Selling Poems For Profit

Contrary to what many people think, there are plenty of magazines around to which you can sell poems. Add to these the plethora of websites and ezines that are constantly springing up around the web and you will find that there is actually a huge market for poetry and verse.

Of course the majority will not pay anything other than a free copy or two, but there are plenty of markets that will pay in good hard cash. Selling poems to these markets is competitive, but as long as your writing is of an acceptable standard, you've as good a chance of making a sale as anyone else.

Payment varies considerably from a couple of pounds offered by small literary magazines existing on a shoe string, to the more affluent, Arts Council supported publications buoyed up by generous subsidies. In this case you might get £20, £30 or more for a poem.

The greeting card market can be very lucrative as long as you understand the needs of the consumer which means studying the company and who they are aiming to sell to. It's no good trying to sell poems to a traditional hearts and flowers company if the verse you write is the kind of cheeky, risque rhyme which is popular with the young and trendy!

A lot of greeting cards publishers have permanent writers and illustrators so do your home work before approaching and check that they welcome freelance submissions. The good news is, the market had a high demand for not only appropriate verse, but short captions and pertinent sayings and there is still a demand for the slightly "old fashioned" poetry that gets the thumbs down from current literary contests.

With a bit of creative thinking and some good marketing skills it is possible to earn good money selling your poems to specialised markets such as weddings, christenings and other major life events. Of course your poetry will need to target the individuals concerned so your pre-written stuff isn't likely to be suitable, but it is certainly an area worth pursuing.

Tip: If you can hook up with either a musician to set your work to music or a photographer to create audio visual DVDs your chances of making sales will increase dramatically.

I expect this one has you wondering! How on earth do you manage to sell your poems to companies such as Cadbury's, Coca-Cola or Dell? Well you don't! What you do is run a search on the web for consumer contests. There are hundreds of them running at anyone time. They are usually very easy to enter with many being nothing more than free prize draws.

There are, however plenty around that ask for a tie-breaker slogan. The winning slogan very often rhymes which is good news for us poets. You'll need to think creatively rather than literary, but the rewards can be phenomenal ranging from cash prizes of hundreds or even thousands of pounds to expensive rewards such as cars or holidays.

As you can see from this brief article, you don't have to settle for the honor of publication and no payment. Provided you are prepared to put yourself out and search for the niches that pay for your poetry you can make at least a little bit of cash from your work.

As this will almost certainly lead to publication in some form you will also reap the prestige of seeming your work in print and in some cases figure very prominently in the public eye.

That's all well and good, you say, but much of this calls for clever jingles and chocolate box type poetry, what about my more literary stuff? Can you really sell poems that are of a deeper, more thought provoking nature?

The answer is YES, but we'll go into that in another article!