Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Risks

(Part One)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

I know, I know.  I had a plan and I’m not sticking to it. This is why I have become more and more unemployable as the years go by.  I can’t even stick to my own plans, let alone plans someone else imposes on me.

Of course, I respect deadlines, which is why I’ve been able to meet this one for 51 weeks running. But last week, I told you I would write a few columns ahead—and I did—but I’m not posting them all yet.

Because a few things happened this week.  First, I read a couple of articles, one a couple of months old.  Then, I watched the Oscars, as I do every year.  And finally, I’ve been dealing with some major risk-takers in my business, negotiating with them, and finding my own footing.

As I took my run today, I realized that the time to write this opening section on risk—one of the topics I planned to cover—is now, while everything is fresh on my mind.  (And while I can find the links.)

Yes, I’m in the middle of the novel.  Yes, it’s going well.  And yes, I am interrupting my day to write this, precisely what I didn’t want to do. But I’ll get a few pages on the novel after this and maybe lose an hour of reading or an hour of sleep (or put off American Idol for another night).  (To see what business reason I have for watching American Idol, check out this post.)  Small price to pay to get this off my mind.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a list of posts I plan to write before I finish the Freelancer’s Guide.  The list keeps growing because of excellent suggestions I’m getting from you guys—I got two good ones just this week—and also because some of these topics are not one-post material.

Taking Risks is not a one-post topic either.  I’m going to write today’s as a kind of overview of the material out there, and then later, when I’m done with the networking posts, I’ll come back to taking risks.

So what happened this week?  A variety of things.  I decided to trust my own instincts in a rather brutal negotiation, something I would never have thought I’d have the courage to do twenty years ago.  Or ten years ago.

As I’ve said in the negotiation posts, I can negotiate quite well on paper and via e-mail, but I have trouble in person.  Or I should say, I had trouble in person.  I’d been avoiding in-person negotiation for so long that I hadn’t done it in nearly 15 years.  Not only did I realize this time that I wasn’t nervous, I was downright easy-going about the whole thing, quite willing to walk away where I wouldn’t have been years ago.  I did everything I said Dean does in the negotiation posts, and more.  And I did well.  I didn’t get everything I wanted, but neither did the other side.

How that fits into this whole topic is the in-person negotiation was quite a risk for me.  I could have passed this off to a third party—an agent, a lawyer, Dean himself—and I didn’t.  I decided that, in this particular instance, I knew better than anyone else what I wanted and didn’t want. Since the situation was extremely fluid, it was easier for me to handle it than to guide someone else through the ups and downs.

The risk paid off, and I learned something about myself in the bargain.  I learned that I am not the person I had been twenty years ago.  I have a lot more knowledge and self-confidence.  More than that, though, I have a longer view.  I know that if I screw up on this one thing, my life is not over.  I won’t die of embarrassment.  I won’t even die from the botched negotiation.  I’d simply not have everything I wanted.

As a character says in my current novel, “Whoop de ding dong do.”

The next thing that happened to me this past week was that I watched the Oscars.  I have watched the Oscars every year since I can remember—even scrounging around to find the telecast when I didn’t own a television set and the internet did not exist so that I could watch highlights on YouTube.  (Yes, I’m old.)  I love the Oscars for a variety of reasons, most of them personal, and some of them to do with my history.  (The Oscars [as well as television itself] was one of the few places where I saw artists talking about their art, even if it was in the artificial environment of an awards show.)

This year, as every year, award-winners talked inspiringly of being true to yourself, becoming an artist, and taking risks.  Three things caught my attention.  First, the mention by someone—Mo’Nique? Oprah? Geoffrey Fletcher (the screenwriter)—about the difficulties they had bringing a hard-hitting movie like Precious, Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire to the screen.  The movie is about a topic that most people prefer not to think about.  Yet several someones decided to make the movie, to finance it, to distribute it, and even more someones decided to see it, and slowly people realized just how special the film was.

Had the filmmakers listened to conventional wisdom, Precious would not have been made.  No one would have considered Push a novel that could become a major motion picture, and Gabourey Sidibe would be attending college somewhere in the Midwest instead of embarking on an already stellar acting career.

The second speech that caught my attention was Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech.  She took several risks, not just the risk of portraying a deeply unsympathetic character in a difficult movie.  She also decided not to play the political award-nominee game.  Nominees go from event to event, campaigning for votes without really ever mentioning their films.  The conventional wisdom is that if the nominee wants to win, the nominee must charm the establishment.  Mo’Nique refused, saying her performance was on the screen, and she should be judged by that.

Her refusal paid off.

The other interesting aspect to her speech was her phrase “doing what’s right.”  Her husband  supported her as she decided to portray this character, to go outside of the Mo’Nique brand—and she has quite a brand as a comedian, and as a talk show host on BET—and try something new.  She could have flopped.  Instead, she became known as a serious actress, one who can go places that more famous actresses refused to travel to.

The final speech that caught me was Sandra Bullock’s.  It wasn’t this speech so much as her Screen Actor’s Guild speech for the same role. But she reiterated part of it in her Oscar speech.

She said she wasn’t happy with her work.  So she took time away from it, to reassess, and decide what kinds of roles she wanted.  Then she took roles that challenged her.  Again, other actresses had turned down the role in The Blind Side that gave Sandra Bullock her Oscar. Would they have won for the same part? Hard to know.  Probably not: she owned it.

Again, she had support.  And while she credits the support with enabling her to make the changes, she might have made them anyway. She did so before, after the disastrous film Speed Two.  She took more control over her career—producing more films, and making sure she had a lot more creative input.  (For more on this, see her interview with Barbara Walters.)

Risk-taking.  Very important to those of us in the arts.  Important in other ways as well.

But risk-taking in the form of making a knowledgeable choice, one that assesses the pros and cons, not in the form of a flyer or a gamble.

I’ve been accused of being quite fiscally conservative—and I am when it comes to money I already have.  I used to think that the way I earned money was risky too, until this economy proved to me as well as to everyone else that my way—as a freelancer—might actually fiscally conservative as well.

Like Sandra Bullock, I prefer to control my career.  I can’t do that when I work for someone else.  I can work with someone else. But working for them is a greater risk for me than working with them.

