How to Get Paid for Reading Books

People who love to read tend to be interested in the claim that you can get paid for reading books. It sounds almost too good to be true. Although it is not always possible to make a full-time income reading books, there are plenty of possibilities for achieving this goal, as well as a few career choices where a full-time salary is possible.

Instructions

Reading Books Full-Time

1

Decide what your goal is. If you are hoping to make a full-time income by reading books, that is going to involve more prep work and training than if you merely want to earn a little bit of pocket change through your reading.

2

Get a college degree or other significant training in English if your desire is to get full-time employment in a field that involves reading. Your options for careers where your job consists of reading books will basically be to work in book publishing, where you can find a job as a proofreader, a copy editor, an acquisitions editor, or as a reader working directly under an acquisitions editor to screen manuscript submissions. These jobs tend to be coveted, however, which is why it helps to have a college degree when you apply.

3

Gain experience at a smaller level. Being able to list editing experience on your resume will help you to obtain a job working with books. Volunteer to edit for a small, local newspaper or nonprofit publication.

4

Take training courses specifically in copy editing and proofreading. Many publishers require an editing test from freelance and full-time applicants in order to be considered for work. You will need to know the industry standard methods for marking up a manuscript if you are attempting to work in copy editing or proofreading. Don't forget electronic editing, particularly in Microsoft Word, as this is increasingly being used.

5

Have realistic expectations about the work. For example, there is going to be much more work available working on technical and trade books than on fiction. Any jobs that involve reading fiction books are going to be even more competitive, and also there are simply less of them out there.

Reading Books Casually

6

Consider writing book reviews. This is generally the easiest way to earn money by reading casually, but unless you're very experienced, you probably will not be able to make a full-time income by reviewing books. When you start, you may only be able to earn a few dollars for your book reviews or even just a free copy of the book.

7

Read a lot of published book reviews in magazines and newspapers. If you hope to make a lot of money writing book reviews, it helps to learn from people who are already achieving this goal. Note the style and tone of book reviews that are published in high-profile magazines, and see if there are lessons you can apply to your own writing.

8

Start small. Try writing for an online review site first in order to gain some clips and work samples. Write a review for a merchant site such as Amazon (you won't make any money from these reviews, however) or post a review on a website that offers you a small amount of money by the number of people that read your review.

9

Offer to review books for your local newspaper or for local magazines. Use your online reviews as work samples. Local publications might be willing to pay you a small fee for a well-written review of a recently released book.

10

Send a resume and published clips to larger magazines that cover the subject matter about which you wish to get paid to read. Many magazines keep a list of qualified reviewers that they contact when they have a need for reviews, or they may accept offers to write reviews about soon-to-be released books. Larger publications are more likely to pay larger sums for published book reviews.

11

Keep an eye open in media job sites for full-time or freelance positions as book reviewers. Note that any advertised positions are likely to receive hundreds of applicants, so you are only really going to have a chance at these after you have documented reviewing experience and several published clips. You may have better luck sending unsolicited resumes to publications that are known to have staff reviewers, as there will be less competition if you happen to find a company that has an open position that has not been advertised.