To boast about this, ask how many of you are interested, and put my talent to use- will it work?

[Kaedsmum]

I'm a writer. It's all I've ever wanted to do since I was 4 or 5. I love books and I have had a poem published. I have a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.

My passion is writing poetry and short stories. I teach Creative Writing.

I wondered, if I was to provide a service where i write poems and frame them for any specific occasion a buyer would like- birth, christening, anniversary, birthdays, weddings, engagements, etc, all a buyer would have to do is provide a few details so that I could make a poem around it- and sell them, how many people would be interested?

I want to work from home as I have a new baby.

Is it a good idea or just silly?

So instead of am i being unreasonable, am I being silly?

YOu could always have a bash on ebay, see if you have any takers? maybe set up a few listings on the next cheap listing day?

Ooo are there cheap listing days?

I'll be honest - I would just google for one for free, plenty of stuff like this out there - sorry!

Yeah, every now & again they do 5p listing days, you could always try it out.

But like MrsFluff says, I personally would just google for one.

I think it sounds a lovely idea, just think you will have a problem finding enough customers to make much money out of it..

Good idea though so YANBS.

It's not a bad idea but you will struggle to make a living at it. For one thing there are quite a lot of people doing similar things and most of them are bloody awful: same as greetings-card making: it's a hobbyist sort of job on the whole. (I am not saying your work would be bloody awful just that there are a lot of would be writers who are dreadfulo...)
What sort of price are you thinking of charging? If it's under £10 you might get some takers but that is giving away your intellectual property (unless you plan to write one or two poems and just slot the babies' names into them) pretty cheaply; if you charge £100 a poem you won't get any takers because there are other people out there who will do it for £10....

Looks like others have had teh same idea though...

shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=personalised+poem

Urgh Any ideas for what I can do with my writing to make some money? Feels like a useless degree!

It is difficult, KM (I am a writer too). Obviously I don't know your work or your style or anything but: get a copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook and look through that. Have a think about what sort of things you really want to write and what subjects you know about or are interested in - for example, if you are very knowledgeable about hamsters, you might try writing something for a hamster-owners' magazine. Or if you like to do short stories, have a look at something like Take A Break's Fiction Feast (as they do accept unsolicited submissions though they take a couple of months to get back to you).

Do not touch ANYTHING that asks you for money to publish/assess your work. Especially any company that advertises for poetry/memoirs. I'm afraid this is the key indication of a con-artist company as sadly no one wants to buy poetry or memoirs by people they don't know, no matter how much people enjoy writing them.

Do you write loads of short stories and bang them off to all the magazines???

A colleague of mine makes quite a bit of extra cash doing this. Not enough to leave work, but enough that she can do part time.

She reads lots of short stories in all genres of magazines to get an idea of what they like and just sends lots off. A lot get rejected but she does sell quite a lot.

What about childrens literature?

If you're good I'd go high class. Get a well designed website (you can actually set up professional looking ones yourself using something like Squarespace- and you pay per month so could try it out)

Try and sell for lots of money- it's the sort of thing someone rich might want to do. "oh darling I commissioned a poem for my husband's birthday".

But go for exclusive.

I'm not sure you'd make a living out of it right away - but it would be an added extra.

No point selling a talent for a fiver on ebay.

I agree with jimjam, don't piss about with cheap bits when there's so much competition anyway. Good luck!

Honestly it's a useless degree, mine is in English Language and unless you go down the teaching or journalist route it's a chocolate teapot.
I'm a journalist and that works well with motherhood, most of the time.