Important news: You don’t have to be a journalist or spend hours searching for freelance work to find a creative writing job. If you enjoy storytelling more than marketing campaigns, you CAN make some money from your creative endeavors. We will not describe it, it is difficult, but not impossible.
Here are three creative writing jobs that will help you flex your artistic writing muscles
We hope you’ll use the resources below to find ways to make money writing short stories, creative prose, or even poetry.
Literary journals and magazines
Literary journals and magazines are a great place to submit your creative writing, especially if you’re trying to build a portfolio of published work. It may be harder to get accepted at some publications than others, but think of rejection letters as a way to work on improving.
If you want to start publishing your work, here are some journals and magazines where you can submit your stories or essays.
One story
“ONE STORY publishes one great story at a time. We connect people through reading, writing and exploring short stories.”
While ONE STORY accepts fiction, it states that it accepts it literary fiction. When you start writing and submitting data, make sure you know difference between literary and genre fiction and you understand what each publication is looking for.
Submissions to ONE STORY should be between 3,000 and 8,000 words and cost $500 and 25 writers in exchange for the rights to the first North American serial. After publication, all rights will return to the author.
Check out their publishing guidelines for more information.
Strange horizons
Strange Horizons accepts speculative fiction and also publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and interviews. Even better? You will be able to submit them soon! For fiction, they accept stories up to 10,000 words and pay $0.10 per word.
Check their guidelines and get ready to submit. If you have speculative fiction polished and ready to go, this might be a great place for it!
Sun Magazine
We are looking for narrative texts and evocative photographs from all over the world. Send us work that maps the human landscape, where light captures the smallest joy, where darkness sometimes threatens to overwhelm, and where ✗ never marks a place, because the truth is never that simple.
Sun magazine pays $200 and up, depending on the length of fiction articles and essays. Review their guidelines for writing them and think about the message!
Podcasts
In case you haven’t noticed, even the literary world is going digital and many people prefer to listen to their stories rather than read them. It’s time to get your piece of this pie and look into podcasts for profitable creative writing jobs. Here are some podcasts that will pay you for your stories and feature them on their podcasts.
PseudoPod
“PseudoPod is always looking for high-quality fiction to feed our listeners. If you are a writer who has written a short horror film and would like to hear it narrated by one of our talented performers, we would love to see it. Probably.”
PseudoPod seeks out dark or weird fiction and pays $0.08 per word for original fiction, a flat rate of $100 for short story reprints, and a flat rate of $20 for flash fiction reprints (stories under 1,500 words).
You can learn more about when submissions can be accepted and what their guidelines are on their website.
PodCastle is a fantasy podcast from PseudoPod. If you write speculative fiction, this is the site for you. Find out more here.
Cast of Miracles
Writing speculative fiction for young adults? Cast of Wonders is a young adult short story marketplace open to stories up to 6,000 words long. Dig deep to the submission guidelines available herebecause they make it clear that they are looking for a specific type of story.
Clarkesworld Podcast
“Clarkesworld Magazine is a Hugo, World Fantasy and British Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine that publishes short stories, interviews, articles and audio fiction.”
Clarkesworld pays $0.12 per word but claims world-first electronic rights (text and audio), first printing rights, and non-exclusive anthology rights to the annual Clarkesworld anthology.
If you’re just starting to submit your work, it’s worth learning more about first rights and what they mean for your work. They offer a resource here. Check out their application guidelines and check if they match your text.
Thirteen podcasts
“Thirteen is a monthly audiofiction anthology of atmospheric, slow-burn, and spooky stories.
Thirteen Podcast is looking for “stories that will make you smile, break your heart and make you wish for a night light.”
New episodes appear on the 13th of each month and feature one longer story per episode instead of several shorter ones. They are looking for stories of at least 5,000 words, and a first-person narrator works best in their format.
Authors of stories longer than 5,000 words will receive $75 if accepted. Authors of stories under 5,000 words will receive $50 if accepted.
Review their guidelines and contact us, especially if you like short, scary stories on the long side.
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Podcast
“Ellery Queen’s Mystery magazine welcomes submissions from both new and established writers. We publish all kinds of crime stories: psychologically suspenseful novels, deductive puzzles, private detective cases – a whole range of crimes and methods of detection, from realistic (including the fate of a policeman and stories about police procedures) to the more imaginative (including “locked rooms” and “impossible crimes”). We need edgy stories and “cozy,” but we’re not interested in explicit sex or violence. We don’t want real detective and crime stories. We are especially keen to review first stories by authors who have never published fiction professionally before.”
The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast offers accepted authors $0.05-$0.08 per word for works ranging from 250 to 20,000 words. For more information, please review their guidelines.
Companies producing greeting cards
Do you have a weakness for one-liners? Are you always asked to write notes for friends or loved ones when they have a special occasion or loss? Can you make someone sniffle with just a few words? Then writing greeting cards may be one of the best creative writing activities for you. Some companies pay $100 per verse approved, so this is a great way to increase your writing income.
Check out these companies to get started.
Art of the Blue Mountain
Blue Mountain Arts is looking for rhyming poems, religious verses, or one-liners. That said, they want “contemporary prose or poetry written from personal experience that reflects the thoughts and feelings that people today want to communicate but don’t always know how to put into words.”
If you think you can capture common feelings in a new and unique way, please see the application guidelines.
Oatmeal Studio
Oatmeal studies prioritize fun over feelings. They want “humorous greeting card ideas that appeal to a variety of ages and interests. Review their guidelines website and check if their style matches yours!
While there are opportunities to submit your work for creative writing jobs, we should make it clear that making money in this non-traditional way is not easy. It requires constant improvement, research and patience. The landscape is constantly changing, so keep learning and, most importantly, keep writing!