Writing for fun or money?

I used to just write for fun and I still do. Actually to just express what I feel. Composing poetry never feels like work. It's just my natural feelings flowing within words. But I found ways to make money off it online.

But I wonder besides ad revenue how is the market for the selling of poetry books and short stories? Or is ebooks the new thing now? I am thinking of getting into these new markets. Any help would be great!

If anyone need advice on how to monetize their writing online with ad revenue I can help with that!

Wow we came a long way from the when Poe has to fight to get published in the paper! If he lived now he would have millions by self publishing and online revenue! How times change!

money is what makes a man act FUNNY..if you are selling out your art, what the fuck are you doing on a deepundergroundpoetry site??..this is for revolutionary minds on the margins..and there's no real money in poetry..and if you pay for it you are a fool because 99.9 percent of it is garbage..Walt Whitman, the greatest free verse writer to the current known world never made a dime and doubt he would have wanted to...not from his poetry..but plenty of other vultures are profiting off of it now, aren't they???

WRITE FROM YOUR HEART, JONNY..AND DON'T LISTEN TO ANYONE ELSE'S BULLSHIT ABOUT OTHERWISE..LOL..THAT IS THE ONLY THING THAT WILL LEAD YOU ASTRAY

communist.

"Artificial Artists (State Of The Art)"


My words are not written for me to make a profit
Nor do I profess to be a spiritual prophet
I just want a gallery to display what I create
Just a place where no one's counting up the gate
 
You have confused God with your Almighty Dollar
And sold your soul for some artificial power
Inside you're already equipped with all that you need
I won't be bought 'cos I've closed my eyes to the beauty of greed
 
Fools will compare music of yesterday and today
Technology can't make up for words without a way
If a song's natural strength is not strong enough
Why soften it by stuffing padding in the fluff?
 
I hear a lot of slick production on the radio
I really think the rock has gotten out of control
I have seen the artists struggling in smoke filled bars
And now in my visions I can see beyond the stars
 
All I ever hear these days are sopped-up smoothie tunes
Rising up the charts as fast as full hot air balloons
Even if you don't hear music from my point of view
Stop polishing the rock, don't let it roll over you
 
You're making lots of dollars but you're not making any sense
Your smoothie tunes lack the passion that makes a song intense
Believe the words you sing or the song is finished from the start
Stop writing from your wallet, let it flow from in your heart
 
Put some soul behind your roll and find the spirit that you lack
Once it's sold you can't buy it back even with your endless stack
In spite of all you've made, it's a fact you can't dismiss
Art flows from within, not the corporate edifice
 
Record company politics and artists just don't mix
The ones who steal the money have one name, "666”
Pride won't buy your dinner but inside is where it pays
Despite the Record Biz, one song has several ways
 
I don't want to become anyone’s hero
But I wouldn't be here now if mine added up to zero
I don't want to dictate the style of music that you do
I just want to hear something a little bit more true
 
I could go on and on and on and I think I will anyway
Until someday when it's you in your music I hear you play
Can it really be so hard to feel and write down what you think
Or is there something wrong, is your pen filled with phony ink?
 
While it may be ok for you to live your life a lie
Your fans worship you and I can't help but wonder why
You have worked so hard to be what you wanted to be
But to be yourself, you shouldn't have to try
 
Time after time you sing and yet your song remains unsung
Show us your true colors, expose your insides to the sun
Songs are more than simply words for you to sing
Will you ever understand that money isn't everything?
 
I spin the radio dial and hear the commercial pioneers
Every radio station is poison to my ears
That isn't the kind of artist that I want to be
All I really want is for my music to be me
 
And so the con-artists continue to sell out their souls
While mine's committed to making sure the rock still rolls
And there is only one way to get back what they have lost
But the barrier between greed and visions must be crossed
 
 
(* 01/01/1986 )
JJ Johnson  

"Artificial Artists (X-Reprise)"


Have all the sex you want but not with old St. Nic
He won't come down your chimney with his toys or with his prick
You're like The Ghost Of Christmas Past 'cos you're easy to see through
Santa may not be an artist but he's more real than you

I wouldn't want your sex if you sat on me and whirled
It's easy to get caught up in the material world
Greed is a temptation I found hard to rise above
But even Mr. Number One knows money can't buy love

Compared to your record sales you're just a song and dance
So buy a baggy pair and stop grabbing at your pants
It's hard to feel reality even in the end
When the world that you live in is nothing but pretend

