Resource Review: The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing
15
October
Want to know if that lovely little writing book calling to you from the shelves of your local bookstore is worth it? Desperate to find the resource for your specific writing and creative questions/situations/issues? That’s why I’m here, dearies. Let an obsessive book collector pick the best and present them to you for your edification and edumacation.
Survive a couple years as a freelancer, nay, thrive for a few years, and you get to feeling like you done knows it all. I don’t need no stinking general resource book on freelancing! I’m a freakin freelancer already, aren’t I? I make the cash money to pay my mortgage and keep my kitty fed – don’t I know enough?
Ah, hubris. Thankfully every one of us freelancers has weak moments at the bookstore when a book just looks too good to pass up. Because then some actual learning and even some, say, growing of the business, can commence. That’s what happened when I picked up the ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing.
The Gist
Few words conjure more romantic visions for any aspiring writer than “freelance”…Yet I often find myself warning [potential freelancers], not against the aspiration, but against the fantasy of a freelancer’s life…[This book] offers a degree course in the real world. This book doesn’t destroy the myth of the footloose freelancer…It tells you, in its precise and candid and canny way, how to transmute myth into reality.
Big balls and big purpose from the book’s editor, Timothy Harper. Featuring 26 articles from working freelancers on topics as varied as business plans, freelancer equipment, generating ideas, writing nonfiction books, interviewing techniques, specialization, nontraditional writing routes, and more, the book aims to be the “professional guide to the business, for nonfiction writers of all experience levels.”
Tackling the book in a couple sittings, there were sections I skipped, sections I read voraciously, and sections that were already a bit outdated from the publishing date of 2003. The book, just like the overall organization of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, is geared towards writers that focus their efforts on traditional consumer magazine writing and nonfiction books. But there is plenty for us nontraditional folks that focus on trade magazine writing, corporate and medical writing, and fiction.
The beauty of this book is in its contributors. Each person writing an article has created a career for themselves, often through carving a personalized, rule-bending path. Reading this book is like sitting in an insanely large but simultaneously intimate panel discussion, learning from some masters and up and comers.
Good Ideas:
Page 11: Defining the Business. In Erik Sherman’s chapter on “Planning A Writing Business,” he discusses how the big concept, writing a business plan, can be brought down to earth and made extremely powerful for writers. I know when I started out I wrote a business plan, but didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. Two and a half years later, I’ve got some ideas for how to rework and refocus my business strategies.
Page 21: Budgeting for Equipment. I’ve been subscribing to the notion of simply buying stuff when I need it, hitting up the nearby Staples and ogling all the pretty organizational porn. But here Samuel Greengard gave me a “duh” kind of idea: set forth a budget each year or each month for this business equipment, and reinvest properly into the business.
Page 35: The Mystery of Ideas. While I don’t work in the traditional magazine world, this chapter helps any writer looking for ideas for nonfiction or fiction. Good stuff as I plot my next novel.
Page 135: The Serendipity of Specialization. I’m building my business by honing my focus. Rather than try to be everything to everyone, I’m taking the gamble of picking a few key areas to write on and selling myself as an expert in them. This chapter by Claire Walter helps similarly inclined writers to figure out their specializations, and continue to build their expertise in the selected areas.
Page 189: Reprints and Reslants. I’ve heard for years about the benefits of selling completed articles to new markets, with a tweak or rewrite for that audience. This chapter by Kelly James-Enger cuts through the confusion and points the way for writers to do this. Heavy thinking time ahead.
Bottom Line
A great general resource book for freelance writing. There’s a little something for everyone in here, and I was surprised to see how many articles and parts of articles were relevant or thought provoking. Yes, my friends, I still have lots to learn.
To Learn More
Order The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing
Visit the ASJA
See a full list of articles and authors
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1. Elizabeth McQuern | October 16th, 2008 at 10:24 am
This sounds like a great book! I admit, perhaps because I’m spoiled by the internet, I have not yet consulted a book about freelancing. Maybe I should.
2. Charlie Gilkey | October 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Great review!
I particularly like the Budget for Equipment idea. When people ask me what “must have” equipment they need to get their creative groove going, I say a good laser printer. Insert silence here…
But really, think about it. How much time do people spend monkeying around with cheapass inkjet printers that are both expensive and janky?
I spent $200 and bought a good laser printer a few years ago. Over 6000 pages printed with not a single jam. It’s more than paid for itself compared to the pain-in-the-ass factor of an inkjet. No deciding whether it’s worth printing or not when it costs you $.12 rather than $1.50.
Carpenters know to buy the best of the tools they use everyday. Smarty-pants creatives? Not so much.