I think freelancers must identify the one risk they want to take—starting a business, for example, or becoming an actress instead of a 9-5 worker at whatever job will take them, or stepping outside their comfort zone to attempt something that gives them the greater benefit.  Once the freelancers have identified the risk that they want to take, then they research that risk to death. They figure out how to take it in a manner that isn’t risky at all, or that minimizes risk, or that takes the risk into account and compensates for it in another area of the business.

An article that I read this week delves into this aspect of freelance risk-taking in great depth.  Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article for The New Yorker’s January 18, 2010, issue called “The Sure Thing: How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed.”

The article discusses the high-level entrepreneur, the Ted Turners of the world, the guys who have tried something seemingly impossible and who have reaped big rewards.

But Gladwell uses his article, quoting many sources, to disprove the idea of entrepreneur as gambling risk-taker.  Instead, he discusses how the successful entrepreneur finds a way to make the risk into a sure thing—often at the expense of the entrepreneur’s reputation.  (He calls these men—and his examples here are all men—predators.  I’m not sure that’s accurate either, because the entrepreneurs aren’t out to kill their opponents.  They’re out to achieve some sort of success, often by taking advantage of something someone else missed.)

In the middle of this article, he paraphrases the economist Scott Shane, from Shane’s book The Illusions of Entrepreneurship (which, full disclosure, I have not read).

Gladwell writes, “[Shane] says many entrepreneurs take plenty of risks—but those are generally the failed entrepreneurs, not the success stories.  The failures violate all kinds of established principles of new-business formulation.”

He then goes on to list these things that the failed entrepreneurs did wrong.  Those things are:

•They undercapitalized the business.

•They didn’t form corporations (which, Shane says, gives a better chance of success).

•They didn’t have a business plan.

•They underemphasized marketing.

•They didn’t understand financial controls.

•They tried to compete on price.

Shane (and Gladwell) list several other factors, too complex to explain here—but some of which I deal with in other parts of the guide.  Then Gladwell writes this:

“Shane concedes that some of these risks are unavoidable: would-be entrepreneurs take them because they have no choice.  But a good many of these risks reflect a lack of preparation or foresight.” (Emphasis mine.)

I’ve been writing the freelancer’s guide for precisely this reason: I want you all to be prepared before you leap into the freelance lifestyle.  I want you to know—as best you can—what you’re getting into.

I’m not saying that you should become a freelancer, and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t.  I’m simply saying that you should educate yourself before you make that choice.

I had planned to use this article in a post on risk, written much later in the Guide.  And then I came across this article in the Washington Post of March 10, 2010.  Written by Steve Pearlstein, the article, “News Flash for Wall St.: Money Isn’t Everything,” also cites Gladwell’s book, but focuses mostly on a book by Daniel Pink called Drive (again, I haven’t yet read this book either).

The Pink book uses decades of research from various sources to show the limits of money as a motivating tool for employees.  (Which is why you can find this article in the business section—and why it’s aimed at Wall Street, with its high bonuses and ridiculously overpriced compensation packages.)

“The conclusion Pink draws from all this research,” Pearlstein writes, “is that once people achieve a reasonable level of economic comfort and security, they are likely to be less easily motivated by monetary carrots and sticks than they are by more emotional factors.  And in modern workplaces, Pink argues that the most powerful emotional motivators are the desire for autonomy, the satisfaction that comes from mastering a skill or a task, and the need to serve some larger social purpose.”

In his New Yorker article, Gladwell also addresses the emotional side of work, only he discusses the emotional satisfaction the entrepreneur gets from his work.  (Substitute “successful freelancer” for “entrepreneur.”)

He writes, “…people who work for themselves are far happier than the rest of us.  Shane (the economist) says that the average person would have to earn two and a half times as much to be as happy working for someone else as he would be working for himself.”

This all dovetails with my other experience this past week.  I turned down a high-paying writing gig that was mine if I but said I wanted it.  It would have paid all of my living expenses for six months, with more income off and on for years.

I didn’t even have to think about my choice. Once I heard what the project was, I said no. When the editor offering the project pushed, offering more incentives, I still said no.

Why? Because I knew that this project wasn’t worth the price.  Essentially, for that huge paycheck, I was going to have to be in someone else’s employ until the project ended, and I was unwilling to do that.

The no was so automatic, and cost me so little emotionally, that I didn’t even remember the conversation until Dean asked me later why the editor had called me.  When he heard the price tag, he asked why I hadn’t dropped his name into the mix. Then I told him the conditions of the project, and he recanted.  “Good thing you didn’t mention me,” he said.

This interaction fit into one more aspect mentioned in Gladwell’s article.  He writes, “People who like what they do are profoundly conservative.”

He then cites a study by sociologists Hongwei Xu and Martin Ruef.  They asked a large sample of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs which of these three scenarios they’d chose:

1. A business with a potential profit of five million dollars.

2. A business with a potential profit of two million dollars.

3. A business with a potential profit of 1.25 million dollars.

Business Number 1—with the possible profit of five million dollars—has a 20% chance of success.  Business Number 2 has a 50% chance of success.  Business Number 3 has an 80% chance of success.

The successful entrepreneurs generally went with Business Number Three, “the safe choice.”

He continues, “[The entrepreneurs] weren’t dazzled by the chance of making five million dollars.  They were drawn to the eighty-per-cent chance of getting to do what they love doing.  The [entrepreneur] is a supremely rational actor.  But, deep down, he is also a romantic, motivated by the simple joy he finds in his work.”

What Gladwell misses—or perhaps ignores—is that there is still a 20% chance of failure in that third scenario.  A 20% chance that the entrepreneur—the freelancer—will not make that $1.25 million dollars, no matter what he does.

That 20% chance is too much of a risk for most people.  Most people want the completely sure thing—the paycheck at the end of the week, the schedule imposed by someone else, the benefits paid for by the company.  Most people don’t like to be on a 5% ledge, let alone a 20% ledge.  These are the people who got caught flat-footed by the Great Recession.  People who thought they had a guaranteed income for the rest of their life, people believed their job was secure because they were good employees who worked for stable companies.

