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Episode 283: Freelancing, Abundant Mindsets, and Writing from a Place of Anger with Jen A. Miller
228 Plays3 years ago
Jen A. Miller returns after a near-five-year absence from the show to talk about her new e-book about supercharging your freelance career. She's @byJenAMiller on Twitter.
Sponsor love: West Virginia Wesleyan College's MFA in Creative Writing and Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry.
Social: @CNFPod
Patreon: patreon.com/cnfpod
Newsletter and show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Submission Details for Audio Magazine
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, before we dive into the interview, I wanna remind you that the submission deadline for issue three of the audio magazine is November 1st. That's like in 10 days or something. I'm not good at math, but it's coming up. The theme is heroes. Essays must be no more than 2,000 words. You can find a little extra details at brendanamerra.com. Bear in mind, this is an audio essay. So pay attention to how the words roll out of your mouth.
00:00:29
Speaker
Email your submissions with heroes in the subject line to creativenonfictionpodcastatgmail.com. Hey, I pay writers too that fat burrito money. Dig it. There's so much work out there. It's overwhelming to me to think about how much work is out there.
Jen A. Miller's Return and Freelancing Success
00:00:52
Speaker
Well hey, this is the Creative Nonfiction Pocket. It's a show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara. How's it going? Ever want to make a go of it as a freelance writer? Not necessarily a journalist, but a writer. Which might have some journalism sprinkled in, like seasoning. Well, I've got the guest for you.
00:01:12
Speaker
You know I've spoken to Jenny Gridders a couple times, Wudan Yann a couple times, Jennifer Goforth, Gregory back in the day. And it's great to welcome back Jen A. Miller. Back to the podcast after a near five year absence. Jesus. Now I feel old. I feel old and tired now.
00:01:37
Speaker
Tell me about it. Jen is the author of the memoir, Running a Love Story. We talked about that in episode 31. And she's also written wildly successful and actionable ebooks about freelance writing. Her first is How I Made $135,000 in One Year Freelancing. That's 135,000 with 1,000.
00:02:03
Speaker
And her latest is where to find new freelance writing clients and turbo charge your career, a roadmap to freelance writing success. It's 10 bucks.
00:02:14
Speaker
and I'll have the link in the show notes. And when you figure you spend $10 on something that gives you keys to the car, you can turn that $10 into a four figure side hustle or a five figure part time job, or even able to afford to save for retirement and maybe even max out your Roth IRA. Imagine that. And maybe go to Chipotle once in a while, but first,
Exploring MFA Program at West Virginia Wesleyan College
00:02:43
Speaker
Sport for the Creative Nonfiction Pocket is brought to you by West Virginia Wesleyan College's Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing. Now in its 10th year, this affordable program boasts a low student-to-faculty ratio and a strong sense of community. We love community, baby. Recent CNF faculty include Randon Billings Noble, Jeremy Jones, and CNF pod alum Sarah Einstein.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, there's also fiction and poetry tracks where Ashley Bryant Phelps and Jacinda Townsend have have worked as well as Diane Gilliam and Savannah Sipple. No matter your discipline, if you're looking to up your craft or learn a new one, consider West Virginia.
00:03:22
Speaker
Jesus. Can you, can you read Brendan West Virginia Wesleyan right in the heart of Appalachia visit MFA.wvwc.edu for more information and dates of enrollment. Sometimes man, sometimes.
Reflecting on Freelance Journey with Jen
00:03:42
Speaker
Five years ago when I moved to Oregon and was strongly considering firing up the podcast full-time, I had Pete Croato on for the first time, episode 29. Imagine that way back in the day with a stupid blue microphone, not even the good one. It's just a blue snowball. Yeah, it was not good, but it was an upgrade over whatever I had before and whatever. It got us started, didn't it?
00:04:11
Speaker
Then on Twitter, while Pete and I promoted his first visit, Jen chimed in and said, I do podcasts. I was like, sweet, me too, bro. She's a wicked good freelancer and I suck ass at it. So I'm happy to bring her back aboard the HMS CNF pod and let her tell you how you can call your shots and live a happy life.
00:04:36
Speaker
I'll riff a little bit on that in the parting shot at the end of the show of what that means and a sort of changing of goals and a mindset. But you can stay tuned for that. It's there if you want it. It's also there if you want to skip it. Does that even make sense? It's there if you want to skip it. I think you're going to dig this because her books, while they are her experience, are pretty universal.
Treating Writing as a Business
00:05:00
Speaker
And you don't have to engage in the hustle porn that you see online.
00:05:06
Speaker
You just have to set up a playbook, treat your writing like the business it is, a creative business, but a business. Hey, hey, look around you. How's the local dentist doing or the Starbucks handling advertising and marketing? Like there's a guy that he's a dentist on. He's on TV ads. He's got billboards around for a thousand dollar implants and he's got his
00:05:27
Speaker
chubby little face up there and his neat Ivy League haircut and a polished smile and it's like you see him all over the place and you're like, okay, maybe he'll help me be able to eat an apple again. Anyway, it's not a bad idea to use them or something similar as a business model and think, well, you can slide in with your slant in your services and serve the people you want to help and that's what it's all about and maybe you'll get some of that fat burrito money.
00:05:58
Speaker
Okay, so check this out. I saw Metallica twice at Aftershock two weeks ago, so I'm gonna slip this in. I think you can hear me, and I swear, but don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone, okay?
00:06:48
Speaker
I just ran a 10 mile trail race on Sunday that had two river crossings and 10 downed trees on the course.
