22 Responses so far

1. 1. Kristine Smith on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 2:33 pm

   Tobias–this is the eye-rolling Freelancing 101 question, but how do you get started? Most jobs I’ve seen ask for writing samples, which I assume need to come from previous jobs. Can you make up “dummy” samples? Point to the fiction and say ‘yes, I can write’? None of the above?

2. 2. Tobias Buckell on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm

   Some places take open submissions/pitches, pitch them. I follow http://www.thegoldenpencil.com/ The Golden Pencil and have a subscription to the Media Bistro and the Writers Market Guide. I usually include that I’m a working author and point out my fiction credentials, those work for some people just fine.

   To be honest most of the straight non-fiction work I’ve done has almost all been by reference and I’ve been contacted. These are from contacts I’ve made by going in person to conventions and conferences and from people who read this blog.

3. 3. Kristine Smith on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm

   Thanks for the info.

4. 4. Tobias Buckell on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 2:49 pm

   I hope it was helpful. Certainly a lot of people view the writing sf fiction/novels as some sort of valid cover sheet experience info!

5. 5. Paul Kemp on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 2:56 pm

   Tobias,

   Thank you for sharing this. As I wrote in a similar post on Jay Lake’s blog, I think it takes a lot of guts. Many folks outside the profession have ideas about income that vary considerably from the reality of most writers, and many of us within the profession have little in the way of benchmarks.

   I’ve never quite discussed dollars but even in my best year (the year a hardcover hit the Times’ bestseller list), my writing income was only a quarter of my income as a corporate lawyer (yes, I serve The Man :-)). Still, it’s fun, is not an insignificant amount of coin, is rewarding in countless other ways, and Hell, you just never know….

   Paul

6. 6. Kristine Smith on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 2:56 pm

   I’m pondering at this point. I would like to retire from the dayjob next year–barring the Inevitable Unforeseen. I know I’ll need to get another job, and I’m wondering what freelancing opportunities are out there.

   It’s scary and exciting at the same time–two, two, TWO mints in one!

7. 7. Tobias Buckell on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 3:41 pm

   Paul, thanks for the comment and welcome to the blog!

   It does feel a bit weird, sharing it, but I mean, it doesn’t help me to hide it any, so why not?

   Kristine, good luck! It is scary, and exciting, but it was so worth it!

8. 8. Mark Terry on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 pm

   Well, you probably have more guts than I do. Let’s put it this way.

   My last year working at the hospital I made about $45,000.

   Last year, fulltime freelancing, I almost doubled that. Let’s be fair. About 1.7X.

   My first year fulltime freelancing, I think I made $42,000, maybe $43,000. Somewhere in there. Obviously my 2nd year was better. As of my 1st quarter this year, which was amazing, I’m almost halfway to what I made all last year. (I don’t think it’ll continue that way, but you never know).

   How much of last year’s income was fiction? I’m not sure, but probably in the $3000-$5000 range, although I suppose it might have been higher. I’m trying to remember how the advances broke down. (You know, 1/3 on signing, 1/3 on first 100 pp, 1/3 on final ms., and that gets confusing when it’s multiple books). I’ve got another chunk of advance coming as well as royalties (my agent received both checks, so they’re on the way), and there’ll be another, presumably larger royalty check in the fall because it’ll have 2 books on it as well as full royalty periods.

   So, yeah, you can do okay as a freelance writer.

   And for anyone wondering, that $45,000 number was for being a cytogenetic technologist with around 18 years experience. People sooooo overestimate how much some fields make.

9. 9. Betsy Whitt on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm

   Thanks for posting this, Toby… it’s one of those things I think everyone’s always curious about but always afraid to talk about.

   The freelancing idea is enticing, but one of my major holdups is that I feel like I don’t know much of anything about the topics on which people are looking for articles. What’s been your experience with that?

10. 10. Tobias Buckell on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 5:03 pm

    Mark, thanks for sharing

    Betsy, what’s your expertise, that’s where you start. Then you go looking for places that publish articles related. Then you start trying to figure out how to submit to them. Not vice versa.

