Comments on: Let Them Keep Thinking Writing is a Dead-End Game (More for Us…)

By: Don Wallace

Don Wallace — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:44:12 +0000

The fact is that what a good FLCW really does is to help his clients sell stuff by providing better communication. That’s an objective survival need of all commercial organizations, so there’s no real need for an editor in the middle sneering at the product – the proof is in whether the copy works. I see FLCW as one *very* small step away from being a salesperson. So maybe that’s the “guilt by association” from which FLCW suffers. It’s really a form of outsourced sales effort.

By: C. Stevenson

C. Stevenson — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:01:50 +0000

It’s not just in the writing arena that freelancers aren’t seeing the bigger picture. Although I spent many years as a freelance writer (mostly prior to the Internet), I now work as a book cover designer. I hear how impossible it is to get assignments and how you can’t charge a fair price and stay competitive. Phooey. The worst thing you can do is charge too little, and if you focus on one area, and do it well, then you’ll always have work. I do book covers. That doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t do sell-sheets, post cards or other design work, it just means that when someone is thinking “book” I’ll be in that smaller pool of choices getting paid fairly for my skills. If you say “logo,” my mind automatically goes to two or three designers I know who specialize in logos. Too little focus and freelancers trying to spread the net too wide in an effort to get work, doesn’t help them. “Designer,” like “writer,” is just too general on its own.

By: Thomas A. Williams

Thomas A. Williams — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:23:37 +0000

Major income can also come from a teaming up of a writer and a salesperson in creating a nice market publication in a local market. When successful, as most are when done right, the money goes on and on.

By: Tammie

Tammie — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:38:52 +0000

Like Rick, I too am in the belly of the beast, Michigan, and while I’m definitely interested in breaking into FLCW, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little nervous. In that vein, I, quivering outsider neophyte that I am, have a few questions and hope you all don’t mind if I pick your collective veteran brains.

Given the well documented state of the economy do you think that now is even a good time to jump into this business? Though I’ve recently joined the humble ranks of the unemployed I do have a background in PR and already have a few pieces for a portfolio. I was initially seduced by the idea of becoming a freelance journalist a few years ago. And then my landlord called. So I got job. A soul crushing, imagination numbing, creativity killing job, and put my dreams of Pulitzer glory on hold. Now, having escaped the land of drudgery and with eyes wide open I seriously consider taking the leap again but this time focusing on FLCW. And no, I don’t think of FLCW as settling, or selling out, or crossing over to the Dark Side, especially if the Dark side pays me $60 bucks an hour minimum. Pass me a flashlight!

Now conventional wisdom “suggests” that launching a business in the midst of a severe recession, in a particularly depressed economic region, is…well… unwise. Actually the word “crazy” springs to mind. What are your thoughts? Has anyone out there launched in the last say 12 months, and how are things going? How long did it take before you actually landed paying clients? And for the uber veterans, how much, if any, has your business dropped off? The last severe recession that I can recall happened around 2000 – 2001, when the dot com bubble burst. For those of you who have been in the biz since before then, did you see your business slow up any at that time? Or did you launch during that period, and if so, what was your experience getting off the ground?

By: peter

peter — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:00:31 +0000

Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful, insightful and perspective-rich (geez, that sounds like corporate-speak…) input. No question that geography can make a big difference, IF you’ve been and are planning to continue getting all your work from your local area. But as many of you (Devon, Lori and Katherine in particular) have pointed out, geography isn’t a limiting issue anymore. I DO completely understand getting used to how things have been (i.e., how one has been able to make a decent living drawing only from one’s local market) and it takes some major mental re-tooling to get yourself moving into more profitable directions. And before you do, you go through a “this-really-sucks” period, where you lament the changing paradigm, before finally realizing that you need to shift strategy IF you want to continue making it.

And key to that shift is something that several of you have mentioned, that being not hanging around people who just stand around and bitch about how hard it is. Being a working successful commercial freelancer (or ANY freelancer) is not an easy proposition. It may have seemed that way if you got in when we were all rolling in the clover, but know this: if you can make it through this period, you can thrive in ANY period. Just know, and I’ve said this over and over, there ARE plenty of companies out there doing fine right now, or at least they haven’t scaled back on their marketing, and so, there’s plenty of potential work. I have more than I can handle right now (and sorry, if it gets TOO crazy, I have local resources to call on…), so I’m in the happy position of feeling somewhat like a spectator in this downturn. But that place is not that out of reach. It all starts with believing that it’s NOTthat bad and that there IS plenty fo work if you hunt. And All That Is True.

And know this as well: this downturn WILL weed out those who just don’t have the marketing skills to hang with it, and when things pick up on the other side, it’ll only be better for those of us left in the game.

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:52:30 +0000

Are you hearing a lot of wailing and caterwauling coming from straight freelancers these days?

Survey says yes.

I’m an active member of my journalism school’s alumni email list, and people are constantly discussing the state of journalism right now, and if it’s worth it to have a journalism degree, and whether we should even be recommending high school students go to journalism school in this economy.

