Selling your story for cash!! (cash4yourstory.co.uk)

Member Name: kiss_me2070

Product:	cash4yourstory.co.uk
Date:	14/01/09 (407 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Extra Money, Give people an idea about medical problems, etc

Disadvantages: People may recognise you, People know your buissness!

***WHAT GAVE ME THIS IDEA?***
I'm signed up on a modelling site called pure storm, they have forums and a photographer/writer was looking for stories for magazines with any health stories. I immediately thought of my Pityriasis Rosea (see one of my reviews for more details). This wasn't a well known skin condition and not many people know about it. I was constantly being asked questions about what the rash was and how you get it, when-ever anyone saw the rash on me. Some people would find it embarrassing, but I didn't mind it, as its not a very common thing.

***WHAT DID I DO?***
I contacted the girl on the forum and she called me and took some details, I never received a call back so then I thought about looking up on the internet how I could sell my story for cash. I found a website called www.cash4yourstory.co.uk and filled in the form online which was my contact details and a brief description of the story.

***WHY DID I WANT TO SELL MY STORY?***
This is the 3rd time I have suffered from this rare skin condition and it doesn't effect many people. It is also meant to only effect people once in their life-time how-ever this was the 3rd time I had it and it was worse than ever.

It looks very scary and frightening on appearance and I hid myself away for weeks and had to cover myself from head to toe to prevent the rash from showing. I wanted to make people aware of this skin condition as some people who have never had this condition before find it every frightening at first and it can look very scary. I also have to admit that the extra money would be a great help as well!

***THE PROCESS***
It took about 1 week for someone to ring me back regarding this story. It was a lovely girl called Andrea and I spent about 30mins on the phone to her whilst she took lots of details and asked me lots of questions, about how the skin condition started and how long had I had it, Treatments and medication I had been on, etc, she then said that she would have to contact some magazines to see who she could sell it to.

About 1 week later she informed me that Love it magazine were interested in printing my story. She told me she would be sending out 2 contracts for me to sign, I would then have to return 1 copy and I could keep the other copy for my records. In the letter it also stated how much I would get paid for my story as well. For my particular story I would be paid £200, which I thought was pretty easy money!

I got a call from the pictures department from Love It magazine to say that they need to arrange a date/time for someone to come and take some professional pictures of me for the article.


The photographer was a lady and came round 2 days after the call. She was very nice and made me feel very comfortable and at ease. Not only that but she made me feel quite confident in front of the camera as well. I was not allowed to wear black, white or patterned tops for the photo's as they don't want it too look like a catalogue, so I dressed in a blue halter neck top with a black cardigan.

The photographer was at my house for over an hour, taking different types of shots of me looking happy, sad, smiling and other expressions as well. I also changed a few times as well so she had a different variety of photo's for the article. I also got asked to send an other photo's by e-mail when the skin rash was at it's worse so I e-mailed these across as well!

Approx 2 weeks later I got another phone call, asking if they could read back to me the article they had written. I was on the phone to the lady for about 15mins, whilst she read the article back to me and corrected any mistakes I happened to mention whilst she was reading it back to me. After she had read the article and I agreed that everything was correct, she informed me that my article would be printed in the magazine due to come out on the 6th January 2009!

Now it was just a matter of waiting for the magazine article to come out and a matter of waiting for the cheque as well (which stated in the contract, can take up to 30 days after the article has been published to receive). I was fine with that anyway and didn't have a problem waiting!

***SOME POINTS FROM THE AGREEMENT***
* The article/story must be true and accurate
* The photographs must be yours to give and of course must be of you!
* You are not allowed to speak to or give any other interviews to other magazines, newspapers, radios or TV representatives regarding your story!

***THE ARTICLE***
I went to my local shop on Tues 6th Jan and sure enough my article was in the magazine under the health problems section. It was nearly a double spread and there was 5 different pictures to go with the article. There were 4 pictures of my rash and there was 1 main picture of me looking sad and annoyed! I read through the article once or twice and was quite impressed with it. It was weird reading and looking at an article in magazine about me, it didn't feel real!

The following Saturday I was at a friend's 21st birthday and a man who was with the party (whom I didn't know) came up to me and asked if I was in a magazine because a girl he was with recognised me. I said yes and then he started asking me questions asking what it was. This did annoy me a bit because if they had read the article they would have read what the skin condition was about and what causes it, etc. How-ever I chose to put my article in the magazine so I can't blame anyone else but myself.

***THE CHEQUE***
My Story was published just under a week ago so I am still waiting for my cheque, which I should receive by the end of this month.

***A FEW THINGS TO CONSIDER***
Think about al the factors before you think about selling your story of any kind. Think of the people involved and the people who are going to read the magazine. I know most magazines can sue different names, but remember its your personal life that is being printed in magazines which will be sold all over the UK! Think about whether you want people to know about your life/situation or something which has happened to you in the past.

As this story only involved me and I wanted more people to know about the skin condition, I decided to go ahead with it and not only that but it was also an easy way to make some extra money, but at the end of the day money isn't everything so think everything through before contacting anyone about selling your story for cash!

(review also on ciao)

Summary: Selling my health problems to a magazine!