11. 11. sylvia on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    I’m struggling with the vice versa there. There’s people who figure out how to submit before they go looking for places? Or the last thing they do is work out their expertise? (I’m right there with them! ;)).

    Sorry, it’s late and I should probably be in bed.

12. 12. Tobias Buckell on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 pm

    Sylvia, the latter is what I meant, but then, thank goodness for copy editors who check with me or I’d look like a total fool in print LOL

13. 13. Jeff VanderMeer on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 9:33 pm

    Thanks for that, Tobias. As someone who went completely 100% freelance this year, I’ve been working on figuring out things like the health insurance, the taxes, how to achieve the right balance between fiction and nonfiction.

    Also, I found there was a lot of waste in my budget. I made an obscene amount of money last year between my writing and my day job, into the low six figures, but a lot of it went into credit card debt, promotion, travel, and just frivolous “I hit the fucking jackpot” lifestyle decisions.

    Now that that money’s blown and I’m out in the cold world of freelancing, it’s actually been a good thing. I know I’ll never treat money that casually again and all the writing money I make from now on will go toward primarily toward living expenses, and I know that the amount I need to live on is much lower than the amount I need to party on. And this has been a relief since at first I was thinking I had to match my day job income. I don’t.

    I guess my point is, for those considering freelancing, you need to decide what your tipping point is re creature comforts, travel, etc. Bruce Holland Rogers has a wonderful, wonderful chapter on this in his writing book, Word Work. Because it’s often not the amount of money you make, but how the amount of money you make makes you feel.

    I now know that if I need to, I can live on under $20,000 a year. And that’s a really *liberating* feeling. Which is to say–I *can* write fiction 30 or more hours a week if I’m willing to do freelancer gigs another 20 hours a week.

    There are tons of opportunities out there–odd, some of them, bad, some of them, but also great stuff. And it is about contacts, but it’s also about *leveraging* what you already know and being proactive about opportunities. On one gig, I suggested a total revamp of their existing processes and got myself another $3k worth of business.

    JeffV

14. 14. Tobias Buckell on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 9:54 pm

    Yeah, mostly I’ve been putting the extra money towards things like my staggering amount of credit card debt, our car loan was a huge high APR, so paying that off early was a big goal for 2006, and house stuff (as well as some website redesign and some money in promotion of my book). If I can pay off a lot of the debt in the next couple years, I can then cut back on the ratios and focus more on fiction!

15. 15. Kristine Smith on Apr 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 pm

    If I decided to do this, I would have some retirement income from the day job to cover the absolute floor expenses–utilities and roof over my head. My vehicles are paid off, but I made some stupid short-term financial decisions that led to more debt than I’d like. I would like to pay that off before I take any plunge.

    This has been an enlightening thread, Tobias–I’m glad you started it.

16. 16. Greg on Apr 3rd, 2007 at 7:44 am

    That’s my problem: I’m doing well in Ohio, but living in Philadelphia.

    I wish I could freelance more. I pick up a handfull of assignment each year on the side, but becoming a fulltime freelancer is out of the question now that I have a kid. Kid’s gotta eat. Kid’s gotta go to the doctor. But I don’t regret that a bit.

    For the aspiring writer, there’s good money to be made in PR writing. Especially if you’re able to translate science/engineering into plain English. Small engineering firms, in particular, are always looking for PR help. Large firms often need help getting their engineers to write articles for trade publications. The trick is getting your foot in the door. My first real publication was in Better Roads Magazine on an article about “constructability” on a highway project.

    If you’re good at science writing/technical writing, look to join a national group, like the National Association of Science Writers. If you’re really good, contact me. I need freelancers.

    Here’s an extra tip for cash-strapped writers everywhere…teach writing at a community college. Especially if you know — or can fake — business and technical writing. The first semester is the worst, but once you get the bugs out of your lesson plan it isn’t that difficult. For five hours a week (2.5 teaching, 2.5 prep and grading), it’s an extra 6-7 grand in the bank per year and will cure you of any public speaking fears.

