Free Work is a Gateway to Building a Career.

I give away my work for free because an author has to find an audience before he or she can earn a paycheck. The authors who sell the most books are ones who have a wide audience, but if readers don’t know who you are or what you have to offer as a writer, they need a gateway to discovering you and your writing.

Free is the perfect gateway. There’s no cost for people to discover your work, and if they grow to truly enjoy your work, then you’ve gained a devoted reader. I’m much more likely to pay for a book by a writer whose work I’ve grown to love than someone I don’t know because I already know that they write what I enjoy and it’s quality work worth paying for.

In today’s world, writers have to prove themselves, and giving their best work away for free is a great way to show people that you’re doing the work first because you love it. And if people want you to keep doing it when time and financial responsibilities prevent you from continuing, they’ll validate the value of your work by paying for your paid work.

This is where I’m at now. I’m not a published author. I want to be. I write all the time. I want to reach people who feel like my brand of storytelling resonates with them. But I’m just beginning to build my audience. And I believe the best way to build my audience is to write quality work and offer it up for free.

Time will tell if my theory is true, but for now, I just want to impact one more person with something I’ve written.

Two Examples of My Work for Free

“The Change” is a futuristic sci-fi short story I wrote and rewrote for a short story contest that I ended up winning. I’m grateful for how it turned out.

Extraction is a serialized supernatural thriller story I’m currently writing and releasing an episode each week. Click the photo below to read the first episode.

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Tom Farr is a blogger, storyteller, and screenwriter who teaches English Language Arts to high school students. He loves creating and spending time with his wife and three children. He blogs regularly about writing and storytelling at The Whisper Project.