I e-mailed this list basically saying that your degree is what you make of it, and that a journalism degree shouldn’t make you feel tied to only going after journalism jobs. I’m working on transitioning out of journalism writing into full-time FLC writing, and I don’t feel my degree will be a bit wasted.

By: Tim Green

Tim Green — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:43:08 +0000

As someone who lived/worked on the journalist’s side of freelancing, I have to agree that it is the stinky armpit of freelanding . Way too much work for too little pay. I remember having to hustle writing stories here in the Southern New Jersey area, and then traveling up to NYC to do stories up there. It was pretty bad. But, since reading The Well-Fed Writer and going on informational interviews of my own, I do believe that freelancing can be lucrative. I must admit I was worried when I went onto the freelancing sites and saw those 100 articles for $1 jobs. But, I realize that you have to put the effort in to get the rewards. So if I can hustle for job as a freelance commerical writer the way I did as a freelance journalist, I think things will work out.

I haven’t ventured into yet, but I got the ball rolling. I’m making connections and building up my portfolio with pro bono pieces. That said, I think it won’t be too long before I dive in to professional freelancing.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:15:56 +0000

The regional economy issues can’t be underestimated. I live in Houston and just got back from a vacation in South Carolina and North Carolina. The economy there is much, much slower than what we’re experiencing here in Texas. Clients here are more cautious, and spending their marketing dollars more slowly. But, they’re out there and see opportunity in grabbing mind-share right now. The business people I met in the Carolinas were truly struggling to keep their doors open. Those folks are a much harder sell!

By: Katherine Swarts

Katherine Swarts — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:46:53 +0000

I second Jill’s endorsement of flexibility. Granted that (regardless of what some overzealous positive thinkers say) all of us occasionally get knocked on our backs by circumstances beyond our control, the question remains: Will you lie on the ground and moan about your bad luck? Will you rush to get up and promptly walk right back into the same wall of circumstances? Or will you take a moment to consider the best next move _before_ getting up? History is full of businesses that went from industrial giants to overnight failures because they refused to bend to changing technology or worldviews; the idea that “what worked once should work forever” would be a fitting epitaph for many a bankruptcy.

I agree that “geography does not limit you”–at least not so much that anyone should have to choose between relocating, finding a new line of work, or actually living below the poverty line. Not in the social networking age. I know freelancers who now do more initial “cold calling” through LinkedIn.com than by the telephone–and are finding just as many clients that way. And if you really _are_ hurting, flexibility counts there too: first, consider it temporary; and second, be prepared to practice a little frugality in everyday life so you can devote more resources to finding new business.

Again: consider any setbacks temporary. There are so many “everything is hopeless” types sounding off these days (not least in the professional media–so is it so surprising if freelance journalists are underpaid?) that one would think the official national sport of the United States was pessimism. Even more than refusing to participate in recessions, we as entrepreneurs should be refusing to participate in pity parties.

Incidentally, if you ever doubt that some people never grow up, just ask an editor at one of the magazines that _do_ pay their writers decent rates, that is, the really well-known glossies. While it may be true that “there are zillions of writers who can write a decent article,” there are apparently even more would-be writers with delusions of grandeur and entitlement: these are the people who open their cover letters with “I know you’ve never published fiction, but I’m sure you’ll find _my_ story is worth making an exception for”; who write back to demand explanations or to criticize the editor’s judgment when a query gets a “no thank you”; who consider themselves too infallible to proofread their own work; and who threaten to sue over others’ published articles “because the magazine could only have gotten the idea from my query on the same subject.” Hopefully, we as FLCWs are too mature for such behavior!

By: Jill Gormley

Jill Gormley — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:17:48 +0000

I used to belong to a non-fiction’s writer’s group, which I stopped attending because the meetings always turned into a bitchfest about how little money everyone was making. Except me. But when I’d explain how I manage to pay a mortgage and afford decent health insurance, the reactions ranged from befuddlement to contempt. Whatever. Live in a crummy apartment forever and pray you don’t get sick. I’m proud of the work I do, proud that I have the guts to make the cold calls and weather the rejection, and very proud that as a direct result of those efforts I can provide myself a more than decent living.

Self-esteem has a lot to do with it. It took me a good six months to get comfortable making cold calls (still hate it) and not to get too invested in each contact, but I got better with practice. You have to have enough sense of self-worth to make the effort in the first place, and that seems to be a terrible obstacle for a lot of talented people.

There’s no doubt it’s tough out there; my clients are paying more slowly and are delaying making commitments for bigger projects. The projects I’m getting now are much different than the projects I was getting a year ago, and I’m working harder to find business–but I’m finding it. I write for the B to B market, so perhaps I’m more insulated from the downtown than someone focusing on writing for consumers. Still, I think there’s plenty of work out there for people who are willing to seek it out and be flexible, and those people can still demand a decent fee for their time and talent.