00:06:59
Speaker
So yeah, I guess I'm still quote unquote running, although I didn't run that fast through the river because it's like slippery rocks and the person, the person in front of me totally wiped out and I felt bad, but it just reminded me to be extremely conscious.
Running Shoe Preferences and Finding the Right Fit
00:07:15
Speaker
Um, and I didn't fall, so that was good.
00:07:17
Speaker
fantastic yeah what kind of this because I worked in at a fleet feet and fit hundreds if not thousands of people for running shoes at one point or another what what shoes are your go-to so I've been for road racing for road running sorry I shouldn't say racing
00:07:35
Speaker
even though I wear the same shoe. I have been wearing the Mizuno Wave Rider since I started running, and I really have not veered from that shoe all that much. There's a couple versions they put out that I didn't like all that much, so I would try to find like discontinued versions of it, and I would try other kinds of shoes, but I keep going back to this Mizuno Wave Rider. And for trail running, I wear Hoka's.
00:07:59
Speaker
And the good thing about the Hoka's is they last forever. Like my last pair, I was duct taping together because I didn't want to buy a new pair and then I bought a new pair and they're fantastic. So, so Mizuno for roads and Hoka for trails.
00:08:14
Speaker
I've wondered that about hocus when I was working at the last fleet feet I worked out so at 2010 2012 around 2011 ish was when we got like a demo pair of those in the store and I remember just they're just the mid soles on those are just goofy big and pillowy but it but it appears that they're very popular and effective
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm not as big a fan of the road shoe, and that just might be because I love the Wave Rider so much. They just made sense for running, because I've run ultra marathons now. It just made sense for the longer trail races. But that brand has gotten much bigger and much more prominent. And they had an Olympian in a marathon in the last Olympics. They had a runner in the marathon in the last Olympics, I should say, which was a first for them.
00:09:03
Speaker
because they have some pretty good pro teams now too, so they're definitely making a much bigger mark. I know at first when they first came out, it was like, what the heck is this? But, you know, I'm a fan.
00:09:14
Speaker
Nice. Well, it kind of dovetails nicely here. Running in a way, depending on who you are, can be very competitive.
Freelancers Supporting Each Other
00:09:22
Speaker
But you're quick to know in this new e-book that you wrote that you don't see writers as competition. And we all come at story ideas with our own research and experiences, and it's better to work with other writers for the good of the industry. Hence why I write my newsletter in my book.
00:09:40
Speaker
How did you arrive at that at that more abundant mindset versus the scarce mindset? I will say that that has pretty much been the case in all the time. I've been freelancing, which will be I should say full time freelancing. I've been doing it. It'll be 17 years in January that I've been a full time freelancer and I was writing freelance part time before then. And the only reason that I have been able to stay in this business is so for so long is because of the help of other writers, especially in those early years.
00:10:08
Speaker
when I didn't quite know the best practices of what I was doing. And there was a group of older women, because almost all freelancers I knew then were women, and mostly women now, they took me by the hand and say, I want to help you. And because now I turn around and I put my hand out and say, I want to help you. It never really felt like
00:10:30
Speaker
we were fighting against each other for the same assignments. And it is what I said because my lived experience is different than their lived experience, which is different than another person's lived experience. And because there are so many opportunities for writing, I don't have a scarcity mindset because there's too much work out there. And I want good people to get that work. I just referred someone to what would have potentially been an OK gig for me, but I knew it would be better for her.
00:10:55
Speaker
Then I just referred it to her. Like, this is better for you. Take this. Please take this from me. And it's just because I've met so many people who do all different kinds of writing that I know that there's so much work out there. It just doesn't make sense to fight with each other. Why? You know, we're on the same side here. We all want to be good writers and be paid for our work. So we should work together.
00:11:16
Speaker
And I know a big part of my 30s, a huge chunk of my 30s was spent in large part frustrated and sort of resentful because I couldn't get a lot of traction. And the traction I was constantly trying to get and the idea of freelancing in my head was you had to do a lot of churn. It was more journalistic stuff. Like I had no idea about the content or more the mercenary work that's out there.
00:11:45
Speaker
And so I was just beating my head against the wall because so many of the people I admired, they're publishing these great long form pieces. I'm like, how are they doing it? Here I am fitting shoes at Fleet Feet while I'm trying to cobble together these slideshows, this, that, and the other. And it's great to hear...
00:12:01
Speaker
you and people like Wudan and Jenny Gridders and talk about like, oh, there's this other thing that you can make a lot of. You can you tend to make more money, but it can help subsidize maybe some of the other journalism you want to do. So, you know, how did that when did that light bulb turn on for you?
Diversifying Freelance Work for Stability
00:12:18
Speaker
Well, my I've one of my full time jobs I had before quitting to be a freelancer was I worked at the at a medical school and I worked in the media office and I would go out and meet with doctors other than acting as a liaison for media who wanted to come in. I would get be given a study that a doctor was about to publish until here read this. I don't understand this. And then I would go meet with the doctor or the researcher and write
00:12:47
Speaker
a press release based on that research. What does this mean? What does this mean for the general public? And because I had that experience, I realized that there are places that hire you to do that. And there are places that hire you to write for the alumni magazine. And when I left my magazine editing job, one of the first things that happened, when I sent out an email saying,
00:13:10
Speaker
I'm moving on from this editor job. I was an editor at a small regional publication and I'm going to freelance. Immediately a college came back to me and said, okay, what do you want to write for me? That work was always sort of like word of mouth. I never really went out to go get it.
