Tips for Writing and Selling Personal Essays

A personal essay is an intensely intimate form of writing in which you divulge the details of a particular time or circumstance in your life. Writing and selling personal essays proves too personal for some writers, while others take advantage of it. While some publications won't buy personal essays at all, most will consider them if you know how to market them correctly. The essay must be pertinent to the publication's target audience and should be interesting for all readers.

1- Choose the Topic Wisely

Writing and selling personal essays isn't just about choosing an interesting time in your life and writing 1,500 words about it. Instead, there must be a purpose to writing your personal essay; it must resonate with some profound meaning that has an impact on the general population. For example, a personal essay about your prom night probably wouldn't sell well, but if you write about your prom night during which someone was shot and killed in the school cafeteria, you could probably sell it without any problem.

2- Keep it Short

The biggest mistake that writers make when writing and selling personal essays is making the story far too long. The idea personal essay for most publications will be no longer than 1,800 words, and some won't even consider essays that continue beyond 900 words. You must refine the art of describing an incident in as few words as necessary, combining thoughts and action into one paragraph.

3- Tie It Together

You'll have a better chance of selling your personal essay if you are able to tie it in with something in current affairs, whether it be the war in Iraq or the war on drugs. Your personal essay should have an impact on general society, even if the event itself is deeply personal. For example, one of my friends sold a personal essay to Good Housekeeping by writing about her son's ADHD. She addressed the fact that most kids diagnosed with ADHD have some of the symptoms, but aren't actually plagued by the disorder itself.

4- Market to the Right Publications

You have to understand that writing and selling personal essays won't happen unless you do your research. An essay that would fit well in Seventeen would bomb completely if submitted to Better Homes & Gardens because the demographics are much different. Look for a market that has published similar (but not the same) personal essays in the past, which means getting your hands on back issues.

5- Try Not to Query

Some magazines and newspapers won't consider a story unless you submit an interesting query first, but if the publication doesn't mind, I'd advise you to send the essay itself. Writing and selling personal essays is difficult when the editor can't read the actual story; there are very few ways to write query letters that do essays justice. Scour the submission guidelines carefully to determine if this is an option.