How to Make Money Out of Your Storytelling Skills
You have the real aptitude for storytelling and writing. And you’re the type who can sit around the campfire and conjure compelling stories right out of your head. People love to listen to you.
You may be wondering now if there’s a way to monetize your skill, besides hitting a best-selling jackpot one day. Good thing for you, because there is! If you’re a freelance writer who’s stuck in the same situation, this article is for you.
Your success as a writer often relies on your storytelling ability. Whether you are copywriting, doing a blogger outreach, writing fiction, serious income means telling stories.
Write a Story that Sells
The majority of storytelling writers starve because they limit their horizons to the few magazines and surviving anthologies that accept short stories. Even if the story gets accepted, the pay is usually insufficient.
Real income doesn’t come from publications. It comes from decent-sized businesses. They are the clients that pay well for good stories. It’s a prerequisite for companies to tell stories because native ads are no longer sufficient to people. They want something personal.
Below are the doable ways that freelance writers like you can use to weave marketable stories and generate more money.
Identify Your Audience
The battle starts here: Your audience base. No matter if you’re a rockstar writer and storyteller, if you don’t understand your audience well, there will be no connection and conversions. The game is over even before it starts.
You need to find out what your audience aspire, cherish, fear, despise and admire. Apprehending your audience in a personal level evens the playing field for you. It also helps you reach your target market, which leads to a more genuine story and facile leadership of the community you build. And who knows? it could lead to your business card printing as well, provided it’s suitable for your particular niche.
Choose Your Frame
Choosing the right frame correlates to who your audience is. When you know your audience well enough, you’ll understand the perspectives they have. And, when you understand these aspects and the things they believe, you can frame your stories accordingly. It is a definite advantage over your competitors.
Examples of competing worldviews with different word frames:
- Fitness aficionado versus Gym Buff
- Innovative versus Moonbat
- Businessman versus Bachelor
You might not get all the conversions you want at the other end of the spectrum, but your audience base will help share your content and infiltrate other groups, and this is where monetary growth comes.
Choose Your Premise
Choosing the right premise for your story is important because it’s the structure that yields the conclusion you want to achieve. It’s also the conveyance of framed messages with relatable heroes and dramatic tensions that help you achieve your goals.
- It’s the difference between an ignored story and a good story.
- It’s the fine line between action and attention.
- It’s the purple cow, the angle, the hook.
It’s imperative to understand the difference between worldviews and beliefs of your audience and vice versa.
Platforms that Pay for Storytelling Writing
Business may be dull on the surface, but there are unbelievable dramas underneath that make good stories you can monetize.
In a business’ perspective, the more sophisticated the audience or the product, the more likely the company needs storytelling to generate sales. Freelance writers can take advantage of this scenario.
Below are the types of storytelling writing you can venture.
- Native Ads or Advertorial Articles
Native ads and advertorial articles are old-age mediums that feature articles that scream ‘advertising.’
Most of the time, they detail the success of the sponsoring businesses or tell why their products are exceptional in a reported article manner. When these articles appear online, they become native advertising or sponsored posts.
- Annual Reports
Annual reports are mostly graphs and charts about the financial state of a company, which you might find boring most of the time. Not so fast here, as annual reports could render compelling stories in the past and can do so in the future.
Public companies need to issue these reports and need to spin them into good stories to retain investors on board. The same thing applies to private and non-profit companies, as they need to produce effective annual reports.
- Ghostwriting Placed Articles
If you decide to pull a serious cash out of your freelance writing career, ghostwriting could be the answer. For this medium, you need to flip your point of view and write as if you are a business owner. You need to tell stories in a ‘first person’ basis.
You need to explain how your business grows and develops, what makes it innovative, and what current events your business experiences, just to name a few.
The majority of businesses want to submit these professionally written articles to publications to build brand reputation and enhance their visibility.
- Customer Case Studies
If you’re a person who likes to dwell in the nitty-gritty of business details, this niche is perfect for you. Case studies tell the stories of consumers who use the products or services of your clients. These stories will persuade more customers to sign up, provided of course that you tell them everything.
I once wrote a case study for a business-insurance firm. I interviewed a woman who survived a car crash due to a vehicle fire. Her story is the real deal! The survivor then explained how her insurance firm did an excellent job by replacing her car – and the story did have a happy ending. That one made it on the list of a Fortune 500 company, and I got paid $2 per word.
So you see, the more drama you can create with these stories, the better. And your clients will love them more because they generate results.
Takeaway
You don’t need to be virtuoso in storytelling to do well in this sector. You just need to be curious, a good listener and ask a lot of questions.
It’s best that you put your storytelling skills in businesses that demand written projects, as it’s the vibrant ecosystem where you can harness your talent and make real money at the same time.