00:13:26
Speaker
It just like this person moved to this job and then they hired me there and they gave my name to the person who took their job. And it was one of these things where I love the work. I mean, I found it fascinating. I found it interesting. I found it important because sometimes you're taking these bench level breakthroughs in science and then explaining it in a way that this is how it might help a person, right? And I thought, well, this stuff is important, even if it's not
00:13:52
Speaker
journalism because I'm being paid by a college to write about their researcher. But there was a part of me that thought, well, I can't be a serious writer unless I'm writing long form journalism all the time. And then I tried to write long form journalism all the time and I got to admit I hated it.
00:14:13
Speaker
I hated the pitching process. I hated the frustration of it. I hated how long it took to get paid. And then I would get into contract disputes with big publishers. And I've said before that I'll never write for Conde Nast again, unless they have some radical change because their contract is so bad. They tried to force me to sign it after the piece had already been published.
00:14:38
Speaker
And then when I tried to negotiate it, they told me it wasn't important enough to negotiate with. And I thought, I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. And started actively pursuing that other work. And then I realized, well, if I do X, Y, and Z for this, and it creates a steady income, then I can go do this other stuff.
00:14:56
Speaker
And you got to be careful about conflicts of interest, of course. I think it was only one time where an editor said, I want you to talk to a researcher at this institution. And I said, I can't because I write for them. And then he's like, OK, we'll talk to this person. It's just never really created any conflicts of interest.
00:15:12
Speaker
I can keep the two separate and it's just, there's so much less pressure on me as a person, like as a, you know, a human being trying to pay bills and make it in this world. But I didn't have to worry about fighting all the time for work and to get paid. It just, and that was, that was probably in, I want to say 2018 when I actually bought this house and my income has gone through the roof. And I don't think that's a coincidence.
00:15:38
Speaker
I'm glad you brought up 2018 because you write in the book, too, that, you know, you rebuilt your business in 2018. So what was that moment like and what was the plan in the playbook that you put into place in 2018?
Rebuilding Freelance Business after Personal Challenges
00:15:52
Speaker
Well, I and so in 2017, my dog died and then I was forced to sell my first house because I had the neighbor from hell. And I don't want to get more into it because I'm still worried that she's going to try to sue me.
00:16:06
Speaker
Still, it was really, really bad. My realtor said, this is the worst neighbor dispute I have ever seen. My dog died, I was forced to sell my house at a loss, and then I was going to... What was I going to do? Was I going to continue to live in the town where this person lived? Was I going to buy another house even though I lost money on it?
00:16:26
Speaker
And so I packed up my stuff. I sold the house, put some stuff in my Jeep Wrangler, and then drove around the country for a year. And in four months I saw the 18 states I hadn't been to yet, adapted a dog,
00:16:41
Speaker
came back to New Jersey. Well, actually, I tried to live in Colorado and hated that. Came back to New Jersey, went to Florida. I was a mess. Losing your house is a traumatic thing. Before you go on, have you written about this as a personal essay of any kind? No, because I'm worried about getting sued.
00:17:03
Speaker
Gotcha. Yeah, and only or release the driving around part like that whole journey I tried to write a book about it, but I ended up firing my agent over it. We want to get real here My former agent my running book running a love story
00:17:18
Speaker
We sent out a lot to people until somebody bought it. This book that I wanted to write, she sent it out to five or six people and then said, oh well. And then I fired her. And I was so mad about the whole experience because I really thought it was a really bad experience. It turned me off traditional publishing almost entirely. That's when I went out and wrote my first ebook about how I made $135,000 in one year of freelancing. Because I was just mad. But I had this, I wanted to write something. And I was like, ah!
00:17:47
Speaker
So I wrote that and that book ebook was wildly successful I mean way more than I ever thought I've earned more money from that ebook that I did from my first books advance like
00:17:59
Speaker
because I think it hit a nerve. Anyway, so I still hope to write about what happened. And I actually was filing open records requests over the whole neighbor dispute because the town got involved. And I just put it aside again because it's still really difficult to try to reckon with what actually happened. And I'm worried about getting sued.
00:18:19
Speaker
Anyway, so after that, I rented a house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and then realized, oh, you're really depressed. You're really depressed, really, really bad. So I broke the lease and ended up, my parents are divorced, but live close to each other. So I was living between them, and I realized that my freelance income had plummeted because
00:18:40
Speaker
I was going through a lot of stuff personally. I was still trying to tell myself, well, you need to write another big book. You need to do investigative journalism as a freelancer. And I realized that none of that was working for me personally, financially.
00:18:54
Speaker
I reached out to my friend Jennifer Goforth Gregory, or she reached out to me. I don't remember how that happened. I think she might have reached out to me and said, I want to help you. And she was just finishing this book that she wrote called The Content Marketing Writer, which you could say that writing for an alumni magazine is content. You could say it's not, whatever.
00:19:12
Speaker
She got on the phone with me and just talked me through, Jen, I want you to start thinking about what else you can write about that's going to make you a happy person. And I had been starting to reach out to colleges and I was, I was contacting like five a week. And she said, I want you to contact five a day. And I sent out, I think it was 528 letters of introduction, which is just an email to somebody saying, hey, do you need a writer? Here's my qualifications. Let me know. Thanks.
00:19:42
Speaker
And that sounds easy. It sounds like I would put on a Marvel movie or a Disney animated movie that I've seen 1,000 times. And I would just do that. And it worked. It really worked. It got me writing more in that college and university space, which I really enjoy, especially because I know how to write science, which is a very valuable skill. But it also got me more into, I don't want to call it nerdy. One is kind of nerdy.
