Take the world of short stories, creative nonfiction, and essays. There are a great many litmags – many of them quite prestigious – that cannot afford to pay contributors in these areas. But getting published by one of them is a real feather in your cap that can lead to other opportunities of monetary value.

For example, my first collection of short stories, Hotel du Jack (Sandstone Press) was a much easier sell, as my publisher later told me, for the fact that many of the stories had appeared in litmags already, almost always for free. Some of them had done well in competitions, for some of which I even had to pay an entry fee.

After the collection appeared, I got asked to write articles and give talks about the art of short story writing. I was interviewed for websites and podcasts, and asked to judge a fiction competition. I was asked to write blurbs for other people’s books, and to give my permission for stories of mine to feature in creative writing courses (something I’m very proud of). Some of these activities were paying, but even when not they all offered me further opportunities to promote the book and my work.

Nowadays, when I write a story, I’m always hoping eventually to publish it in paid book form. But I’m happy to publish initially free for the right venue. That early publication gives you validation and you learn a lot too: if you have trouble placing a story, chances are it needs more work.

Another area where writing for free may help is in PR and promotion to a relevant audience. If you are writing a book about Pearl Harbor, for example, getting articles about it in relevant American history magazines or blogs is a great way to plug the book. Even if you don’t get a paid commission, you are getting something else of value – access to a target audience that has a high chance of being interested in the book you’re plugging.

My first novel, Work in Progress, was a comic tale about an eccentric writers’ group that I wrote and crowdfunded with a couple of pals. Off the back of it, I wrote several pieces about how to run writers’ groups, how to give feedback, the art of successful collaboration and the mechanics of crowdfunding (including here). Again, not all these gigs were paying, but I still accepted commissions for publications whose audience was well targeted for me to promote my work too.

Don’t get me wrong. If there is money to be had, I want it! Once I was offered a choice between $15 or three free issues of a litmag that was publishing a story of mine. The editor seemed a little put out when I chose the cash, but for me it was symbolically important to receive money for my words.

Likewise, with magazine commissions, you should always ask if there is a fee, as some titles may withhold mention of money if they think you’ll be satisfied just to be published. This happened to me with another magazine that thought I should be grateful just to get my book mentioned. But it paid all its other contributors and, as I successfully argued, they should pay me too!

The local author angle is another freebie area to consider. For example, I write occasional articles for a free local magazine run by a realtor. They have no budget to pay contributors, but I get to plug my new book every few weeks in a title that goes through the door of several thousand neighbours, something that would be otherwise very expensive to do. People often like to support local authors, but they can’t if they don’t know about them. Here again, I’m being paid not in cash but in reach and access to a valuable captive audience.

In the end, I think Hope and I are not so far apart. I may not be directly paid for everything I write up front, but there’s always an end goal to earn my just reward.

Read more of Dan’s articles on writing fiction and content at https://danielbrotzel.medium.com/