As I mentioned in the Day Job posts, no job is secure.  But the illusion of security is often more important to people than the reality of risk.

It’s because of this 20% risk that more people don’t become freelancers.  And it’s because of the lure of big money (that $5 million Number One Choice) that too many people give up their day jobs—and then fail big time.

Those of us who have worked for ourselves for a long time have figured out what makes us happy.  We balance our income with our taste for risk.  We know what we need to survive, and we do that.  Then we figure out how much risk we can tolerate—and what we’re putting at risk.

Are we risking our homes? Our families? Then, in my opinion, we’re taking too much risk.  Are we risking a $750,000 profit instead of a $1.25 million dollar profit?  Is that part of the 20% failure rate?  And in what world does a $750,000 purely profit paycheck constitute a failure?

Assessing risk is one of the most important part of a freelancer’s business.  If you’ve read through the entire guide, you know that risk-assessment is a constant undercurrent to everything.  I’ll get more specific in a few weeks.

Until then, look at these two articles, and maybe do some risk assessment of your own.  Figure out what you need as a freelancer and what you want for yourself and your career.  What are you risking when you step out of your comfort zone, like Mo’Nique did?  A few days of work? An emotional upset?  A flop?  And if you are risking a giant flop, will it have an impact on your everyday work?  In Mo’Nique’s case, I doubt that it would have.  She would have continued her careers as a comedian and as a talk show host.

If The Blind Side had flopped, would it have damaged Sandra Bullock’s career?  All About Steve flopped so badly earlier this year that Bullock earned a Razzie for the Worst Actress of the Year on the same weekend that she won her Oscar.  Not all of her risks have paid off.  And yet, she is taking them.

I don’t know the calculations she made in accepting the roles in these two films.  Since Bullock has proven herself to be a smart businesswoman over and over again, I’m sure she went into both projects with a lot of analysis, looking at the potential upside versus the potential downside.

As freelancers, that’s our job.  We might not earn six months living expenses with one project, but we also don’t have to work for anyone else.  I wasn’t willing to trade three months of misery for six months of money.  Other people make different choices.

But I might miss the brass ring on occasion as well because I wouldn’t have gone for that $5 million/80% chance of failure choice.  I have never taken a flyer like that, although I have failed at businesses for precisely the reasons listed in the Gladwell article.  I’ve learned my lesson in that beloved school of hard knocks.

I’ve designed the freelancer’s guide so that you don’t have to go to that horrible school.  If you think about your choices, do a risk-analysis, and find the conservative route to the best choice for you.

These two articles, and the various studies they quote, show (yet again) that money does not buy happiness.  True happiness comes from doing what you love.

And that, my friends, is worth the risk.

The Freelancers Guide has been a risk for me from the beginning.  As I mentioned in the early posts, I decided to write something on spec—without an upfront advance—something I rarely do with book-length work.  I trusted my readers to fund the project, which is why I have a donation button.  I also decided to risk putting this up for free on the web, and to give people permission to forward the posts, so long as I get credit.  Finally—and more recently—I have decided to organize the entire Guide into an e-book that I will give to anyone who has donated, just as soon as I write the final section of the Guide.

I didn’t expect to enjoy the Guide, nor did I expect the interactivity.  This entire experience has paid off in more ways than one.  In my risk assessment of this project, I figured I’d give it a month.  If I got no feedback and no compensation, I would at least have three chapters so that I could send out a proposal to nonfiction houses, hoping that one of them would give me an advance to finish the book.  The risk, for me, was a loss of several day productive work with no promise of return.  That was on the outside edge of my risk tolerance.

While I haven’t earned a standard advance yet, I’ve gained a lot in intangibles. The risk has paid off in more ways than I could count.  I couldn’t do this project without you readers.  Thank you, each and every one.

“Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Risks (Part One)” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Continuing Education (Networking Part Two)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

It’s interesting for me to write the Guide as I have.  In two more posts, I will have been writing this for a year.  However, I haven’t spent the entire year on it.  I’ve written two novels while doing the Guide and a number of short stories, as well as other pieces of nonfiction.

As I mentioned last week, I’m writing these networking posts while Dean and I are conducting a writing workshop.  Technically, I’m not conducting much.  I spoke on the first night, and I’ve been there for several meals.  Dean’s done 99% of the work, as he does on a number of these workshops.

But I do a lot of networking while they’re going on.  The writers who come to our workshops are mostly professionals, so they have contacts and ties and various things happening in their careers.  For this workshop, Denise Little of Tekno Books kindly joins us, and she brings her unique perspective, not just to the workshops, but also to the casual discussions.

Dean will tell you, with disgust, that most of my conversations at these things revolve around books, television, movies, and cats.  Not books that people are working on—books we’ve read.  (I’d talk politics, but we learned long ago to ban that topic from our workshops, along with religion.)  He’s right: my tables at the dinners usually focus on peripheral things. But mixed with those important discussions of cat health and the latest hot TV show are tidbits about writing, writers, business, and professionalism.

If we only discussed writing and writing-related business, we’d get bored with each other pretty quickly.  The fact that we do talk about other things slowly builds friendships and friendships are an important part of networking.

I know some of you are wondering how long this workshop is going on. After all, I mentioned it in last week’s post. By the time you read this, the workshop will have ended days before.  But I’ll be referring to it this week and next as if it were still on-going, because, from my perspective it is.

I’m writing the next two posts during the workshop because I’m about to dive into another novel.  Unlike the previous two, this one has already informed me (yes, novels talk to their creators—or at least, my novels talk to me) that it wants to be the only thing I write.  Apparently, my subconscious knows I need to focus—and focus hard—on this book to do it right.

I’ve learned, over the years, to listen to that. Rather than get annoyed at the Guide, I’m going to write ahead.  I’m teaching another workshop in March, and won’t have time to write fiction then.  So I’ll write another batch of posts during that full week.

I’m telling you this partly to show process (because some of you have said you were interested) and partly so that you’ll know why my references seem so screwy in the next few weeks.   Or perhaps I should say, screwier than usual…

Rather than title these posts “Part One,” “Part Two,” and “Part Three,” as I have in the past, I’m going to give them actual titles, and then include the part number in parenthesis, as I did above. The reason for this is that the various forms of networking are vastly different, and I can see that some sections will have subheadings of subheadings.

