Why most writers find it difficult to sell their writing

In one brief sentence, many writers fail to sell their work online because a writer is a very stubborn animal.

Which other “animal” would undertake the back-breaking-emotionally-draining task of writing a 50,000 word novel and then face dozens of rejections but still keep on moving from publisher to publisher? Finally some small obscure publisher wants to publish the novel but requests for numerous changes, which the writer sits down to do. Finally the novel is published and somehow is not selling. So the same writer starts some sort of promotion exercise to get sales going.

The question on your mind now is the very same question that is always on my mine. What does the poor guy eat when all this is going on?

That nature in a writer is the reason why so many of them find it extremely hard to sell online. You see what quite often keeps the writer going through all the nightmare of a process that leads to publishing, is the passion they have for their work. Most novels are written for the writer first and they then hope against all hope to find an audience out there.

This is the first thing you must get rid of if you want to get your work published. Do not write for yourself, unless you’re going to pay for the damned piece. Look for a market, find out what that market needs, and then provide it.

It will help a great deal if you have some interest in the subject that you are writing about. However that is the ideal situation and the truth is that finding yourself in the ideal situation is always a very rare thing these days. Many times you will find that it pays to look for the most profitable situation rather than the most ideal. The most profitable situation is where you have found a well paying market that demands writing that you can do. As you write and your first payment comes through, you gain strength and motivation, no matter how little that first payment was. After a while writing on the subject, you develop a liking for it and you even start getting better and better writing on the subject.

The next step will be to look for more markets on the same subject. Maybe a web site that pays better or even an offline magazine.

So you want to sell your writing? Stop. Put aside everything you have written in the past, find somebody somewhere who has requested for some article (this blog will be able to give you plenty of tips and leads to give you plenty of requested articles to work on) go ahead and write the piece and within a very short time, you may just find that the work is flowing in and you are getting paid something for your writing.