Everyone loves to make money. Why not? It helps us buy “stuff.” And stuff is what helps us pass time. If someone ever offers you the chance to make money doing what you love, then most likely you’ll scream for joy. Well get ready to scream, because here are a few great ways to earn a bit of cash while writing poetry.

Start a poetry blog The easiest way to get started making money is to create a poetry blog. Sadly, even though this is the easiest to start it is also the least likely to make you a ton of cash, but that is life. Here’s how it works: start a blog either on Blogspot or your own host, put up some advertising, do a bit of SEO (read up on it if you don’t know what it is), and post your poetry. It’s that simple (that’s simple, right?). Just don’t hope for a lot of money (or visitors) until the blog is well established. The better you write, the easier it will be. Just don’t try to cheat your advertisers by clicking on the links or telling your friends/family to. They’ll kick you to the curb faster than Octomom filed for government assistance.

Work for a greeting card industry The greeting card industry is another fantastic choice. There are thousands of poets writing short rhymes for them at any moment. Nonetheless, it is a tiring chore. Writing these short rhymes is tiring and pays very little. Nonetheless, it’s money! If you have the gift of writing short and cute rhymes, you might as well try it out. Besides, the industry needs you!

Enough with the small clams, the next two are where the real money is.

Slam some poetry! Slam poetry! Yes, slam poetry. Here’s how you get started making money with it: Find a club that holds a night of amateur slam poetry. Sign up. Find another club that does the same. Sign up. After you make a name for yourself and receive a few good references, the paying gigs will come. Hopefully not after long you’ll be slamming your poetry in front of bigger crowds in larger cities. The bigger the crowd, the more money.

The downside to this is, quite frankly, having the balls to speak in front of crowds and not mess up. So be sure to practice, practice, practice, and if the first couple times don’t go well, try and try again.

Get published Getting published isn’t as hard as it sounds. There are hundreds, even thousands of magazines, newsletters, and other media begging for poetry. Of course, not all of them pay, but some do. You can make a few bucks here or there, usually anywhere between $5-$200. If you become a regular, they’ll even pay you per word.

Publish a book The more published poetry you have, the easier it will be to find a publisher. However, even if you aren’t one of the lucky few who get their book published by a major publishing house, you can publish it yourself! Most printing businesses will print a few hundred books at a time, for upfront payment of course. So if you have money, that would be a great starting place. If you don’t, you might want to check out a few publishing websites which will print your book one-by-one. It’s a lower cost to you, but a bit more expensive to your customers.

Of course, publishing books yourself can be a bit of a nightmare if you aren’t known within your community. You’ll have to do the marketing by yourself or hire a company to do so.

That’s all folks! There are probably other ways to earn a few bucks writing poetry–namely creating arts and crafts and selling it yourself–but these are, in my opinion, the best ways to get started.

Gary R. Hess is the author of poetry. Be sure to check out his romantic love poems.