(Can I get more baroque?  Um, well, yes….)

Anyway, I’m starting with continuing education because that’s what’s happening around here this week.  We’re teaching continuing education classes for professional writers.  We’re doing one as I write this (or rather, Dean and Denise are) and we’ll do another in March. (On marketing.  Here’s the link.)

Dean and I often say to writers that money should flow to the writer, except for continuing education.  In that area, the writer needs to spend money to expand her horizons.  I think that’s true of most professions, although I’m not entirely certain.  I know that some professions require an annual fee to remain current—dues of some kind—and others require an annual fee plus proof of continuing education (certain medical professions, for example [and thank heavens for that!]).

The reason we have to tell writers that money should flow to them and not away from them is that in writing (and I suspect many of the arts professions), scam artists have learned that the practitioners know little about business.  It’s easy to convince a young professional writer or a wannabe to spend money on something that the writer should either get for free or should be paid for.

For more on that subject, see Dean’s Killing The Sacred Cows of Publishing posts and the other writing posts on his website.

Suffice to say, though, that the professional should continually update her knowledge in one way or another—whether it’s at formal classes provided through the bar association or through a continuing education track at a university, or whether it’s in the form of workshops or seminars, or whether it’s just through trade magazine subscriptions and related books on the subject.  The professional who does not continually educate herself in the changes in her profession gets left behind.

There is no set rule of thumb on continuing education.  Some states mandate the amount of continuing education some professionals receive to maintain their license.  (For example, the forensic psychologist I worked for had to have [I believe] fifteen hours of continuing education over two years to maintain his license.  Minor, in the scheme of things.)  Most professions have no such requirement—and freelancers often don’t.

As I mentioned above, some continuing education comes in the form of books, trade journals, websites—all things you can consume at home or during off hours at work.

The main topic here, however, is networking.  Continuing education provides countless opportunities for networking.  Sometimes the networking comes through the instructor himself—his resume, and his track record for success through his programs.  Sometimes (often) the networking comes through the other professionals at the seminar.  People trade business cards, make contacts, and discuss business in the line for coffee during the break, over lunch, and in the elevator on the way to meetings.  I’ve made a lot of contacts that way, some of whom I’d forgotten by the time I get home, and some who have become lifelong friends.

(A tip: when you receive a business card from someone at a conference or seminar, write a note about your conversation on the back of the card.  You’ll be glad you did. By the time you get home, you will have 10-20 business cards, and no real way to remember who is who if you don’t make notes.  I learned that one through hard experience.)

First, let’s talk about how you evaluate a continuing education program outside the home.

1. Figure out where the holes are in your knowledge base and find a way to fill them.  What don’t you know or what don’t you know well?  That part’s pretty self-explanatory.  Let’s assume you need a better way to do bookkeeping in your business, but you don’t want to hire a bookkeeper. (Or you have hired a bookkeeper, and then you read the section on employees here in the Guide, and realize you really should supervise that person. Which means you should understand what he’s doing.)

You’ve never kept books for any business, and the computer programs you can download seem unbelievably complex.  You have no idea whether you need double-entry bookkeeping or what even the “accrual” bookkeeping method is.

You need to ask yourself: Can you learn this on your own or do you need guidance?

Some things are relatively easy to learn on your own. But some things require assistance.  What those “things” are vary from person to person.  Only you can answer the above questions.  You also are the only one who knows if you can go to the weekend seminar on bookkeeping sponsored by the local chamber of commerce (we had one such seminar in our tiny resort town just last week) or if you need a full-on course at the local community college.

If you need the course, take it.  You’ll probably find yourself with other professionals—or maybe budding accountants who might become good bookkeepers when you’re ready to hire a few years from now.

The seminar at the local chamber might serve you better, however, and you’ll get to know the other business people in your area.  You’ll gain contacts as well as knowledge.

2. Do a cost-benefit analysis.  Two factors should go into your analysis of cost: time and money.  Let’s take money first, because that’s the most obvious part of a cost-benefit analysis.  First, what will it cost you not to learn the information?  Will it harm your business financially?

Obviously, not knowing how to keep the books for your business will hurt you in the long run.  So you need to learn how to do it.  Let’s assume that a weekend seminar in your hometown costs $50 (including lunch), a bookkeeping course at the community college costs $250, and the best bookkeeping software with tutorial costs $100.  (I’m making these numbers up.)

Clearly, the seminar is the cheapest.  But will it give you the most bang for the buck? Will you have to buy software anyway? If so, your cost just went up at least another $50.  (The recommended software without the tutorial.)  What will you gain from the seminar that you won’t gain from the software itself?

The answer used to be pretty simple: You used to be on your own with software, and a seminar would give you people to consult. But now, with websites and FAQs and help lines, you might get the information help you need to understand the software—or not.

If you’re mathematically challenged, you might be better off in the class.  (I’m not suggesting the class because you’re mathematically challenged and don’t understand that $250 is more than $50—if that’s your issue, you shouldn’t be in business at all.)  But if you didn’t do well in math at school or you left before you had second-year Algebra or you cribbed your homework off the kid next to you and never really learned anything past basic arithmetic, then a class might be the best thing for you.  The teacher will help you, step-by-step, because that’s what she gets paid for, and you’ll have months to learn something that has given you fits in the past.

The toughest part of the cost-benefit analysis is the time factor.  Some of us—particularly those of us who run our own businesses—simply don’t have the four hours per week for sixteen weeks that a course at a community college would require.  Some of us will have trouble carving a weekend out of our schedule for the seminar.  For some businesses, like that retail store I discussed last week, weekends are the busiest time of the week.  If you don’t have an employee to cover for you, you can’t go.

But will you spend more time struggling to learn the computer software in an unfamiliar discipline?  Are you willing to take that risk?  You have to answer that as you make these choices.