00:20:12
Speaker
writing about logistics and supply chain, which in 2018, okay, sure, Jen, write about that. And now it's 2021. And that's like the thing, right? I loved those things. And it just made, it's fascinating. It just feeds my brain, like all of this stuff. It's just really, really interesting and wonderful. And that's how I turned my business around. And I bought this beautiful house and I go on nice vacations and I'm saving money for, you know, important stuff that we have to worry about.
00:20:40
Speaker
With your first ebook, I love that it seemed to really come from a place of anger and almost impulsiveness.
Writing out of Anger and Challenging Freelancing Perceptions
00:20:50
Speaker
Do you write well from that headspace? Yes, I do. My mom says I'm funniest when I'm angry.
00:20:59
Speaker
But there was definitely, I wrote that ebook in, I think it was the week between Christmas and New Year. And I had taken a lot of time off before the holidays. And I was just like, I was angry about having to fire my former agent. I was angry about, you know, I was starting to reach out to other agents, not even knowing if I wanted to try to go through this process again. And one of them was saying, well, she could try to claim she has some ownership of this proposal. And I was like, ah, what the blank?
00:21:27
Speaker
But I also still get, you know, this happens all the time. It even happened this morning, the day that we're recording this. People saying that freelancing sucks, you can never make any money. Somebody called us like the adjunct of the journalism world.
00:21:42
Speaker
And I just get so, yeah, I know. And it was somebody who I looked at who he worked for and, oh, they treated their freelancers terribly, right? And I just wanted to put something out there that said, you can do this. And I put the number, the putting the number on it was actually really scary because it was such a high number for me. Like I had, I had always wanted to break six figures and that year I never expected to break it by that much.
00:22:09
Speaker
And I just want to say, listen, I did it. Here's how I did it. Here's how I did it. It's like, here's all of the, I think I wrote about, here's how I got my top clients of 2019. Because it illustrated all the different ways that I get work. It's not always pitching. And yeah, I just wanted to show like, oh, you can't freelancing sucks? Well, then what did I do? Why am I still here? And I think the second e-book, which is about four places to find
00:22:38
Speaker
different writing clients was from a position of that fighting the scarcity mindset. There's so much work out there. It's overwhelming to me to think about how much work is out there. So that's why I put that ebook together. And I will say breaking news. This is going to become a whole series of ebooks because I like doing them. They seem to be financially rewarding. And I think they're fun. And I think they help people.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, one of the notes I made was, as much as this book and your previous one are about service to the community and the freelancers, they also strike me as kind of a middle finger to people who disparage freelancers in the industry as a whole. Am I right in assuming that? Yes, because it's the piece that I was mad about this morning.
00:23:30
Speaker
said that I'm not going to name who the outlet because they've traditionally been terrible about us for reasons I don't want to get into is how to how to freelance until you make it. No, no, no. Ah, it's because most of the time people who talk about how freelancing is terrible and it sucks and we're exploited and it's awful have never really tried to freelance. Right. You know, it's a business. It is a business.
00:23:58
Speaker
And you have to treat it like a business. So if you don't treat it like a business, no, it's not going to work. And if you try it and you hate it, that's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. You have to understand that it's running a business. And there was a really terrible New York Times opinion piece.
00:24:16
Speaker
from someone who appears to be a failed freelancer, but she wanted to blame someone else. But she wouldn't answer any questions about, well, what's your marketing strategy? What's your business plan? How many outreaches are you doing each day, each week, each month? It's not really a business where you're just going to say, I'm a freelancer and work's going to pour in on you. You have to treat it like a business. And what I write about is, here are things that can help your business.
00:24:44
Speaker
And if you don't want to run a business, that's totally fine. Go get a traditional job. People need workers right now. But don't ruin it for the rest of us.
00:24:55
Speaker
I hear stories of people who seem to really come out of the gate in year one or even year one and a half of freelancing.
Leveraging Existing Networks for New Freelancers
00:25:05
Speaker
So if you really want to get into it and really make a splash and not feel like you're in the churn machine, like how can someone try to get on the rocket ship as fast as possible so that they can start to sustain themselves without having to wait a year, two years, three years?
00:25:24
Speaker
The first thing you should do, and I also say I do freelance consults with people. I haven't been lately because I've been busy. I just got back from a month of vacation. I have to catch up on my back list of people who are waiting for appointments. The first thing you should do is immediately look at your own network. And Jennifer Goforth Gregory's book, I know I'm plugging it again. She is so good at explaining how to do this in step-by-step fashion.
00:25:49
Speaker
But when I help people who are leaving their jobs under duress or they got laid off, I said, you send a goodbye email if you still have access to your whatever. I want you to go through your LinkedIn contacts. And I know everybody groans like, oh, LinkedIn. You're connected to people on there.
00:26:07
Speaker
go through your contacts and see who you've worked with before and where they are now, people you know who might need a writer, like who you might not necessarily think of. When I was going through that big rebuild in 2018, I went through my LinkedIn and I saw, oh, I knew this person from running. Oh, she's a content manager at a major law firm. And I emailed her, I'm like, I know this might sound out of the blue, but do you ever need writers? And she's like, I'm looking for a freelancer right now. And I wrote for them for two years.
