A few days ago, an actress friend of mine needed a couple of short scripts of two or three minutes each to film for a video audition. Of course I volunteered. Why did I offer to write something I definitely would never get paid for?
Partly out of friendship. However, it was the challenge that appealed to me. I asked her what she had to use for location and the specs for the other actors who would be helping her; age and gender.
With these details in hand, I wrote a three minute script, making a point of doing something off the beaten track with maybe just a touch of magic that she could do with one of her available actors. They were all family, so romance was off the cards. Then I thought for a moment what might be possible for the other two available actors and came up with another unusual idea that would give my actress friend a chance to express some different emotions from the first one.
I thoroughly enjoyed writing these and felt really good about the results afterwards. Then it got me to thinking about how much writing we do for free.
One situation where I’ve written free short stories is for anthologies that benefit a charity. There is never any expectation of payment for these. I’ve actually done more stories for charity anthologies than I have for commercial ones, though I’m working on one of those now.
This naturally led to thoughts of first in series books, which have become common in today’s self-publishing landscape. How soul destroying it must be to write a first novel, only to plan to give it away for free when you complete further books in the series!
Of course we don’t usually make them free right away. If there’s going to be a long series, it’s worth getting several more books out before reducing the price, depending on genre.
The fact is, writers have always done a certain amount of writing for which we will never directly earn a penny. Blog posts, website content, Reader Magnets, not to mention substantial advertising copy for projects like Kickstarter all take writing time and energy. Some of these efforts are meant to lead to sales, while others are peripheral to direct profit.
When we ask an established writer for an endorsement, we’re asking them to write for free. Many will do so. Motivations vary, but giving back to the writing community is one common reason a successful writer might donate a certain amount of time to these requests.
I recently received such an endorsement for one of my non-fiction books from someone well known in the field, knowing that he gets several requests every day and puts aside an hour a day to read books that pass vetting and write a few words for each. He doesn’t have to do this, yet he takes that time out of his busy day to help lesser known writers in a way he can slip into a schedule that includes full time university teaching as well as his own writing and fairly frequent television appearances.
The fact is, while we might blanche at the idea of writing novels only to give them away for free, there will never come a time, even if we get rich and famous, that we won’t write some things for free, even if it’s just a few lines of an endorsement.
Jaq D Hawkins
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Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
When I published a business book 20 years ago, two well-known business authors wrote back cover copy for me. Why, I asked? Because having their names appear on the cover of my books is free publicity for them.
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Clever of them!
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Much of this writing-for-free will be done by AI soon, using free software on everyone’s device. I’d like AI to write blurbs for my books. I find that so hard to do! But not really. The author’s understanding cannot be replaced. Perhaps anything written by an actual human should be recognized as premium content, with AI generated noted as such.
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Having seen some examples of AI writing, I don’t want it anywhere near my work. I don’t think it’s capable of doing half the things people worry about.
Some will suggest it will develop more and no doubt it will, but machines are data in, data out. Nuances aren’t going to be possible.
Pain in the proverbial as it is, I’ll keep writing my own blurbs and all content.
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Nicely done, Jaq. Hugs.
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Thanks. 🙂
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Over the last 30 years, I’ve written and published over 20 how-to workbooks for small business owners. I’ve used these in workshops I’ve led over the years, so indirectly I got paid. And they were good marketing tools. But some of these workbooks I’ve never made a cent from. I wrote them to capture my own knowledge and experience.
I’m currently updating them to publish on Amazon. I will promote them, and hope to generate interest and sales. But I’m not doing this for the money, but for my legacy.
I’ve also written and published four (soon to be five) fiction books–all but one science fiction. Sales trickle in. But for me it’s the joy of writing. I love writing these stories; it’s a lot more fun than writing biz books.
So I would say that most of the writing I’ve done has been without regard for getting paid for it.
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???
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Best reason to write, for the pleasure of it.
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I get a real buzz from writing that had no direct relation to money, so I can understand this.
I do like being able to support myself with it though, as it allows time to do the writing!
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