Fortunately, none of these choices are life or death.  If you try the software first and it doesn’t work, you can go to the weekend seminar.  If you’re more confused after the seminar than you were with the software, then you might have to take a class.  Of course, all of this will lose you time and money—you’re now at $400 plus the weekend plus the sixteen weeks of class plus the time you lost trying to figure out the damn software.

Sometimes the cheapest route turns out to be the most expensive.  Sometimes the shortcut you take to save time doesn’t save any time at all—and may even cost you more time than you ever bargained for.

3. Evaluate the seminar/class/workshop/conference.  Who are the instructors?  Are they well respected in their fields? Are they people you can learn from?

And here’s the biggie: Are they people you want to learn from?

I learned about the differences between instructors in my twenties.  I have said, ever since I can remember, that my goal in life was to be a professional writer.  I defined professional—even as a kid—as someone who made her living from writing.

Early on, I believed that you could not make a living as a fiction writer, so I went into journalism. That belief was a faulty one—fiction writers can and do make a living, and can, in fact, make a much better living than journalists (particularly nowadays).

Even though I was a history major in college, I took creative writing courses, and felt vaguely dissatisfied throughout without knowing why.  I graduated, mailed out my fiction, and developed a relationship with Ellen Datlow at Omni Magazine.  She apparently felt as frustrated as I did at my inability to break into her magazine, so she sent me the information on Clarion Writers Workshop, which was then held at Michigan State University for six weeks over the summer.

I applied; I got in; I attended.  I learned more in six weeks than I ever learned in my college creative writing courses.  Of course, I was learning from published professionals (not all of whom were earning a living, but I didn’t know that at the time).  I grew and developed as a writer, and within six months of my return had sold my first professional short story.

But I was still a journalist, and one nice thing about being a reporter is that you can ask a question, and then get paid to seek the answers.  So I asked why did I learn more at Clarion than I did in my prestigious university’s writing courses.  I interviewed the director of Clarion, and I interviewed the director of creative writing at the university—and learned something startling, something that made me, young firebrand that I was, furious.

I asked both directors the same set of questions.  What I remember asking was a do-you-beat-your-wife question of the university creative writing director—why isn’t your program turning out professional writers?  What I really asked him—I was a diplomatic little thing—was for a list of the writers who had gone through his program who made a living at writing.

He said they didn’t keep those records.

I asked why.

He said because that’s not the point of the program.

Feeling a bit stunned, I asked, if you’re not trying to create professional writers, what are you trying to do?

He said that they were trying to get as many of their students into qualified MFA programs in creative writing.

Okay, I said, but then what? Don’t you know who graduated and became a professional writer?

He explained to me, as if I was stupid which I guess I was, that the point of an MFA in creative writing was not to become a professional writer, but to go on to get a doctorate in writing, so that the student could then become a professor of creative writing at a prestigious university.  He had the figures on that success rate, if I wanted to see it.

I don’t remember if I did or did not.  I did want to fall off my chair.  I was furious—at him, and at myself.  No one had told me the goal of the university’s creative writing program before.  Of course, I hadn’t asked either.  I had wasted years—literally years—of my education, being taught by instructors whose goal for me was different than my own.

Of course I learned more at Clarion, which was designed to help young writers become professional.  I had finally found the right classes and the right instructors.

Not that there is anything wrong with becoming a professor.  I come from a family filled with them.  I’m one of the few people in my family who does not have an advanced degree in something or other.

But I never wanted to be a professor.  I wanted to be a professional writer.  And I had gone to the wrong instructors at the wrong school who proceeded—innocently enough—to teach me the wrong trade.

It took me years to realize that the mistake had not been theirs.  It had been mine.  (Even though I was raised by a professor who repeatedly said as I was growing up that no one should go to college to learn a trade.  I guess that cluestick continually missed me.)

Now when I want to learn something from someone else, I research their credentials first and foremost.  I would have told the young me to skip the MFAs and the PhDs even if those professors had earned those degrees at top-ranking universities (which many of my instructors had).  I would have told the young me to go to science fiction conventions and writers conferences and attend panels/workshops run by writers who were making a documented living at their profession.  By documented, I mean that they had a bibliography—works in print, that I could find and read and evaluate.

I still attend seminars.  I often go to writers conferences as an instructor so that I can sit in on panels by other professional writers and learn from them.  Dean and I spoke at the Space Coast Writers Conference a few years ago because of the roster of guests and because we wanted to visit Cape Canaveral, which we did.  The added bonus of that writer’s conference? The attendees, many of whom worked at NASA during the glory years of the moon landings.  Boy, did I learn a lot. Boy, did I enjoy myself. Boy, did I make connections.

Other things to evaluate:  Will you get time with the instructors? Will you learn from the other attendees? Will you have incidental costs—hotel rooms, plane fare, meals—or will a seminar/class in your hometown do just as well for you?

4. List your reasons for attending.  Some freelancers become conference/workshop junkies.  I’ll discuss this phenomenon in full in a later post, but make sure you’re not going “because everyone else is” or “because you don’t want to miss anything.”

It’s perfectly fine to go to a conference because you need to get out of your routine—all of us, particularly those of us who work at home, do that on occasion—but make sure you’re not doing that too much.  (And realize there might be cheaper ways to break your routine than flying across country for a conference.)

5. Plan your continuing education year.  Use your calendar and figure out how many hours you can devote to outside learning—conferences, classes, seminars.  Do this before looking at the conference listings for your profession.  Then stick to that timeline.  One year Dean and I made the mistake of traveling 26 weekends (out of 52).  That hurt our business and it hurt us.  We had reasons for each conference we attended (and no, friends and former students, the reasons weren’t just “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”), but those reasons were not enough to justify that much time away from our businesses.

There’s a reason that the professions which require a certain number of hours of continuing education require those hours over a two or three year period.  To require the hours in one year makes it hard for the working professional to meet the requirements and make a living.  Remember that as you set up your timeline.

6. Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone.  If you do attend a conference/workshop/seminar, make sure you do more than go to panels and sit quietly in the back.  Meet the other attendees.  Go to meals.  Go to the pre-banquet happy hour.  Talk to people.  Exchange contact information.   You can and will learn from the attendees.

