Catalog writing is for me!

This is a three part post discussing the many opportunities for writers.

Before I made the decision to write for catalogs, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I just didn't know what kind of writer - so I did some research. Here is what I found...

Academic writers write for little to no pay. They are scholars, teachers and scientists and competition to be published in academic magazines is fierce. If they don't get paid to write articles and/or books - what's the reason so many people want to be published by these no pay jobs? Simple, it can further their career because being published in this way is a great honor. While I would enjoy the prestige of this type of career I still need to support myself.

There is a huge market for writing Articles. Whether it be a travel writer, food writer or medical writer, I would need specialized knowledge in a particular field to carve out a niche for myself. As well as a steady stream of ideas for non-fiction articles I also would need many magazines to write for in order to succeed. At the end of the day it isn't my cup of tea.

Erotica writers are paid well (up to $1 per word for short stories), but writing erotic stories day in and day out is bound to drive me too boredom very fast. I want variety in the topics I write - not to repeat a handful of standard plots and coarse language. Even though some writers start out in this way and prefer to remain anonymous, this type of writing doesn't do it for me.

Writing for Video games involves creating the plots, characters, surroundings and dialogue of a video game. Typically, these writers write with a group of people from the start including programmers and artists to determine if the game is feasible to create. Some writers are on a staff and some freelance. The latter is what I would have chosen but I read that they write for their share of the royalties the game generates. So if the game is a complete failure I won't get paid. Since I have no say in anything other than the writing there are too many variables involved that could eat away at my royalties. I wasn't willing to take that risk.

Ghost writers are writers who write for other people, like celebrities. The work is challenging because there is a lot of research that goes into it like planning the book with the customer, interviews (sometime several), rewrites as well as being able to capture some of the customer's writing style. Depending on the customer's media profile the pay can be from ok to fantastic. If I wrote a book, under my name or for someone else I would want the credit. That's why this industry isn't for me.

Grant writers write applications for grants from governmental and private institutions. Substantial knowledge of law and business language is a requirement to be successful in this industry. I have the business knowledge since I worked as a business broker (a broker who sells businesses like laundromats, restaurants, franchises and check cashing stores) but lack in the law department. It seems like there would be a tremendous learning curve and I knew there were other markets without such a high price to break into. So I ruled grant writers out.

This concludes part 1 of 3. Next time I will cover journalists, non fiction book writers, novelists, online writers, play writers and poetry writers. Thanks for reading... see you next time.