Patrick
August 24, 2017 @ 5:08 pm
I would love to learn how to write. I write well when it’s a previously formatted prompt or essay, but when the ends are loose I have no idea when to begin an idea and when to end one.
Maria Estrada
August 25, 2017 @ 3:00 am
Hi Patrick,
I understand where you’re coming from. I’ve been there too. When we’re so used to following formats, we tend to forget how to write in a free-flowing manner. My advice for you is to practice writing without following any formats. Write down your random thoughts or ideas. Keep writing and don’t think about those technicalities and restrictions that you have when you’re following a format. When you’re writing from your heart, the creative juice will keep flowing. You wouldn’t even think about how to start and end your sentence. It will just come out naturally. Keep writing in this manner because it really helps. And by the time, you’ll need to write something more formal or technical, you will no longer have a hard time because you’ve already conditioned yourself to write without limitations regarding formats. Don’t let formats limit what you want to convey. Write to your heart’s content!
Charles
August 25, 2017 @ 1:54 am
Hi Maria
I”ve just started out writing few pieces, I’ve a good technical knowledge of web and SEO but it’s taking me forever to write a decent article that can engage the readers as a form of storytelling. Any tips would be appreciated.
Maria Estrada
August 25, 2017 @ 2:38 am
Hello Charles,
I’m glad you’ve shown interest in storytelling writing. As for your question, my only advice is to be natural, be yourself! Write as if you’re talking to a close friend. You know, when I’m just starting out, I’ve had the same dilemma like yours. But, experience taught me well that if you want to make your content engaging, be natural, don’t be too technical, don’t be stiff. Keep the facts and stats reliable, but then again, make it easy to read. You can also make it entertaining by injecting some humor into it without losing credibility of course. Readers prefer to read contents that aren’t boring and easy to comprehend. You’re just starting out, and you will enter lots of room for improvements before you can finally find your tone of writing. So, practice, research and persevere. Good luck to your endeavors!
Adeel Sami
August 28, 2017 @ 1:13 am
Hello, Maria!
I think I am not the “story telling” guy, but I want to become one or have a little touch to it with my content.
I always try to stay “storified” while writing the content, no matter what the topic is.
For that, I am inspired by Ryan Biddulph who helped me change my blogging’s tone.
Still not up to that level but gradually making my way because there are so much to add; English language, my country, etc.
But that’s way too better to make some progress than not moving for an inch due to the excuses, right? 🙂
So, thank you for the awesome read, Maria! 🙂
~ Adeel
Elvis Michael
August 29, 2017 @ 2:50 pm
The great thing about stories is the fact that we all have one. Even if a story seems small and mundane to us, someone else will find it fascinating if it fits the blog post. It also helps readers see the message/article from a new perspective.
Hope you’ve been doing well man!
Elvis
Emenike
September 13, 2017 @ 11:01 pm
Hi Maria,
I love your opinion on knowing one’s audience. The best brand story that helps a company sell their products worth millions of dollars is the one that knows the target audience in and out.
Though I’m not so good at telling stories but I can tell you that it worked perfectly on Facebook the few times I have implemented it.
Thanks Elvis for this masterpiece here.
Emenike
Ryan Biddulph
September 16, 2017 @ 3:06 pm
Hi Maria,
Great tips here.
I am a fan of story telling, weaving my travel tales into my blog posts. But really, anybody can tell a story about anything. First person accounts, or third person customer case studies, or even a fictional piece that has its roots in reality/fact.
I practice being an observer to tell stories. Focus on the details. Imagine the story, in mind, then paint the picture through your words.
Before I tell any travel story on Blogging From Paradise or through my eBooks I visualize the experience, slowly and patiently, then add as many details as possible to tap into the reader’s senses. Sight, smell, hearing, etc.
This helps my readers step into the story, so it feels alive and real, to them.
If you can tell a story, you can sell a story.
Ryan
Elvis Michael
September 25, 2017 @ 1:48 pm
Everyone knows you’re practically the storytelling king 😉
No but seriously, EVERYONE has a story to tell — no matter how mundane their life may be. Talk about something that happened to a friend many years ago, or something you learned through a fellow blogger. Speak from your own perspective and add a valuable lesson somewhere in there. You get the idea.
Thanks Ryan 🙂
Stefan
October 12, 2017 @ 6:33 am
Hi Maria,
Very Useful article.
Thanks for sharing this information
Christine Keil
March 19, 2018 @ 3:47 am
Native advertising is huge now in 2018 and has presented alot of opportunities for writers, especially because the copy for native ads can mean the difference between a successful and failed campaign!
Kamran
April 19, 2018 @ 9:41 am
I am great eat storytelling but I can do it face to face. My writing skills are much below average. What can I do?