It always stuns me that a small handful of writers attend our classes and never come out of their rooms.  They do the homework, do the writing, and do the reading, but they don’t meet their fellow attendees. Those fellow attendees may go on to be bestselling or award-winning writers, well-known editors or influential publishers.  All of those things have happened to our past students.  You never know which contact will prove valuable in the future.

Dean and I use the workshops as well.  The reason I’m writing the Freelancer’s Guide on my blog is because of contacts I made at a workshop nearly twenty years ago.  Michael Totten and Scott William Carter came to a workshop Dean and I were running every week in Eugene, Oregon.  Michael and Scott were college students then.  They’ve gone on to become professional writers who know a lot about computers.

When Dean and I decided we needed to know more about websites, blogs, and internet business, we asked to meet Scott and Michael in a nearby city. We bought them dinner, and for four hours, they told us what we needed to know to start.  We have been talking to them off and on for an entire year, sharing information and learning.

Learning we would never have made if we had dismissed them as just college students and wannabe writers all those years ago.

When you go to a seminar, be professional. Dress well. Be polite. But talk to people.  And more importantly, listen to them.  You’ll be surprised what you learn.

Continuing education is a very important part of your business.  Without it, you will stagnate and your business will stop growing. But don’t let education overwhelm your business.  Remember why you’re doing this and make each educational project work for you.

Next week, I’ll deal with groups—from support groups to professional organizations, the original point of the query from Carolyn Nicita that started this thread.

In the future, I’ll deal with social media.  Please let me know how you’re networking effectively online. The more information I get from the readers, the more I can share.  You can reach me here.

One thing Michael Totten told me when I started this project was that people would donate if they felt they got value from something they read online.  Many of you have helped him prove his point to me over and over again.  I appreciate that.  I’ve added the donate button below.  If you can’t donate, please forward news of the Freelancer’s Guide to freelancers you know—and to listserves with freelancers on them.  Networking, you know.  Thanks, y’all.

“Freelancer Writer’s Survival Guide: Continuing Education (Networking Part Two)” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Lost nearly a week of reading to the damn flu (although I did finish Season 7 of 24, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time).  What I did read, though, was marvelous.  January was a banner month.

January, 2010

Bruen, Ken, The Guards, St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2001.  Let me just say, “Oh, my.”  I had no idea you could write like this and get published.  The Guards is a prose poem of darkness, with a character that I—the daughter of two alcoholics—should hate, and I don’t hate him even though he drinks his way through the entire novel, and makes all the mistakes that an alcoholic makes.  Set in Ireland and very very dark, very well written, unforgettable.  One of the best novels I’ve read in years.  Seriously.  Buy it, read it, but not before bed.

Cantrell, Rebecca, A Trace of Smoke, Forge, 2009.  One of the best first novels I’ve read in years.  One of the best novels I’ve read in years, quite honestly. Set in 1931 Berlin, A Trace of Smoke follows Hannah Vogel as she tries to find out why her brother was murdered. That her brother was gay and part of Berlin’s night club scene makes her work all the more difficult.  She manages to show the bone-shaking poverty of the time, along with the menace of the political situation.  The rise of the Nazis, and the involvement of some famous Nazis makes this story all the more hair-raising.

But the book is unputdownable because of one character, Anton, about whom I’m going to say little without spoiling the read.  From his first line of dialogue to the very end of the novel, Anton kept me reading.  Wonderful job. Evocative novel.  Set aside several hours because you’ll read it in one sitting.

Carlin, Peter Ames, Paul McCartney: A Life, Touchstone, 2009.  Paul McCartney was my first crush, back before my age had two digits in it.  I must’ve been four when I first became aware of the man.  I thought him marvelous then, and I still like him even now, which is more than I can say for any other childhood or teenage crush.  I don’t think I find him sexy so much as intriguingly creative.  Talk about surviving a long-time career, and still going strong.

Carlin’s book is very, very well written, and very thin.  He did do his interviews with the side players and did all of his research, but obviously didn’t interview McCartney.  The book skips over things in an odd fashion—like John Lennon’s murder. Carlin assumes we all know how Lennon died.  I’m not sure a 20-something who ended up liking Beatles: Rock Band will know.  Still, I couldn’t put this down—and much of that was the sentence-by-sentence writing (and the subject matter, of course).

Gates, David Edgerly, “Skin and Bones,” Between The Dark And The Daylight And 27 More Of The Best Crime & Mystery Stories of The Year, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, Tyrus, 2009.  I have no idea how I missed this excellent story when it first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.  It’s a marvelous hardboiled novella that got nominated for the Edgar award (deservedly so), set in 1949 New York. The language is right, the feel is right, the town is right—and it reads like a novel.  It’s as deep and rich as anything else you’ll read this year.  Highly Recommended.

Gorman, Ed and Greenberg, Martin H., editors, Between The Dark And The Daylight And 27 More Of The Best Crime & Mystery Stories of The Year, Tyrus, 2009.  I love this volume every year, and every year, I only recommend a few stories from it.  Partly that’s because I’ve already recommended some of the stories (like Doug Allyn’s “Pig Party”) and partly it’s because the quality of this volume is so consistently good that stories which would normally stand out are part of a piece here.  This best of the year volume always has more of the award-winning and nominated stories than its competitor, and is probably more representative of the short mystery field.  The only thing I really would like to improve the volume is the kind of analysis that Gardner Dozois and Ellen Datlow do in their best of the year volume.  (The Jon L. Breen overview is nice, but not enough.) Pick this up.  It’s good.

James, P.D., Talking About Detective Fiction, Knopf, 2009.  This little book was a joy to read.  From the dust jacket to the paperstock to the inky smell of the pages, the actual book itself was a pleasure to hold.  The subject matter is one I love, and the writer herself is one of my very favorites.

She doesn’t disappoint.  This little book on detective fiction focuses mostly on the British tradition (which makes sense, since P.D. James is a British writer), but the analysis is cogent and thought-provoking. She takes aim at a few other critics of mystery fiction, always remembering that the important thing about fiction is its ability to tell a story.  Her insights into her own work are great, but my favorite part of the book is her discussion of the American hardboiled tradition versus the British drawing room mystery, both of which were being developed at the same time.