00:26:35
Speaker
And the thing about plumbing your own network is you don't have to prove to them that you're a good person, right? Assuming that you have experience with them. And once you start thinking, you know, I just helped someone and I don't want to give too many details because she has not quit her job yet. Once I started saying,
00:26:55
Speaker
these things, she was like, oh, I could talk to that person. I could talk to that person. I could talk to that person. Go through your LinkedIn, go through your social media. And once it's OK, if you've been laid off and you say that you've been laid off, post that you're looking for work. You have no idea what opportunities might exist that you don't know about that hasn't been publicized. I will give you one example for myself. I'm trying to get into a different niche of writing. And the first thing I did was think, OK, well, I know these people who work in that field.
00:27:24
Speaker
And I emailed one of them and I said, hey, I know it's been a while and I know this might sound weird, but I'm looking to get into X area of writing. Just let me know if you need somebody or you know somebody who needs somebody. And she wrote back and she said, we've been trying to get a project off the ground. We just haven't
00:27:45
Speaker
really put any work into finding the right writer, do you want to do it? So that was just for me going to my own network. The other thing people can do is if they work with someone or they, you know, could you use someone like me or do you know anyone who could use someone like me?
00:28:01
Speaker
And that's really a way to just get the word out, get your name passed on. I would also suggest that they make sure that if they don't have a website, to make sure that they do have a LinkedIn with some clips on it, because you can share stuff in your network. Because they're going to want to see that you have a landing page of some sort. Somebody asked me for a resume the other day, and I'm like, I don't have one of those. Go to my website.
00:28:24
Speaker
But really working, like I said before, when I quit that editor job and told people I was leaving, one of my first clients was somebody who said, oh, I need you in response to that email. And it was Rutgers Camden. And I still do work for them 17 years later.
00:28:42
Speaker
Now it's one thing to land clients and maybe work an assignment or two for them, but ultimately what keeps the flywheel going and what increases income and a sense of steadiness in freelancing, which on its surface doesn't seem steady, how have you gone about keeping your clients as happy as possible so you keep them and keep those anchor gigs that can really parlay into something sustainable?
Maintaining Clients with Quality Work
00:29:11
Speaker
Two things. One, turn it in on time. Turn it in on time. Turn it in on time. I know that sounds really basic, but you would be surprised. I once got an assignment for a huge men's magazine that doesn't exist anymore because I knew the editor from somewhere else and he said, I can't find anybody to turn anything in on time. Geez. So turn it in on time.
00:29:41
Speaker
Be clean, be accurate. And by clean, by be clean, I don't mean with curse words. Make sure your copy's clean. Like don't, you know, make sure it's complete.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, and be accurate. You don't want to ever have a correction. So I can't say that everything I've turned in has always been error free, but it's clean. I just finished a piece where I was missing one piece of information and it turned out that my editor knew the answer and I put in there, Jay, fill in here.
00:30:12
Speaker
And I felt really bad about that. And he's like, why would you feel about that? Of course I know this. Like, she had co-written a book with someone, and I was writing about that person he co-wrote the book with. And she was out of the office, and he's like, of course I know when it's coming out. It's my book. But yeah, just turning it in on time is unbelievably important. And it sounds so basic. Oh, turn it in on time.
00:30:36
Speaker
turn it in around the word count. If you get a 300 word assignment and you turn in 800 words, you're not going to get a second assignment. And if anything does come up, just bring it up immediately. Like when my dog died, I wasn't going to be able to turn in an assignment the next week.
00:30:53
Speaker
Most people are willing to work with you, especially if it's going to go digital first. Like it's sure they're probably have a spot lined up for you, but if there's a death in your family, they'll work around it. And if they don't, they're assholes and you don't want to work with assholes. Fire them.
00:31:14
Speaker
But the other thing is, I do regularly check in with clients. Not everybody's going to have work for you all the time. And there are some clients I have who only hire me twice a year because that's all they need before. But for example, in March of 2020, when everything was going to hell,
00:31:30
Speaker
I didn't shy away. I turned around and email all my clients and I said, especially because I write in the supply chain and medical and science space, I turned around and said, listen, I'm here if you need me. I'm here if you need me. Tell me what you need. And I build eighteen thousand dollars in March of twenty twenty. And that is still the most I have ever built in one month in my entire career. And it's amazing. And it wasn't me bugging them. They needed someone like immediately who was ready to rock and roll at that second.
00:32:00
Speaker
So that's another thing that I tell people, you're not bugging someone if they need a writer, you're helping them. It's a partnership. I love in the book too about keeping your eyes open for those opportunities and whether that be in a waiting room or when you get an REI catalog in the mail or the REI's quarterly magazine or whatever it is or Subaru, you're like,
00:32:24
Speaker
There are these are most likely 100% freelance written like that's an that's a way to do this in if you keep your eyes open wherever it is like there's opportunities there on the brochure stand or in your mailbox as it is.
00:32:38
Speaker
I was running and I saw a magazine outside of an electric bike store and I picked up the magazine. Somebody who I've been helping texted me and said, I'm reading a book and here's what I highlighted. It was the name of an institute that she then wrote a letter of introduction to.
00:32:57
Speaker
and it was like in a novel and she found that this is a real thing and sent them a letter of an email saying she could write for them and she said it's because she said now I look everywhere and I think oh my god this is work for me and right now I'm saving all of my well not all my mail but mail and emails from the month of October that I see as potential freelance writing markets and it's like my inbox is like uh to delete these things already you're never going to read them but it's opportunities it's just
00:33:25
Speaker
That's why I say it's overwhelming to me how many opportunities are out there and I want to pair writers with those opportunities because, you know, freelancing is great.
00:33:37
Speaker
Back when we spoke nearly five years ago, you had said, when it gets too hard, I need to challenge myself and make it...
