Improbable Press Blog — Tips for Selling Your Writing

By Atlin Merrick I was editing an anthology some years ago and the book needed one more story to round it out, but needed it fast. I reached out to a writer I knew through their online writing and asked if they wanted to write a short story for us quick. They said yes, so I told them the parameters – theme, length, due date. Then something happened. A rare thing. A good thing. The writer sent us exactly what we asked for. The theme, the length, on the date it was due. The publisher bought the story and do...

You’ve written tens of thousands of words of short stories, fanfiction, character development, and you want to sell something damn it. Obviously you’re already a writer — you write, so that makes you a writer, that's the rules — but now you want to be a professional. A professional is paid to write. Even if she makes £1 she’s a pro. She was paid. So, how do you do it, how do you make that first sale? I know it seems hard (it did to me), because you get a lot of rejections or just silence (which is worse? Is...