Make Money Writing FILLERS from Home

(Indeed, Make Money Writing FILLERS from Home is my most published piece, but it is also my most plagiarized piece,  nearly word for word at times... keep your reputation intact and if the situation ever comes up during your writing lifetime-it's relatively rare-you'll be able to rectify the situation and bounce back quickly based on integrity alone. Feel free to republish this article in entirety, including the byline, and a link back, then email us YOUR link.)

Make Money Writing FILLERS from Home

~by Teraisa J. Goldman

What Is A Filler?

Open any magazine, newspaper or webpage, and most likely you will come across a filler. A filler is a short item used to fill a space in a publication (or to fill time on the radio or television--keep in mind that a writer writes these fillers as well).

"The Teaching Home" and "Reader's Digest" actually reserve space specifically for fillers.

Fillers can be as short as a fun phrase; Happiness is thirty-one different flavors of ice-cream. Or fillers can be a long five hundred word anecdote. Fillers are generally nonfiction.

Recipes are fillers in certain publications. Jason Wolfe's free online weekly newsletter, "DIRECTCOUPONS," includes a reader's recipe in each issue. Hints, tips, problems and solutions, jokes, witty quotations, quips, epigrams (short clever poem or paradoxical statement) and other juicy nuggets of writing can also be sold as fillers.

Where Do I Find Fillers?

Fillers happen all around you. Do you clean? Do you have children? Do you cook? Are you a husband or a wife? Do you work (okay, do you haveanother bread-and-butter type of job?)? Where do you relax? What do youdo for enjoyment? Do you have animals? Do you belong to a church or another type of organization? Have you discovered a better/faster/healthier way to do something? You can find fillers everywhere, for any reason, as long as you keep your senses open.

Observe and be alert for unusual or humorous signs on marquees. We read this on a church billboard: Drive-Thru Bible Study. Keep an eye on store windows, traveling trucks and buses. You just never know what you may be passing by.

Watch people. Listen to what they are saying. You will hear twists on old sayings, puns, amusing stories and plenty of jokes.

Mary Ann Hahn of New York says, "Tune in when someone compliments someone else by saying, 'Good idea,' or 'I ought to try that!' Jot down the idea. Many magazines use these tips as fillers, and these short pieces can help the new writer's break into national publications."

Recording Fillers and Keeping Records

Keep a pocket sized notebook and a pen handy at all times. You will be ready to record incidents instantly. Unless you know shorthand, I recommend writing the comments, jokes, signs or happenings as completely as time allows. I have found that writing key words only does NOT always jog your memory when you are ready to type the filler.

You can use one page per filler, or use index cards, which will be of help when you are ready to file them. File them under headings such as: "Hints," "Tips," "Jokes," "Amusing Sayings," "Quotes," "Recipes," "Personal Experiences," etc. If you feel your filler should go into more than one category, put it in each category and note the cross reference.

Each time you submit the filler, list the date, name and address of themagazine. When it sells, pull it from the category files and move it to a "Published" file.

Additional Filler Tips

While writing, pay attention to the position (viewpoint) you take to project your filler.

An objective viewpoint may be good if you are making a statement, when it doesn't matter who is speaking, when you report what happens, and when writing certain types of work/shop tips ("Before attempting to take out a splinter, soak the area in very warm water."). The statement can stand alone in an objective viewpoint.

Using a subjective viewpoint allows you to use emotions or reactions of a person. First person ("While watching my three-year-old play catch, I...") viewpoints are subjective, as are the third person ("Johnny Cash may have made good, but when he..."). This puts us in the thoughts of the major character.

Don't be limited to anything. Find out what works for you and for the market. Practice writing your filler from different viewpoints. Which one is best for what you are writing? Which one would you want to read? Study the markets to discover what is selling.

Like any other form of writing; be sure your manuscript is in the bestprofessional form possible. Editors will be turned off by sloppy work. Include an SASE.

Most editors buy all rights when purchasing fillers.

But... Isn't Filler Pay Pretty Low?

Some markets pay about $5 for fillers, while others pay $50 or more. Fillers may not seem lucrative to you, after knowing the payscale, but put it in perspective, and think about your time.

Most fillers do not require queries. With that in mind, you just saved weeks of waiting, as well as money for postage. But that is not the time I am talking about. Say a feature article will pay you $500. It will take you hours, maybe days of research. Next you will be organizing your information, in order to complete the article. Finally, you send it out, only to have to rewrite. How much time is that for you?

Writing a filler often takes mere minutes; you happen to read a sign at church with says: "What Part Of 'Thou Shalt Not' Didn't You Understand?" This took maybe a minute to jot down, possibly a half an hour in the library looking for an appropriate market, and maybe five minutes to send it off. Maybe an hour. If you are paid $50 (think Family Circle, Woman's Day), that comes to $50 an hour.