Leaving the New York Times for Personal Fulfillment
00:33:46
Speaker
I'm sorry, when it gets too easy, I need to challenge myself and make it harder again. And I wonder what challenges you might be facing now that are not challenging you enough and you're finding your ways into new turbulent waters and challenging waters.
00:34:05
Speaker
Well, in the spring, I quit my weekly New York Times gig, so that's a challenge. That's a prestige gig, too. Yeah, I know, and people were concerned. I had been writing a newsletter about running for them for three and a half years, and before that, I had written a similar product for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
00:34:29
Speaker
I loved it most of the time because, you know, it's a prominent spot. I love writing about running. I got to like it felt like I was chatting with people a lot. But eventually it wore me down. I was running out of creative things to say. I was really getting tired of getting screamed at every time a newsletter came out. And I just felt like the Olympics were coming up.
00:34:53
Speaker
And I thought, I don't want to write about this. I just don't want to write about it. And I wanted to leave before people knew I wasn't invested anymore. And it was really hard to have that conversation with my editor because it wasn't her. She was fantastic. I mean, one of the best editors I've ever had.
00:35:13
Speaker
And I had to say like, it's not you, it's me. And it was hard because like, and the response was people were mad that I was leaving. Like, well, there's another person going to do it. Like, I'm not that unique, really.
00:35:27
Speaker
And that was a bit of income I gave up, but I wanted to see what else was out there. And at this trail race, because they know me from my running work, the organizers, they said, are you OK? I'm like, yeah, why? And they said, well, you lost your job. And I'm like, that was not a job. That was a gig. And for the amount of part of my business it made up financially, it was starting to take over the rest of my life.
00:35:57
Speaker
And I let it go, and I can say that I haven't regret it at all. It's allowed me to try other things. It's allowed me to actually take vacation without having to worry about writing my column. And I just got back from a month away, and I'm gonna start moving in a new direction. Do you still have your where's my money bat? Oh, yeah. I actually, I had to use it when I came back from vacation. Because...
00:36:24
Speaker
I will say, so the where's my money bat is I'm looking at it right now. My high school softball bat that when I started freelancing and I got really agitated about late payers and I felt bad about asking for my money, which you should never do. It's your money. It's your money. They're at fault, not you.
00:36:45
Speaker
I would put the bat in the corner of my office and look at it and then go ask for money. And it was just like a visual cue of, all right, I don't want to, you know, if you pay me, but I need a little to get me to go. And I'm very quick to fire people who mess around with my money because it's just so much angst and time and effort. And that's just not worth it to me. The two that were late when I got back
00:37:14
Speaker
One, they had just forgot to file a piece of paper and they cut the check that day. And the other one, there was a misunderstanding about payment terms, which we have fixed. So, you know, if you don't ask where your money is, and it was like what they said, somebody forgot to push a button, nobody's going to push the button until you tell them to push the button.
00:37:36
Speaker
So I still have the bat and it is in this room for safety in case somebody tries to break in my house and for some reason my dog doesn't get to them first.
00:37:48
Speaker
I remember a bunch of years ago, I had written this feature and submitted it and they were not entirely pleased with it or whatever. I guess it was a little too short or something. But subsequent months, they hadn't paid me and I was just like, fuck it, whatever.
00:38:09
Speaker
Not that much. It's not worth my time anymore. I guess they're just not going to do it. And then they emailed. This ended up being close to a year later, like, oh, we submitted that piece for you. This is what happened. I thought they killed it. And and then they apparently won like honorable meant it won an award, a small little thing. And I was like, oh, my God, like you ran it. I had no idea. Like, can you please pay me for that piece?
Consistency in Business-to-Business Writing
00:38:36
Speaker
And
00:38:37
Speaker
And they're like, we didn't pay you for it? I'm like, no, I thought you killed it. And they're like, oh, I'm so sorry. And then they cut me a check because they were tickled at that point, even though they were pissed with the piece. But it eventually won something, so then they left it. So it was like, I was like, oh, my God. That was a more journalistic thing, which is his own morass of dealing with trying to get paid in the turnaround on anything you write.
00:39:03
Speaker
Well, that's that's the reason why this this idea of going back to the long-form journalism stuff I went to a conference in California in 2012 and I remember that because it was right after Superstorm Sandy and It was like this billed as this long-form narrative journalism conference for freelancers and at the introduction everyone's talking although Somebody raised their hand said well who's gonna talk to us about money? How do we make this work financially and somebody's like, oh we don't talk about that here. I
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I was like, just wasted my money on this. And that conference I think was held once or twice, but then was never held again. But like, you know, I don't think the, a lot of my work right now comes from business to business publications, the supply chain dive. I also write for CIO dive.
00:39:55
Speaker
That work is so interesting to me, but it also is steady and it pays on time. I get paid about two weeks after the story, I submit it. It doesn't even matter when it runs. They start processing that when I submit it. Just having that base of income makes everything else so much easier. So even if I do go out and try to write some big long piece for somebody else, I know I can still pay my mortgage.
00:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's sadly long form journalism, at least to me, I have to equate it with being a short story writer in fiction. It's just something like it's gotta be a passion project. You're not gonna make a living on it. The New Yorkers, I know it's Conde Nast, but those New Yorker long form writers,
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, those are very, very few and far between. And they don't treat their freelancers well in a whole other lot of ways, but that's not my story to tell. But some people who do it, they are not the only source of income in their household. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But the only person paying the bills in this house is me until my dog gets a job.
