The Writers Bureau

Week one: Which magazines accept true stories? There are magazines that pay for your true-life stories. I don’t mean the sensational, ‘Madman was hiding in my attic’, ‘Machete gang struck as I served tea’ or ‘He made me eat until I was 30 stone’ type stories. There are numerous magazines that will publish your anecdotes, nostalgia tales, stories about pets, holidays, supernatural experiences (even tenuous ones!), job changes, and more.

In this first session, we’ll take a look at some of the opportunities out there. You’ll be given specific markets you can target, together with examples. You’ll also have the opportunity to start working on some pieces to send out.

Week two: The women’s weeklies and making multiple sales. While many of the women’s weeklies do feature over-the-top true-life stories, they also publish health stories, happy tales, triumph over adversity, and so on. Many of them pay well and just because they’re a women’s weekly doesn’t mean they don’t also accept stories from men. We’ll take a look at this market and build on week one’s session, with more publications for you to target. Finally, we’ll focus on how you can make multiple sales from these markets and research others.

The second session will give you more magazines to write for, further opportunities to work on your own pieces and cover how you can start writing for these magazines on a regular basis. We’ll also talk about finding more publications to send your true stories to.