Had you been writing that feature article--flat $500 pay--you would have to have it completed in only 10 hours to earn the same $50 an hour. Most of us know feature articles' query letters can take more time than that.

In addition to more money for amount of time spent working, fillers are a terrific way to get the editors used to your work, style and name.

And after you send in a filler?

Don't sit around waiting for a response... get to work! Send another filler. There is a market for your work and it's waiting for you.

Filler Markets and Writer's Guidelines

Families.com Guideposts Midwest Living The New Yorker Perspective Travel The Family Handyman Traveler Working Mother

Writer's Digest Short Stuff, for Grown-ups, Bowman Publications P.O. Box 7057 Loveland, Colorado 80537 Is Looking For: anecdotes, short humor, 20-500 words. No x-rated adult fare. Pays $1-5. Sample copy and writer's guidelines for $1.50 and 9x12 SAE with 5 first-class stamps. Strange Horizons Magazine EMail: poetry@strangehorizons.com and type "POETRY SUB: Your poem title" in the subject line. Plain text in the body of the email. No attachments please. Needs: Poetry Submissions: under 100 words, no simultaneous submissions Pays: $10 to $20.

Reminder

DON'T FORGET TO SEND FOR WRITER'S GUIDELINES, AND A SAMPLE COPY WHENEVER POSSIBLE. WRITER'S NEED TO BE FAMILIAR TO THE MAGAZINE THEY ARE QUERYING.

Teraisa is a featured author in "Mark My Words: More the Write Advice" and "Christian Unschooling: Growing Your Children in the Freedom of Christ" She has articles out or due out in: Woman's Day, Highlights For Children, True Crime Group, Wedding Soon, Money Magazine and Live.

Journey 365: Observation Deck, Study Opening Lines

The Observation Deck, a tool-kit for writers, is an excellent way to jumpstart your writing when you are stuck or to use as a daily free-writing exercise. The huge bonus is that if you are working on your novel, you can apply the cards to your story, your character, or even your plot.

Using the cards in your "real" work creates a more complex situation by having you delve deeper--though you want your writing to remain the way it needs to be to touch your readers; if you can delve deeper, your reader can, and if you reader delves deep, they are more attached, more connected... they CARE.

I'm nearly a week into Journey 365, I've been to two states, four cities, and in less than twenty-four hours, I've both sweated from the sunny heat in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and then had to figure out how to bundle up without a coat during the snowfall that dropped at least an inch, perhaps two!

The one thing that doesn't change? Writing. Get to a pattern (avoid putting yourself into a situation where if something changes you are stressed and "fail") and stick with it.

I've touched on my daily pattern before; I'll share it again: wake, SMILE, tea, stretch and meditate, 500 words, hike/exercise/nature, 15 minutes each of transcribing interviews and 187 (documentary)... the rest is all a bonus.

When you have this pattern going, even for just three days, you tend to work better because you feel better about yourself.

My pattern for the year is to have a book a year for life.

That's my story, I'm sticking to it.

Journey 365: Observation Deck, OPEN a Drawer

Observation Deck for Writers

Journey 365:

Across the States in 365 Pages

(a page a day makes a book!)

From Huntington Beach, California, to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, to Salem, Oregon, and Fort Hood, Texas, I'm traveling the states to visit family--the true quest, however, is to find myself and write another book. 

Each day I wake when my body wakes (I have medical uncontrollable insomnia and other ailments, thanks to our Mold House), SMILE, stretch and do some push-ups, grab a cup of hot tea with sugar and milk, write 500 words, hike, write 500 more words, work 15 minutes each on a script and 187 (mini-documentaries), and spend time transcribing audio taped interviews. Everything else is whatever makes my heart smile.

Your character OPENs a drawer

In case you're wondering, money for the road comes from paid articles and local merchandising jobs. Passive income would be easier and smarter, but I only earn about $18 a year...

Today's chosen Observation Deck card is OPEN a drawer. 

"Thrust your hand deep into life, and whatever you bring up in it, that is your subject."

~Goethe, poet

Naomi Epel, the creator and author of my Observation Deck (tool kit for writers), shares ideas on cards that you use in your writing or for free-writing, and is something I've been using and suggesting for decades. 

OPEN a drawer suggests that you use this idea to learn more about your character or to imagine an open drawer and create a story. 

Maybe, you simply pull something out of an open drawer and you revolve a tale around it (you pull out a utility knife and realize it's the same one that Matthew used to quickly to cut out of the ties used to restrain him during a home invasion in which he was the lone survivor).

Another thought, perhaps your heroine keeps something in her beauty drawer that is a hidden secret of what motivates her to do the things she does; a love letter from someone other than her husband or an ultra sound picture of a baby she carried secretly and gave up the previous decade.

Whether you use the OPEN a drawer card for a simple warm-up to your "real" writing or for your book, you'll find the exercise will take you to places you hadn't thought about before and they just may be the jump-start you've been searching for.