Sell stories to newspapers and magazines

Magazines and newspapers are always looking for page-turning content, and many are happy to pay to print your personal experiences, meaning you can turn your embarrassing story, hair-raising experience or celeb run-in into a profit.

Magazines such as Reader’s Digest look for short, true stories about their readers written in less than 100 words. If yours is published, you’ll get up to £100. Some magazines pay far more – Bella Magazine, for example, pays up to £1,000 if they publish an article about you. Send them a brief overview of your experience, and they’ll contact you if they like it. You can double your earnings with Take a Break, who offer £2,000 for chosen stories of love and infidelity. All you have to do is fill in their online form. If selected, you’ll need to take part in a telephone interview with one of their journalists.

If you’ve got an account to share that’s relevant to a particular niche of magazines, such as a weight-loss journey, you can contact health and diet magazines directly to see if they’ll pay you to print your story.