Tea’s Weird Week: October is Mad Ghost Boo Biz

TeaWeirdWeek

Hold out your hand and I’ll sprinkle some candy corn into it. This month sales of rubber spiders and bats and plastic fangs will reach an all time high for the year. Expect to see a lot of mutant works like SPOOPY and SPOOKTACULAR and GHOSTOBER. And for people in the paranormal biz, we are in the midst of what June is like for the wedding industry.

I first got a taste of the ghost biz while working on my book Monster Hunters. October is when the mainstream world wants to visit haunted houses, go on ghost tours, watch scary movies, drink pumpkin spice lattes, go on tag-along ghost investigations, and there is an industry there happy to oblige them.

You can make some money in the supernatural biz if you’ve got the chops. But you need a certain je ne GHOST quoi to succeed. Bad Halloween puns may or may not help.

Here’s 5 ways you can make money in the paranormal field.

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Boo-tiful ghost portrait by Anna Huffman. Check out her ArtisticallyAnna etsy page here: www.etsy.com/shop/artisticallyanna

(1.) Show off your expertise as a speaker. If you put in some work you can be expert on a story, incident, or entire field. This time of year libraries, conferences, and festivals often have guest speakers who do presentations on local lore, UFO sightings, ghost investigation techniques, etc. I have a few friends who have been successful doing this, but it takes a lot of work and you need to be a good public speaker (that’s an ability that can be learned. Being weird, though, isn’t.)

(2.) Run tours. This is something I do, and it’s fun. It can be repetitive doing the same tour over and over, but when you have a tour group that’s engaged in what you’re saying it’s a really good feeling to share the hidden history of your city.

Be sure to learn how ro promote your tour and that reminds me to tell you to click on this link to Milwaukee Ghost Walks and to my one day only SHOCKTOBER event, the Riverwest Ghost Tour!

(3.) Write books/ articles. There is some money to be made here (but don’t be unrealistic), but be sure you’re doing it cause you got a fire burning inside you to do it, not cause you’re looking for a quick paycheck. If you’re passionate about researching your subject it’ll show and word will spread and more people will buy your book. Some niche publications will pay to publish articles, but it’s going to take some work finding them. Regional publications are usually interested in spooky local lore this time of year.

(4.) Get on one of those goofy reality shows. I don’t know what a deal like this entails and what sort of money is in it. I’ve been contacted by quite a few reality show production companies over the years, mostly regarding Real-Life Superheroes and couple for paranormal themes. In almost all of these situations, the companies are just trying to get me to hand over my contacts list and research and to guide them through a topic they know nothing about FOR FREE. This totally wastes time I could be spending writing ghost puns, you damn GHOULS!

(5.) Sell paranormal related product, like gadgets: Psst. Hey you. Yeah, you. You look like you could use the new Ghost-O-Meter T-1000 (patent pending). Yeah you just press this button and point and zoop! zop! zeep! look at all them green lights, wouldya! There’s definitely a ghost standing next to these electrical lines! Yes, we do take cards! 

#ClownWatch2019: October 8, 2019: RED ALERT: there’s been tons of buzz on creepy clowns over the last month to tie in with the It:Chapter 2 and Joker (see my own take HERE) but here at #ClownWatch2019 we report on actual clown sightings or projected clown encounters. High probability for this Halloween season as an authority no less than Good Housekeeping reports that the number one Googled costume is…Pennywise, the killer clown from It. Be safe out there!

Links:

Read where all this ghost biz got started for me in Monster Hunters.

If you go on the Milwaukee Ghost Walk Third Ward tour, you can see “My Haunted Baseball Card Collection” in person.

On October 27 you can take a tour of “Riverwest’s Ghost District” with me. There’s also a VoiceMap audio tour version you can download.

FANGS to FangirlNation for a review I could sink my teeth into:
“It’s hard for the reader not to find themselves launching headlong in the book and coming out with either new or stronger opinions on the other side.”
https://fangirlnation.com/2019/10/08/apocalypse-any-day-now/

Have a GHOULISHY GOOD time following me on:

Facebook: facebook.com/theTeaKrulos Twitter:@TeaKrulos Instagram: @teakrulos
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About teakrulos

Freelance writer from Milwaukee, I'm the author of non-fiction books Heroes in the Night, Monster Hunters, Apocalypse Any Day Now and forthcoming Wisconsin Legends & Lore and American Madness. I write a weekly column called "Tea's Weird Week" at teakrulos.com.

Posted on October 17, 2019, in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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