March 17, 2006
Over on Eric Mayer's blog he has a comment about a writer being a fool, so...

And over on Joe Konrath's blog he's writing about money, money, money...

I had lunch with a writer friend of mine yesterday who is frustrated with the way his fiction career is going (or not going, as the case may be). He's retired so he has a pension, but he'd like to raise some money and he was wondering if freelancing might do that.

I was cautious. I'm willing to help and provide advice, which is generally worth the fortune cookie it comes in. At the same time, the question itself often annoys me, though I try to hide that. The reason it annoys me is it sort of suggests, or perhaps hints, that, Gee, if Mark can do it, anybody can do it.

And my friend is not the only person to go this route. I'm always running into people who think, gee, He's making money, he has time to go to the gym, he doesn't have to commute, that sounds like the job for me.

And maybe it is. But I didn't get here overnight and I bring other things to the table besides writing ability.

One of the first things I asked was: "How much money do you want to make?" This is a biggie. He said about $500 a month. With a sign of relief, I said yes, if he broke in, $6000 a year was very do-able.

He didn't seem overly interested in my suggestions on how he might do that. And perhaps that is a separate topic for another day.

The other question he asked, or perhaps it was THE question, was: I know how hard it is to make money writing fiction and break in. Is it the same for nonfiction?

My answer: No. If you put the same amount of time and energy into nonfiction as you do into fiction--even for 3 months--you will break in at some level.

I believe this. I'm not sure he listened, though, when I said, "Look, about 11 in 12 queries will get rejected. Even if you're established. Even by some of your regular clients. So what do you have to do? If you want to break in, you have to write a lot of queries. 12 a day for a couple months."

I further suggested he go through The Writer's Market and pick out magazines that look interesting to him. Leverage your interests. My friend is into a million different things, but I know he's into motorcycles, he used to race hydroplanes, and he's traveled a lot. He's also lived out of the country.

So pick publications related to those, at least peripherally, look at the pubs to figure out what they want, and query them. In my friend's case, he's written book reviews and author profiles and at least one magazine article, which as far as I'm concerned means he has a "portfolio," even if it's not much of one. But it's a place to start building.

Will he? Don't know. Can he? Yes, he can. And, in fact, even with fairly average writing skills, I think he could make significantly more than $500 a month and still work part-time if he really worked at it.

I don't know if he will. He still seems to be infected with the fiction virus (I'm familiar with that). He seems to be focusing on a particular story, and although some writers work that way, I have found it better to look at a publication and try to come up with ideas to match the publication's needs, rather than pick a story that seems cool to me and look for a publication.

Can you make a living as a freelance writer? Yes. I'm living proof.

A good living? Well, I've done better than I expected. It's at least as good a living as what I made working in cytogenetics at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. I'm sure as hell a lot happier.

Best,
Mark Terry