    The best way to get in on the gig is to introduce yourself to the college’s English department and tell them that you’re available if they have any trouble filling slots. It helps if you have a Master’s, but practical experience and talent applies here too.

    Anyway, sorry to go on. I hope that helps.

17. 17. Mary Anne Mohanraj on Apr 3rd, 2007 at 7:51 am

    Note re: community college teaching — the pay rates are highly variable dependent on location. Salt Lake City CC pays $1100/course, for example. (First course I taught was there, having only a MFA in fiction and a tiny bit of tutoring experience.) The University of Utah pays $2400 for the same course. Most schools in Chicago are likely to pay about $5000 for the same course (sometimes goes up some with seniority / publications / teaching experience / familiarity with pedagogic theory) — I’ve been paid as much as $8000 to teach a composition class. So there’s a sense of the range.

    Also note that if you’re conscientous/obsessive about your grading, and assign a lot of papers, that workload Greg mentions can really go up! It’s all in what kind of teacher you are.

18. 18. Steve Buchheit on Apr 3rd, 2007 at 8:11 am

    Thanks for sharing, Tobias. I’m glad the freelancing is working out. I knew a couple of advertising writers that went freelance and they thought it was the best things they’ve ever done. I’d toyed around with going freelance for design, but just didn’t like the selling part of the job. I still do work on the side, but I can be very picky about whom I work for and what work I take on. At the day job I’m finally getting OT pay, and I’m working a lot (so much, I need to cut back), but just like you I’m paying off debt and buying things that will improve my quality of life. I still haven’t learned the trick of “letting go” and just buying the bigger ticket items (like a new computer). Here’s to a better year this year, and an even better year after that.

19. 19. Stacy on Apr 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 am

    Yay, thanks for putting this out there. One bit of advice to throw in for people wondering how to deal with the chicken-and-egg problem of getting clips (writing samples) so you can get jobs that require clips: Find an area you want to write about, find a decent website or magazine that doesn’t pay writers or otherwise has a low barrier to entry, and write a few pieces for them. Voila, clips.

    Writing for free is, of course, not what you want to be doing for the long haul, but it’s a great way to get the material you need to prove that you can do the paying work you’re asking editors to assign you. For nonfiction/journalism, at least, the area I know most about, assigning editors (and I’ve been one on occasion) care more about seeing relevant, quality work on the topic you’re pitching than they do about where the work ran. If someone was pitching me, say, a gadget review, I’d rather see a well-written gadget review from something a website I’d never heard of than a travel piece that ran in a national magazine.

    I eat my dogfood on this I’ve been doing tech journalism for years, and there’s no way I’d write a freelance tech article without someone crossing my palm with lots of silver. But I occasionally write about books for free for Bookslut.com, because I want to build my portfolio of article clips on book topics.

20. 20. Mfitz on Apr 3rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm

    I think I need a new job.

21. 21. Greg on Apr 4th, 2007 at 7:26 am

    Mary Anne Mohanraj, you are correct and I’ve done the folks here a bit of a disservice. Things do vary from place to place and teacher to teacher.

    I should have mention that, at least where I teach, technical and business communication pays more than composition. It is a supply and demand thing.

    Tech writing is seen as a different skill set, but really it is a matter of being able to write clearly. My pay depends on how many students I have in the classroom, but for a 8-student class, I’ll get about $3,500 for the semester.

    Of course, I end up having to “undo” a lot of creative writing 101 damage in trying to get folks to write clearly.

    I teach practical writing skills, how to write business reports, technical descriptions, resumes and simple business letters. I stick to my syllabus and my students get more than their money’s worth. But I have to say, after doing it a while, it doesn’t take much prep work (although, I spend an inordinate amount of time on hunting down examples of “bad writing” for my students to learn from, but I didn’t include that earlier) and grading eventually becomes a snap (”Keep revising it! *whipcrack* Good editing is good writing! *whipcrack* Is this your first draft? *whipcrack*).

    Teaching is rough going at first, and you have to be on guard to not get into a rut, but it feels natural after a while, to me at least.

    Also, on Stacy’s note about Bookslut. I used my science press releases as a way to build up my portfolio before pitching my own stories.

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