I’ve never seen the two traditions analyzed as a product of their time before (the late 1920s and early 1930s).  I learned a lot reading this little book and I enjoyed the experience of holding it.  What more can you want?

Kinsale, Laura, Lessons in French, Sourcebooks, January, 2010.  Ah, Laura Kinsale is back and all is right with the world. Seriously, does anyone else get depressed when one of their favorite writers doesn’t put out a book for a few years?   Kinsale hit some personal setbacks in her writing (she alludes to them in her Author’s Note), and they made her stop publishing books for a while.  I, for one, missed her tremendously.

Kinsale wrote one of my favorite novels ever, Flowers from the Storm, which is not your classic romance novel.  It’s better. It’s better than most novels in any genre.  Is Lessons in French that good? No, of course not, but Kinsale hit it out of the park with Flowers.  I don’t ask my favorite writers to hit a homerun each time at bat, but I do want them to hit the ball.  And to extend the already overwrought metaphor, Lessons in French is at least a double, maybe a triple.

Wonderful characters, great situations, lots of humor without being a funny book, lots of tension—and a bull named Hubert who becomes very important to the plot.  This book lives and breathes adventure and fun and warmth and…oh, I read it too fast.  Please, is there another Kinsale novel on the horizon? Please?

Smart Pop Books has put my controversial essay, “Barbarian Confessions,” on their website for free–one week only.  If you’ve been reading my nonfiction columns, you’ll see me refer to this essay a lot.  Here’s your chance to read it.  You can find it here.

And, last week, I got interviewed for the nifty podcast site, StarShipSofa. Check out the excerpt here. The entire interview will be posted soon.  Check out the entire website here.

Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Networking Part One

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Sometimes the topics that I’ve overlooked in my single-minded attempt at finishing this Guide astound me.  If I had written a proposal for the Guide before I actually completed the manuscript, I would have estimated the Guide’s length at 70,000 words, and I would have covered a few of the topics herein.  At the moment I’m at 130,000 words and counting, with six more topics of my own to cover.

As you can tell from that opening paragraph, this week’s topic is one I hadn’t thought of.  I should have thought of it; I discuss networking with my writing students all the time.  In fact, I network each and every day.  But I hadn’t considered it a stand-alone topic for the Guide, even though I mention networking in many of the posts.

Writer Carolyn Nicita e-mailed me with the idea, only she labeled the topic “Support Groups and Professional Organizations.”  She also gave me a list of such organizations and groups, as well as subjects to discuss—which I greatly appreciate.  Her list is comprehensive and helpful, and made it clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to cover this in one single Guide post.

Why did I chose “Networking” as my topic instead of “Support Groups”?  Because networking has become extremely important to modern business in a variety of ways, from the support groups and professional organizations that Carolyn mentioned to seminars and continuing education to becoming active on social media and the web.

If you’ve found a particular type of networking to be helpful or harmful to your freelance business, please e-mail me this week.  I’ll work your comments into the next few installments of the Guide.  (And if it’s okay to quote you, please tell me, along with any website address that I can link to.)

“Networking,” by the way, is a very modern term.  As I started this post, I grabbed the dictionaries around my desk and looked through them for the word “networking.”  I didn’t expect to find that word in the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Fifth Edition) that my grandparents bought my father the year he entered college (1936)—and of course, I didn’t find it in there.  I did find “network,” however, which had three definitions: a fabric or structure of cords or threads that cross each other at certain intervals and are secured in their crossing with knots, etc; Any system of lines that interlace like a net; and—the dictionary is very specific here—in radio terminology, a chain of stations.

Meaning that network used to define broadcast media was very new in 1936.  Of course it would be.  I hadn’t thought about that much.  Then I picked up my college dictionary, the Macmillan Contemporary Dictionary from 1979.  I expected to find “networking” in there, but it wasn’t there at all.  Instead, I found the first reference to people:  “interconnected organization or system—‘a network of spies.’”  I also found that they’d added to the radio definition (of course), by including television and by defining how those networks interlinked—through coaxial cables.

By the mid-1980s—Webster’s New World Dictionary, for those of you keeping track—nothing had changed.  I expected networking by then as well, but I was early.  After all, the desktop computer had just arrived into American homes.  I got my first in those years.

If I hefted my butt out of my chair and high-tailed it upstairs to the computer with my internet connection—on a DSL line, thank you, which these old dictionaries had never heard of—I could tell you to the year when “networking” became a noun.  Probably in the mid-1990s.  It appears in the dictionary built into the rather ancient computer that I write on—a 2005 iMac.  The Encarta World English Dictionary has six definitions of network—and the second is all about people.  (“A large and widely distributed group of people or things such as shops, colleges, or churches, that communicate with one another and work together as a unit or system.”)  The 2005 definition also includes computers—of course—and “telecommunications” systems designed to exchange information.

So the definition of network has grown in the past 75 years.  As that definition grew, we added the new term “networking.”  Encarta’s definitions clearly show that the word came from computing.  The first definition—“the linking of computers so that uses can exchange information…”—shows the word’s history and most important usage (at least to the people who wrote the dictionary).

The second definition is the one that applies to us:  “The building up or maintaining of informal relationships, especially with people whose friendship could bring advantages such as job or business opportunities.”  (Emphasis mine.)

Why do I always start these long, interconnected (networked?) posts with dictionary definitions? Because words tell us a great deal about ourselves.  Words that exist in English but don’t exist in, say, Russian show us the difference between the cultures.

And words that have come into use or whose usage has changed within a single generation tell us about our culture.

I’m sure people networked in 1936.  I’m sure they called it something else.  (And, by the way, none of my dictionaries use “network” as a verb.  When did that happen?  Since 2005?)  I’m equally sure that the networking that occurred in 1936 was not on the same scale that people network on today.    The opportunities simply weren’t there.  People had relationships within their communities, but the chance to network with people from all over the country, let alone all over the world, belonged only to a few.

If you read about the early history of broadcasting—one of my favorite topics, actually—you learn that the live radio broadcasts that our grandparents remember from World War II came about because of a change in technology, and a small group of reporters who all knew each other.  They got thrown onto the air because there was no one else, not because they were particularly good at it.