00:41:09
Speaker
And I had a writer reach out to me once who said, hey, I need a contributing editor gig. Do you know of any? And I'm like, they don't come to me for that. I'm a woman. And I'm not saying that's the case as much now as it was in 2006 when I was told if I wanted to get a writing gig at Philly Week, Philadelphia Magazine, I had to go date someone who worked in the masthead. And they didn't say date.
00:41:37
Speaker
Um, jeez. Yeah. And then those people who got those contributing writing, you know, freelance contracts then went on to do a lot of, you know, it sort of played up and I was like, well, because I won't blank someone, they're not going to give me that gig. And, you know, I had a lot of anger issues about that. Um, I think it's very different today. Thank God. But at the time, all those gigs went to, to guys and I'm getting into something you probably don't want to talk about, but
00:42:07
Speaker
But you can take it there if you want. There were there were doors that weren't open to me in young stages in my career. And part of me wonders if that was a good thing because I see
00:42:19
Speaker
the pressure that, you know, those roles take on. I've seen a lot of people who went that track who crashed and burned and aren't in the industry anymore. Um, it's sort of like when, when somebody, I forget what book it was from that, that, you know, achieving success in writing, you want to take the land route, not the jet, because sometimes somebody will write a piece that goes viral and then they get a big book contract. And then that's the only book they ever write because they didn't do the work to get there. Does that make sense?
00:42:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So, you know, the overnight success might not be the long term success. And I actually was talking about a very specific writer to someone. It turned it out. It was this person's friend. I felt terrible. Yeah, you want to be like a 15 year overnight success. Yeah. But, you know, when I was 25 years old, you know, the landscape, I'm 41 now, the media landscape was different. The editor at Philadelphia magazine at the time would walk around the office with his within his boxers.
00:43:17
Speaker
This is public knowledge. This is public, so it's not like I'm breaking any news here. But the editor at New Jersey Monthly had been fired from his previous job at Rolling Stone for sexual harassment. How am I going to do as a freelancer with that person? He just retired. He just retired.
00:43:39
Speaker
You know, I don't think when that happened, I don't think he would have gotten another job in journalism if it happened today. I could be wrong, of course. But at the time, it was like brushed off and he got this job. And then I was trying to write for him and it was a terrible experience.
00:43:58
Speaker
Jeez. Well, we have to believe that the landscape has changed somewhat with more, hopefully, there are more women in higher seats of power at these places on editorial boards and mast heads. He was replaced by a woman, so at least there's that. Yeah, yeah, and changing the culture to just, yeah, so that degree of toxic masculinity is no longer quite literally strutting around in his underpants.
00:44:27
Speaker
I will say, you know, that New Jersey Monthly editor treated men terribly, too. So it's it's just you got to get these folks out and, you know, and I'm a white woman and I at least had the benefit of being white like at the time. Maybe that's the wrong way to put it. But, you know, a woman of color in 2005 trying to get an editorial writing gig with with someone like that. Yeah. Anyway.
00:44:54
Speaker
I don't regret it. I don't. There was someone else at the time who was writing in the same fields and went a different direction as I did and, you know, got caught doing some shady journalism stuff. So I'm glad I didn't go that route either.
00:45:09
Speaker
Well, these are the kind of things where if you're traveling by road, they're potholes and speed bumps, but yeah, you kind of learn the lay of the land and you learn where to take your detours. Pick your road trip metaphor, insert here, but those are the kind of things that you do kind of learn along the way, I guess. Yeah, you're ready when you get to the destination. And the other thing is, being a little older, like my priorities have shifted.
00:45:35
Speaker
big journalism fame and you know, is it worth it? I don't know. I'm a pretty happy camper.
00:45:42
Speaker
I'm kind of with you. I'm not where I want to be yet, but my priorities are certainly like, you know, there was a time where the idea of being in those glossy, slick magazines was it. That was it. And now I'm like, I don't give a shit. I just want to be happy, make enough money so I can go to hike in all the national parks. That's what matters. Well, I took a month off.
00:46:09
Speaker
just now. I just got back Monday and I could have either worked on a book proposal to redo what my former agent trashed or I could take a month off and I took a month off. So, you know, I don't, I live my life. That's the whole thing. Why a freelance? I don't work 40 hours a week. If I really, really wanted to go after that stuff,
00:46:36
Speaker
Why at what cost to me as a person? I mean, I think that this Period of time for a lot of people who have been on that hamster wheel, you know, we talked about the great resignation You know, I hit that point a long time ago when I decided if I'm gonna be a writer I don't want to move to New York I'm gonna stay in South Jersey and I'm gonna figure out a way and I did
00:47:00
Speaker
And I'm still in South Jersey and a nicer house, not attached to someone who tried to sue me. And you're and you're serving the community at large while also, you know, serving yourself, making a living and sharing, sharing a lot of inside baseball that is just a lot of people don't have. And you're giving them the here. There are the doors. I'm going to give you some keys and go unlock them.
00:47:26
Speaker
Like, that's what I love about what you've done with these ebooks is that you're not holding on to the cards. You're like, oh, here it is. I'm going to turn them over for you. It's not like somebody said, aren't you worried about somebody take a work away from you? No, no, no, no. There's too much. You think about how I reached out to this person who in this new direction I want to go.
00:47:47
Speaker
who's just said we haven't dedicated the time to finding a writer. Who am I taking that work from? I'm just pushing them like I'm here. Ta-da! You know, it's just out there. Well, I love it. Well, Jen, thank you so much for the work you're doing and being such a generous contributor to the community at large. So I just, you know, thanks for the work and thanks for, you know, for doing everything you do.
