The 19th Edition of the Business of Freelance Writing Carnival is right here! Next week will be our 20th carnival — I can barely believe it! If you’d like to submit a post or two, you can do so at Blog Carnival.
I took a class titled “Newsgathering” in during my undergraduate days. It was focused on teaching journalists how to get the information necessary for crafting a quality story. One discussion that has stuck with me was on the topic of interviews.
I have an admitted preference for email interviews — in most circumstances, they take up less time for everyone involved, and it’s significantly harder for someone to claim that you misquoted them. But my professor still stands by the in-person interview. He settles for phone interviews when he has to and considers the email interview Plan C at best.
The general idea is that an in-person interview is more adaptive: you can change the questions and don’t have to do multiple follow ups if an interview subject’s answer sparks a new idea. Furthermore, a good writer seems to be able to pull answers out of a subject when talking to them that the writer might not get in an email.
But an email interview is acceptable in most instances. I really have only two situations in which I make it a point to do a personal interview, or even a phone call:
When I’m essentially cold calling a subject with whom i have no connection. If I’m picking names out of a phone book, I know I’ll have a better chance of getting my questions answered if I make a phone call than if I send off an email that could easily slip into a spam filter.
When I’m working with an emotional and hostile interview subject. There are plenty of situations when I’ve wound up interviewing someone who really didn’t want to talk to me and an email just isn’t going to get an honest answer in those situations.
How do you conduct your interviews? Are you cool with emailing off a couple of questions? Or are you going to track down a real live person to talk to?
This edition of the Business of Freelance Writing Carnival is huge! I’m just blown away by the great entries we received. If you’d like to participate in the next edition (19!), you can submit articles at Blog Carnival
…But I want to talk about a writer building a career that lets him work on pretty much any project he wants, including the odd video game.
If you read any web comic at all, chances are pretty good you’ve run across Penny Arcade, the brainchild of of writer Jerry Holkins and artist Mike Krahulik. Now, Krahulik’s art is very good, but I think that it’s Holkins’ more-than-irreverent wit that brings genius to their comic strip. And the two more than make a living from the strip these days — it is their main source of income, and they can afford employees simply off the revenue from advertising and merchandise. We’re talking about the ultimate in a creative business, about an illustrator and a writer who support their families off their work.
Holkins and Krahulik haven’t just let the Penny Arcade name stop at comics though: for them, writing funny lines and drawing accompanying pictures is a business, as it has to be, and they’ve expanded it. They now support a charity (Child’s Play) with a yearly toy drive, run a gaming convention (PAX), and — as of this morning — have released a video game (On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 1).
And it’s the video game that has me all worked up. The other parts of their business don’t necessarily require either man’s creative skills, but even if you only watch the video game’s trailer, you can see their fingerprints all over it. They’ve put forth a lot of effort to put together a game, which is probably going to sell like hotcakes and just proves once again that you can make a living as a creative — especially when you build up your own business instead of relying on the odd assignment an editor hands you.
Blogs. Flickr. Half a dozen other websites that are free to join, allow you to post your writing (and photographs and other work) and links back to your website. Are they worth it for those of us who make a living off our creativity?
I happen to like most social networking sites. I run a blog of my own that doesn’t make me any money — you’re reading it right now. So, my surface answer has to be that, yes, I think giving away my work is worth it, or I wouldn’t be posting here. But that answer doesn’t address any sort of subtlety.
I don’t give away anywhere near a majority of my work. While I spend time updating my blog, I usually chalk up the effort to marketing and networking. Same goes for sites like Flickr or Twitter. I’m not updating content because I expect to get paid, but I do expect some recognition for my work — like when a potential client contacts me because of my blogging.
There’s a limit to how much time I spend on not-for-profit projects, though. Considering the fact that I like to eat, paying gigs simply have to come first. That reason means that there’s a clear correlation between the amount of work I have and the time I spend updating profiles or posting about the business of freelancing.
In the end, my answer remains that freelancers should give away content, although not too much. Consider it a sample you’re offering up to tempt clients. Give them an idea of just how amazing your work is, and then let them know that you’re available for hire.
Among the property you own, you might count a house, a small business and the rights to your written work. And those rights — even if they aren’t to the Harry Potter novels — are worth something. Because your rights to your work (selling it, publishing it, etc.) are considered property, they are a part of your overall estate and comprise, in particular, your literary estate.
We may be talking about articles you’ve submitted to magazines, poems, novels or even screenplays. But no matter the form your writing has taken, it’s worth considering what will happen to it in the future. The word ‘estate’ may have been the giveaway that this post is focused on the extremely long-term, though issues regarding your literary estate may come into question during your life.
Considering a literary estate means considering some key legal issues, including who should benefit from and who is responsible for a writer’s work after his or her death. Because of the unique nature of a writer’s rights, the normal executor of an estate rarely is equipped to handle a literary estate. Copylaw has a great article about selecting a literary executor, but I’d like to point out some things that I’ve been thinking long and hard about.
Because I’ve been trying to build up a business based on writing, I’ve taken on some unusual projects and agreed to some fairly diverse rights arrangements. I know for a fact that a lawyer I could approach about the rest of my less-than-extensive estate probably wouldn’t know where to start with my literary estate. Even more complicated, I’ve been a bit lax about keeping track of certain rights — I have them written down in contracts and agreements, but I would need to create a central document to make any consideration of my literary estate easy.
I’m not dwelling on some far-off morbid day, though. I’m trying to make managing my projects simple — and having a plan to handle rights for my projects (and therefore my literary estate) makes a whole list of things easier, from defending my copyright to reselling pieces. Just chalk my interest in literary estates up to my penchant for emergency planning.
We have a short and sweet edition of the Business of Freelance Writing Carnival this week. I’m going to be on the road for the next two Saturdays and won’t be able to host a carnival until I get back. If you’re interested in hosting the carnival either next Saturday or the Saturday after that (or both), please email me. Thanks!
1565109194Just like most writers, I often struggle to put a price on my words. I try to set prices that I feel are fair and that can keep me in the style I’ve become accustomed to — that is to say, able to eat.
So, when a freelance client asks me for a discount, I have a consistently hard time deciding how to respond. Sure, there are certain situations in which I’ll give a discount — nonprofits, companies guaranteeing me long-term work, etc. — but that’s not why clients ask for discounts.
Honestly, it isn’t because they don’t value your work, either. It’s a matter of business: a good business owner always tries to minimize expenses, and one of the best techniques is asking for a discount. I’ve asked for discounts myself (and even gotten a few).
But just because a potential client asks for a discount doesn’t mean that you have to offer one. Some writers refuse to negotiate on their rates — and there are many situations where negotiations can only lose you money. Remember, most business owners are asking just to ask: the worst that can happen is that you might say no. Odds are they aren’t even really expecting a discount and as long as you stay polite, refusing won’t lose you a client
Today would have been my grandmother’s 81st birthday. Yesterday morning, my great aunt passed away. Both were incredible women. They were both known for their willingness to work hard and their insistence on doing the right thing.
Aunt Sarah lived most of her life in Centerville, Iowa (a town with a population of perhaps 5,000). Everyone in Centerville knew Sarah, and knew what she had done for the town: she went up against HUD to ensure that Centerville had low-income housing. Sarah knew that there were families in Centerville that needed help, and she made sure that they received.
My grandmother went to the same lengths. In the 70s, she headed up the Serials Department at the library of Duke University. She made waves when she not only hired African-American women to work in her department but also insisted on paying them a wage equal to that of other employees in the department.
These women inspired me, made me willing to work for what I want. I miss them, but I will always be grateful for the inspiration they brought into my life.
