Fillers and other things

A lady who bought my book HOW TO MAKE £10 IN TEN MINUTES on Kindle (89 pence) sent me this question (thanks, Sharon!)
‘If we continue to send fillers and letters out, will the mag office teams cotton on to the fact that you trying to make a few quid? Do you space your material out a bit? I don't want them banning me if I send too much stuff in!’

I don’t do many fillers any more, I have so much else going on. When I did, I cheated a bit. I used friends’ and family’s names and addresses and they cashed the cheques for me. At one time, I had an account with Nationwide which allowed to pay in cheques in other names. I now have one with HSBC where I can pay in cheques in 4 different names, but as I said, I don’t do many fillers now. I used them mainly to keep me going when the gaps between story sales were very long. For a couple of years I DID make a lot of money out of fillers averaging more than £50 a week. Magazines NEED fillers, if yours is the right one for that slot, they will take it whether you were in there a month ago or not. I’ve had tips in the same mag, two issues in a row, using the same name.
There are also a LOT of magazines out there. If you send one filler a week to a different mag each time, it will be months before you have to repeat yourself. My advice is try them all, even the ones that only pay £5 or give small prizes (like The People’s Friend and The Weekly News). Targeting lots of different mags hones your market research skills and it gets you writing. The great thing is that sometimes it also brings a big financial reward.
Fillers aren’t a substitute for writing other things, they’re a step on the way to becoming the writer YOU want to be. I hep that helps, but please, if you have any queries, do let me know, and PLEASE keep buying the book and if you find it helpful, please leave a review.
I went to my therapist this morning. She’s going to try and help me with a problem I have – I feel that saying I’m good at something is bragging. As you can guess, with a book coming out soon that I need to promote, this problem is getting in the way. Any thoughts, welcome!