June 24, 2005
Vilfredo Pareto. Who, you ask? Italian Vilfredo Pareto was an economist in the late 1800s, early 1900s, who noted that 80% of Italy was produced and/or owned by 20% of the people. It was later modified to be called the Pareto Principle, or the 80-20 Rule, although it's been applied to many things Pareto probably didn't give a shit about.

The basis of the 80-20 Rule is that 80% of your outcomes is created by 20% of your work. In my writing life, I take this to mean that about 80% of my income is based on 20% of my clients.

The reason I was thinking about this was because I was a worrying (angst-ing, I like to call it) about my core client list. I'm sure most freelancers have this, a core of 4 or 5 or 6 (or 1 or 10) clients that they work for most of the time and which are responsible for the bulk of their income. My resume boasts an impressive list of clients, but some of the better paying ones aren't as regular as I'd like them to be or no longer work with freelancers. This is a pain in the ass, no doubt, but a part of the business and I just need to get used to it. So I was thinking that I need to drum up some more work and I should start by focusing on my regular clients, and as I worked through the list, I felt slightly discouraged by its relatively small size. 4 or 5 real regulars. 2 or 3 so-so regulars. And a few others that looked promising but petered out after a couple jobs, in some cases because of my apparent inability to come up with good fresh ideas in the areas they cover. (I've dabbled in high-tech writing as a spin-off of biotech writing, but it's not an area that I can easily generate ideas in).

So thus I fret, which when you think about it would be an interesting logo on a T-shirt, wouldn't it? Perhaps a nice bright red T-shirt with big black letters saying:

SO THUS I FRET.

Now, aside from my free-floating anxiety over work, I am comforted by the fact that I seem to write for a variety of clients and am always bringing on new ones, though I'm not always capable of generating regular work from them. I will keep trying, and until they tell me to kiss off or give me an assignment, that's pretty much the way to do it. Plus I scour Writer's Market and try new things and apply for jobs on a variety of listservs I belong to. And I'm not likely to put aside the notion of having recently signed a 2-book contract and that a novel of mine, Victim #3, is being considered by a publisher and that my agent is shopping Bad Intentions.

Over my writing history, the 80-20 Rule seems to apply, but the 20 seems to shift around a bit. Some of that is random chance and some of it is by design as I attempt to broaden or shift my areas of expertise. Also, I would be quite happy to someday have the 20% of my work generating 80% of my income (or even 99%) be from my novels, at least if my income doesn't put me somewhere down around the poverty line. It would be kind of a bummer to have all your income be from novels, but have to share the Puppy Chow with the dog to make ends meet. Move over, Frodo!

Another T-shirt idea: DON'T BOTHER ME, I'M ANGST-ING!

Best,
Mark Terry