00:48:15
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for chatting to me about it. Maybe we'll piss some people off in this podcast. I love it.
00:48:34
Speaker
Pretty great, right? Had a swell time with Alan. Hope you did too. She's at, by Jen A. Miller on Twitter. Anyway, thank you for listening. CNF'R means the world.
00:48:47
Speaker
When you're a middling writer and podcaster like me, and I suspect there's a chunk of you out there as well, you know that we live and die by reviews. I always read new ones on the pod, haven't had a new one in a while, so if you have a few moments, heck, while the water's boiling, it takes fewer than five minutes. Leave a review.
00:49:06
Speaker
You can also head over to BrendonMaro.com for show notes and to sign up for my up to 11 newsletter. 11 cool things from my brain, the urine box. Been doing it for about a decade. I put in a link to an exclusive happy hour.
00:49:20
Speaker
And it's good times. We just kind of sometimes shoot the shit. Other time while being on the newsletter list, as long as you're on there, you're always entered in book raffles and I just randomly pick someone out and I'll send you a book. I get a lot of books as a result of this enterprise. Check it out.
00:49:39
Speaker
First of the month, no spam. Can't beat it. Keep the conversation going on Instagram at creative nonfiction podcast, Twitter at CNF pod or at Brendan O'Mara. Also, Hey, thanks to West Virginia Wesleyan college, them, the fan creative writing for the support and also casualty of words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry available wherever you podcast episodes are less than three minutes long. You have three minutes, right? They're kind of fun. Anyway, we're in volume four.
00:50:08
Speaker
And if you had a good time, the show is partly made possible by the incredible cohort of members at patreon.com. Building up the Patreon coffers grants you access to transcripts in the audio magazine and coaching. Helps pay for the podcast hosting, which is several hundred dollars a year to make sure the backlog doesn't disappear into the ether. And your dollars go into the pockets of writers too, as a result. That, like I say, that's that burrito money.
00:50:35
Speaker
visit patreon.com so i see an f pod and shop around and help support the community so here's a little pot and shot and uh jenn and i alluded to it somewhat on the pod and it's somewhat like kind of like my my goals have changed a little bit like i used to be so desperate to be doing the kind of work that typically gets anthologized by best american sports writing that was my dream of dreams
00:51:03
Speaker
And one day, maybe I will get into the new reboot, the expansion team, as I call it. I call it the new edition, which is called the year's best sports writing, the Cleveland Browns expansion team. It looks the same, but it's new. Anyway, to do that kind of journalism for a living, for most of us, it's not feasible.
00:51:28
Speaker
especially as a freelancer, it's not feasible. If you're a staff writer and you're tasked with doing long form narrative, hold on to that job like a dog on a bone. That is a unicorn gig.
00:51:44
Speaker
And I think the people who do the Eli Sazlows and the Wright-Thompson's and people of that nature, they know how lucky they are. They've said it. And anyway, for most of us, it's not feasible. And I don't know, maybe that's defeatist language. And maybe that's why I fail. That and a lack of talent. I've had to take the boutique approach to long-form sports writing, treat it as a fiction writer, treat short story writing. You do it for art, for kicks.
00:52:15
Speaker
And to think you can do it for a living is delusional sure there's George Saunders in an Alice in a row or Murkami Karen
Valuing Autonomy over Prestige in Freelancing
00:52:24
Speaker
Russell, but name any other short story writers, you know, maybe there are some Novelists and the New Yorker probably commissioned some famous novelist to write a short story for him and boom They get to make a living of it or maybe they don't maybe that's just the veneer we see you get my drift so
00:52:41
Speaker
What I want more than ever these days is just autonomy and to be geographically agnostic. Work wherever, as long as I have an internet and a laptop, bada-bing, bada-boom. Did I just say bada-bing, bada-boom? Jesus Christ. I'm sorry. I don't need to be a six-figure freelancer, as sexy as that sounds, but I'd left the bill in the neighborhood of 50K a year. That means I'd be taking home 30K.
00:53:10
Speaker
You know, you don't want to put any limits on yourself, but I'm all about enough. I don't need more. I just want enough. And that'd be fucking unbelievable. That's a lot of fucking money. Then my wife and I can go hike the national parks or a lot of those unsung state parks. And if that means sacrificing the prestige of appearing in, say, The New Yorker or Outside Magazine, then so be it.
00:53:34
Speaker
my ego used to and I guess it still is like so tied to that shit because I'm desperate for approval and validation and you can always slide those magazines or the New York Times and you can hand that to someone who doubts your decisions and hand them something and be like oh well it looks like you're making it because you have a byline there
00:53:58
Speaker
But what's better than making a living and being able to save a little scratch? Call your own shots and maybe take some time off. Extended time off to enjoy this planet before we kill it. We want to see glaciers before they melt. We want to see all eight Alaskan national parks in one swoop. We want to live while we still have our health because who knows when that will betray us. We're still relatively young, able, fit. Maybe we have 40 years left and we're already 40 years down. And what do we have to show for?
00:54:29
Speaker
Sure, wouldn't it be nice to be like David Grant, Patrick Griden Keith, Rachel Monroe, Susan Arlene? But maybe that's not possible.
00:54:37
Speaker
They're throwing like 99 mile an hour cheese and, you know, I'm beer league softball. And maybe that's the saddest realization of all. That really, you've deluded yourself into thinking you could make it when you never had what it took to begin with. So stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.
00:55:18
Speaker
you