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Desktop Publishing for Christian Playwrights: What You Can Do With the Christian Play You Wrote

When I wrote my first Christian play in 2002, I never dreamed that it would become so lucrative that I could quit my 9-5 job and dedicate myself to the writing ministry full time. I’m not saying it was easy, because it wasn’t. All I am saying is that it is possible and I was neither the first nor the last to be successful as a Christian playwright.

I live in Jamaica and the market for Christian plays is close to 0. However, on a global scale, I was surprised to learn that there was a growing demand for well-written and anointed plays, especially for the African American Society, and today you can report that the demand is much greater than the supply.

What I have discovered over the years is that there are many other writers like me who write really good plays. It is that they produce it once and then the script goes down in history. I have received numerous emails over the years asking how they can publish their work and when I reply it seems like too much work for them to even try. This article is for those who are willing to give it a try. I know of a writer who has written only one play in his entire life and has made a living from just that one. So imagine if you can or have written more than one.

Marketing online can be challenging, but the rules apply across the board for just about anything. I will outline the necessary steps to take if you are a Christian playwright and your goal is success.

1. Write the play. I still have a lot of ideas that never made it to the paper and some that I started and only wrote a scene or two. Finishing a script requires discipline and commitment. Obviously, this is a necessary and most important step to undertake this adventure.

2. Find someone who can edit your script to minimize grammatical errors, etc. Be prepared to accept criticism. A successful writer learns to listen to critics with a smile. Apply any corrections and changes you decide to improve your script and you are ready to publish on your own.

3. Get a website. You can pay to create one professionally or you can use one of the free online services that allow you to create a website. The downside is that they will use your site to advertise so I would be more inclined to do one professionally. I built my own website using the Microsoft home page. You can then buy a domain name and hosting. I used go-daddy but the options are endless.

4. Sign up for an online payment. You can use PayPal.com or 2checkout.com or both to process your payments for you. If you live in the US, PayPal allows you to make withdrawals to your bank account or check for those who live internationally. 2Checkout will provide you with a MasterCard debit / credit card.

5. Once you have all of these settings, you are ready to load pages on your website. Create a separate page for each play you write complete with the synopsis and a short excerpt from the script.

Those are the five steps to having an online presence as a Christian playwright. Now you need people to find you. This is where Google and other search engines come in. You can manually submit your website to all these different search engines. You can also use Google ad words, which is a paid advertising option, to gain more traffic.

There will always be churches and groups looking for quality Christian plays, especially for Christmas and Easter. Do not bury your gift as is the custom of some, use it to help spread the gospel.

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