3 Freelance Fiction Writing Jobs to Explore

When we talk about freelance writing jobs, we usually focus on nonfiction writing like magazine features or business documents. We talk about that side of freelance writing more for two reasons. First, it's where most of the jobs are. It's also where most of the money will come from for the bulk of us. But there's another side of freelance writing -- writing fiction on a freelance basis.

If freelance fiction writing is something you want to pursue, here are three freelance writing job sources you should look into.

Literary Journals

These are publications (in print, and in more recent years also online) that focus entirely on creative works. For example, rather than nonfiction articles populating more common magazines, these are filled with things like short stories, poetry, and literary criticism. Some literary journals pay nothing for submissions. Pay rates for paying markets can vary widely.

Anthologies

These are books collecting short stories from multiple authors. While you'll come across plenty of anthologies that don't pay contributors, many others do. Pay usually isn't much -- anything from a small token payment to a few hundred dollars in rarer cases. But it can be a great way to get some short fiction published to help you build your writer platform before releasing your own story collection or novel.

Just make sure the anthology is coming from a reputable publisher with a history in your genre. If they'll accept just about anything submitted to them and they have little, if any, editorial oversight, then you probably don't want your work appearing in that anthology.

Consumer Magazines

Some larger consumer magazines also accept freelance fiction submissions. For example, some women's magazines run serials or brief stories each month. This is even more common in children's magazines where short stories and poems are often published in greater quantities.

Where else do you find freelance fiction writing jobs? Leave a comment to share your ideas and favorite markets.

Profile image for Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern is a professional blogger, freelance business writer, consultant, and indie author. She runs numerous websites & blogs including All Freelance Writing, Freelance Writing Pros, NakedPR, and Kiss My Biz.

Jenn has 25 years' experience as a professional writer and editor and over 20 years' experience in marketing and PR (working heavily in digital PR, online marketing, social media, SEO, new media, and thought leadership publication). She also has 19 years' professional blogging and web publishing experience (including web development) and around 18 years of experience as an indie author / publisher.

Jenn also writes fiction under multiple pen names and is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association.

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4 thoughts on “3 Freelance Fiction Writing Jobs to Explore”

  1. Hello Jen

    My 14yo daughter is Writing (and posting on Instagram weekly) a Teenage Fiction/Drama/Romance story for the last 4 months. She has over 1000 followers that all cant wait for her next Post.

    After reading your fab website I am not quite sure which direction to take Blogging? Freelance Writing? or finding an Publishing Agent.

    Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

    Warmest Regards
    Tracy ( Mother )

    Reply
    • It depends what she’s hoping to accomplish. It would be difficult for her to get involved in freelance writing right now due to her age. Depending on where you live, she probably can’t legally enter into freelance contracts with clients. And if she’s already publishing her fiction on her own site, it can be difficult to resell that work to clients. Are you looking for things to do with her existing blog (where I’m assuming she publishes her fiction), or are you looking into starting another blog with more of a business focus for her?

      What are her ultimate goals with her fiction? Does she want to keep publishing it to her website to simply reach as many readers as possible? Does she want to attract a traditional publisher eventually? Would she be interested in independently publishing her story and selling it herself? If you can give me a bit of background on her goals and share the link to her site or blog so we can take a look and get a better picture, I can give you more targeted suggestions for how blogging might help. 🙂

      Reply
  2. This is great. I’m looking into Novelist,Freelance Short Fiction Writer and Video Game Writer for career choice. Thank you for the list. I’m currently writing a fan fiction. I’m a writer in progress.

    Reply

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