Shortcuts to Journalism Success
What business models are open to journalists? I know you exemplify one model but you must have thought of others?
My background is as a journalist but I am currently home with my twin babies and trying to come up with a goal and plan for my return to work.
I have worked at newspapers like The Guardian and, since going freelance five years ago, I have written for a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and websites. The essence of things is that I need to choose between trying to get better paying journalism work (doing more magazine work), doing more self publishing or leveraging my skills into more lucrative but less fun work ( such as corporate writing).
What would you recommend?
In that paragraph of yours that begins: “I have worked….”
You have to do all the things in that paragraph at once. All successful professional writers I know did all of that stuff til they get famous enough to be really choosy.
I think you are looking for a path to get out of doing the difficult, tedious, low-paying work that journalists do. But there is no path around it right now — only through it.
I wrote for free all the time for about ten years. And I am lucky. Because I can make a living as a writer at this point. Most people write for free for ten years and even if they are recognized as doing great writing, they still cannot make a decent living.
I don’t think journalism is a practical career — it’s one of those careers where you have to pay dues for a long time in order to get to the top of an industry that pretty much never, ever pays well.
Penelope