Can You Make 150 Dollars From Writing Just 17 Words?
by Maurizio Bisogno

Will your novel ever make you so much money? Become a greeting card writer and your publisher will pay you up to hundreds dollars for your verses.

Start by reading cards and collect all the cards you can from your friends so that you build your own archive. This is an important step to become aware of the different writing styles and the subject matters. In other words, this is your market research phase to know what the greeting card publishers want from you as a writer.

Once you have started your readings, you will find out that there are thousands if not hundred of thousands of different greeting cards. Nevertheless, by looking nearer you will see that they're only few common styles to know; we can safely say that there are only 4 fundamental types of verse, and they are as follows:

· Romantic
· Formal
· Humorous
· Rude

That's it. When you know them you can write for any type of card you want to. This is also the Secret of the Trade.

At this stage you start writing; a good way to practice is to choose as model the length, the style, the rhyme of the cards already printed and popular - your success depends of course also on how much you can inject your original ideas into this pre-existing framework.

Next step is to send your verses to one or more publishers and to that aim you will have to build your own portfolio consisting of your typed verses.

On the printed cards themselves you will find the name of the publishers to send your verses to. When they want you to write verses for them, publishers will give you also information on length and subject. At that stage your job is to be original within the tradition.

Do you still think that you will make more money out of your novel?

Copyright Maurizio Bisogno © 2003. All Rights Reserved.

Maurizio Bisogno, graduate in philosophy and former IT Professional, is the author of several publications and translations. http://www.mauriziobisogno.com If you wish to subscribe to the Road to Wealth list send an e-mail mailto:TRTW@mauriziobisogno.com with Subscribe in the subject.