proactive, but put that energy to good use in the right direction. 1) Improve your writing2) Sell your work3) Promote yourself. You don’t want to appear so desperate you give it away. In all aspects of your life, how much quality do you attribute to something that was given to you for free? If you give your writing away for free, you cant afford to remain a writer for long. Fight to stick around . . . get paid for your work.