One day you'll realize there is no surgery
That can alter what we hear or the man we see
I may have two but that's the other side of me
At least both of my faces reflect what's inside me

For all I care you can freeze yourself for a thousand years
I'll be dead but even in my grave I'll still plug my ears
I'll never let you buy the rights to any of my songs
They came from inside me and that's where ownership belongs  


(jj johnson)

"Artists Are Lonely"


Artists are lonely
We've been known to go insane
We feel so much our hearts confuse the brain
Minds clogged up without a place to drain
Accepted only if we entertain

Artists have talent
Which all too often is abused
Laugh all you want but I'm un-amused
When money and emotions are fused
My abilities are better left unused

Artists are happy
In the worlds that we create
In my world I reshape the shapes I hate
Where greed and pride cannot penetrate
Where colors aren't forced to segregate  


(jj johnson)

mysticalenigma said:money is what makes a man act FUNNY..if you are selling out your art, what the fuck are you doing on a deepundergroundpoetry site??..this is for revolutionary minds on the margins..and there's no real money in poetry..and if you pay for it you are a fool because 99.9 percent of it is garbage.

well, i guess i'm not revolutionary AND i've found that .1% market for finding (and paying for) quality poetry. guess i need to get my ass out of deep underground.

i LOVE going to small press websites and ordering chapbooks and magazines from them. i get exposure to poets and artists that i never would have if i hadn't. and i've published and received compensation from some of those same small presses.

Hey my stuff is dark and underground. Trust me if I wanted to write for only money,
I would write love stories and poems. Because those are the most popular when you search online.
Dark poetry is not very popular.

But I am not going to write what I don't feel.
Yet at the same time I would like my writing to at least pay for my Brandy
and drinking habit! If that is not to much to ask lol

I plan to write prose and stories for money, but poetry for fun and free. Books are entertaining and insightful; they have value. Whereas my poetry is self-absorbed and wrapped up in enigmas bedrock deep to make mining anything of value a long laborious and uncertain process.
Though counter to that, a book or story or prose tells you what a person thinks, but a poem tells you what they feel, so the few words of feeling are of more value overall.

That said if DU banded together and started selling their work, it would be wrong enough to right the whole world and lead to a load of eccentric revolutionary poets as the prime capitalist's.

I write both for fun. But monetize for with blogs and youtube. What is funny to mainstream net user my stuff is disturbing and over the top. But here in the underground, my stuff is mild compared to a lot of people! I like it down here in the underground. Where anything goes. Like an poetic anarchy !

But yes covering the cost of drinks and maybe even food is always nice if it comes from words conjured by the pen.

if you can turn an original idea, either miniscual or inspiational, into food and shelter in my opinion you are nothing less than the sun in a room full of candles.

Life is always about choices we made iam my own story n I tell it ez I fill

Me, I have always written things of a deeply mystical and spiritual sort, which is great for helping to enlighten and teach people… but it is terrible for making money. But making money with my writings has never been my personal priority. I write my mystical and spiritual works to express myself: my beliefs, and my deeper thoughts, and to show people an alternative way to believe, if they wish to. Something outside of the mainstream, so to speak! Whilst I never specifically seek converts to my faith or to my way of thinking (despite being a Gnostic and Wiccan High Priestess)… since I prefer people to come to the wisdom and knowledge I have to offer willingly rather than by conversion… I am always happy if at the end of the day I was able to either teach somebody something they didn’t know or may never have thought of, or if I was able to help them in some way through inspiring them with my writings or by the way I’ve lived my life (which is sometimes another subject I write about). Of course, if someone felt that my way was right for: them, I would not ever begrudge them the opportunity to join my faith so long as that was what they truly desired. I just do not care for the word “convert” is all since it has such a negative connotation to it due to how it has been used by fanatics and zealots since practically forever. But the self-expression thing is another reason why I write… since sometimes I’ll write things of a more personal nature that are not always of a mystical or spiritual variety. Now regarding when I write works of fiction, which I also sometimes do… those I write simply to entertain and to tell a good story. I’ll typically write the kinds of stories I also enjoy reading, so you’ll find amongst my fiction a lot of fantasy, sword and sorcery, gothic horror, and science fiction themes. But I always have a lot of fun writing and sharing my works with others, so that is another component of it for me… writing for the love of it, and I suppose in that way for fun as well. So for me, there are a LOT of very different reasons why I write. None of them money-related though… but I salute anyone who chooses that for a career and is able to make it work! If anyone can make money doing what they love doing the most, there is certainly nothing wrong with that. :)