How to make quick cash selling your story to a magazine
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As you’ve probably guessed, I love making money from home. As a busy mum to two young children, working from home for myself provides me with the flexibility I need to care for my children and avoid high full time childcare costs. It also means I get to do what I love. I’m an advocate of earning money online and from apps, and I’m always looking for new ways to make more income from home. I’ve decided to invite other bloggers and money making mums to share even more ways us busy mums can make money from home.
Introducing Fiona from Savvy in Somerset
Fiona Hawkes is a Personal Finance blogger who loves saving money almost as much as she loves spending it. She saves hard to be able to live better, afford a few small luxuries and be able to travel. Fiona blogs at http://www.savvyinsomerset.com
How to make quick cash selling your story to a magazine
Think your kid is the cutest? Snapped your pet doing something funny? Why not try selling your pictures or your story to a magazine and make some quick cash!
Like many people, I'm always on the lookout for quick and easy ways to make money from home. While this one isn't likely to be a consistent earner, it could definitely net you some cash in the short term.
A couple of years ago I responded to a post on Facebook from a popular women's magazine asking people to get in touch of they had any interesting health related stories. Aged 23 I had a blood clot and a massive operation to remove one of my ribs. I sent them a quick email explaining what had happened to me and they got straight back in touch to say the wanted to use my story.
Even better, they were prepared to pay me £200 for it! All it took was an hour long phone call to discuss everything that had happened to me and then another shorter phone call for a read through just to make sure all the details were right. Easy Peasy - £200 for about 2 hours 'work'.
They had handled the story well too, it wasn't over sensationalized or embarrassing. Just a first person account of my hospital stay and subsequent operation. The piece was only a 3rd of a double page spread so imagine what they pay for bigger, longer stories (it can be as much as £500!)
If you don't often read this type of magazine, looking at the cover stories you might think they are a bit on par with the Jeremy Kyle show at times. Tales of cheating husbands, barmy best friends and drug addict cousins. In some cases this is true, they do feature stories like that and I fully appreciate that not everyone would want to air their dirty laundry in public. But they also have lots of really sweet stories too - miracle babies, cancer survivors, long lost siblings, etc.
As most publish every week they are always on the lookout for new content.
I honestly don't think anyone I know read the story about me and if they did they didn't mention it! If you're sharing a more personal story, in particular one that involves rape or violence there is always the option of sharing it anonymously too.
It's not just stories they are looking for either - most weekly women's magazine have lots of smaller sections where the public can contribute, such as:
- Star Picture and Letter of the Week
- Seasonal features - such as funny Christmas snaps or cute couple pics for Valentines days
- Health - Where people send in a letter about their health and an expert answers it
- Tips and Tricks - Life hack style posts
- Dilemmas - where they ask for two opposing views on a reader’s problem - you could be the reader posing a question or someone answering it
These tend to pay around £25 but can be more and in some cases as much as £80.
Some magazines will only accept stories if they have not been featured anywhere else before and ask that they are not featured anywhere else for at least six months. Payment is usually around six weeks after your story is used.
Where to find magazines to be featured in
Everything written above is all very well but you do need to know where to find magazines to try and get featured in to begin with. For me the best and easiest option was Facebook. I've liked loads of magazines pages including Take a Break, Chat, Pick Me Up, Yours, Now, Bella and Best. I have put some of these on 'see first' so I never miss if they put a call out for stories. I am also a member of the Facebook group 'Feature Me UK' in which journalists post requests for story participants pretty much daily (some of these are for national newspapers too so bear that in mind if you do decide to join). These requests are usually more topical and related to what's going on in the news at the moment.
Twitter is another great option. I follow lots of magazines there too but also search out potential features using the hashtag #JournoRequest. If you have a particular story that you think will definitely be of interest you can also trying to email the magazine directly from their website to see if they would be willing to feature you.
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Related - How to make money by featuring in the media