Early networks often work that way.  Only a handful of people might have the skills to do a particular job, but those people might not be known to each other.  So friends hire friends and then offer on-the-job training.  It’s human nature.

Last night, on The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson, Ferguson held a fascinating hour-long Tom Snyderish interview with British actor Stephen Fry.  In the middle of that wide-ranging discussion, they talked about Twitter.  Ferguson just joined Twitter; Fry was an early adopter who talked about the early days of Twitter.

In the beginning, Twitter grew by word of mouth—friends verbally told friends about it.  Broadcasters started discussing it when celebrities started having “races” to increase the number of people following them, but the culture didn’t take Twitter seriously until the Iranian elections last summer.  Iran closed its borders to outside journalists and censored broadcasts that left the country, but didn’t shut down its cell phone networks—at least not right away.  Real live news, from regular people, filtered through Twitter onto the net, and then out into the world.

A network that most people had initially seen as frivolous and a joke had suddenly gained international importance—and for many people, particularly those in Iran, life-or-death importance.

The world has become very small and the networks very large.  My Facebook friends include people from Russia, Germany, France, Spain, South Korea, and Colombia, as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.  Have I met all of these people face-to-face? No.  But I have met most of them either through my website or their website or Twitter.  I’ve done business with quite a few of them, even though we’ve never spoken on the telephone and we’re on different parts of the globe.  I’ve read their work; they’ve read mine.  We actually communicate in ways unthinkable as recently as fifteen years ago.

And I’m benefiting a great deal from the networks that have come about via the internet.  I’ve sold short stories because of Twitter, novels because of Facebook.  I’ve worked with movie production companies through e-mail and done broadcast interviews via Skype.  I’ve been in touch with bookstores in Australia that carry my work and done online interviews for their websites.  I’ve gone to conventions overseas because the organizers can reach me via my website, and I’ve been paid for overseas publications through PayPal, so I don’t have to go through the rigmarole that banks require on any check received in another currency.

Networks are important, not just in established businesses like mine, but also in growing businesses.  The woman we sold our collectibles store to in 2008 had a bumpy first winter, not just because it was the middle of the Great Recession, but also because she relied on the old-fashioned way to do business—word-of-mouth in our small tourist town.

She had repeat business from tourists who had come through the year before, and she had business from some local ads, but not enough to sustain her through our slow times.  She was good at money management, and she had low expenses, so she made it through, but she learned quickly that she needed to do more.

Dean had taught her how to put collectibles on eBay, but she hadn’t wanted to do the work.  Not because she was work-averse—she isn’t; she’s a very hard worker—but because she wasn’t that comfortable with computers.

Still, a hard winter will convince anyone to make a few changes.  So she put a few items on eBay, and then a few more, and then even more.  Slowly, she has formed an online network of people all over the world who are interested in the items she puts up for sale, from toy trains to cookie jars.  She’s known for quick service and quality products, and she’s making it through this winter just fine.

The network of local shop owners helped her as well, answering her online questions, and forming a group that shared the cost of local advertising.  She has a network of suppliers that she’s established, people who comb junk shops and garage sales for that one special item.  Her networks are helping her grow her business.

But there’s a downside to networks as well. They can be time-consuming, and they can be destructive.  Carolyn’s points, from her e-mail, concern support groups and professional organizations, but they can apply to all networks in one way or another.

She mentions these:

•How to know when you need a group

•How to know when you need to get out of a group you’re already in

•How to cope with infighting and sabotage in your group

•Legal and financial ramifications

•Opportunities

•Resource-sharing

•How to know if you’re a groupaholic

•Goal and dream sharing

I’m also going to deal with two personality types:

•The master networker who has no work to stand on

•The excellent craftsperson who can’t network to save her life

There are a lot of other topics as well, which I know I will touch on as I get deeper into this subject.

I’m going to structure networking into a variety of components.

First, I’ll deal with in-person networks:  support groups, professional organizations, seminars, conferences, and continuing education.  I’ll deal with the upsides—the interaction, the contacts—and the downsides.

Then, I’ll deal with social media networks.  I’d like help with this one from readers if I can get it.  I’m active on Facebook and Twitter, as well as here on my own blog.  I also belong to some listserves, many of which have existed for a decade or more.  I have a Linked-In account, but I don’t make the best use of it. And as someone reminded me on my Facebook page just the other day, I need to tend to my page on Goodreads.com (a page I didn’t start; someone else did).  I’m sure that there are other social media networks I know nothing about and which might be helpful to freelancers reading the Guide. So use the contact button here on the site and send me an e-mail.

(She writes, hoping that her network of readers will come through.)

Finally, I’ll deal with peripheral networks—networks that get built without you even realizing you’re doing so.  The store owner above had no idea she was building a network of train collectors when she started selling toy trains on eBay.  Now she’s linked to several of those collectors all over the world.

I know many of you have found this blog not because you’re fans of my fiction but because of all the business networks out there.  I’m familiar with the online writing community, although not with all of the branches of that community—and there are countless branches, in every single city in this country (and in other countries as well).  But I’m not as familiar with the networks for realtors, even though I know a number of realtors follow this Guide, or the networks for musicians, or the networks for computer consultants.  I’m sure those networks are as vast as the networks for writers.

Because of the Guide, I have built some peripheral networks—inadvertently.  And if I need help with real estate questions or computer difficulties, I actually have some people I can turn to outside of my friends and acquaintances.  I’m also building some non-fiction business relationships due to the Guide, and gaining contacts throughout the non-fiction online community.

That’s an unexpected bonus of this Guide, certainly not one I planned on.  I’ll be discussing those peripheral networks last.  Again, if you have any insights, do let me know.

Interestingly, I’m going from this writing session into a weekend’s worth of networking.  Dean and I are holding a workshop this weekend with the help of Denise Little of Tekno Books.  More than 30 professional writers from all over the world will be at this workshop.  I’m involved in a minor way—a session on Thursday night, and then I’ll join the group for several meals.  Most of the writers will be together from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon—a great way to make contacts, help each other, and to get to know each other.

These opportunities can be difficult and tiring, particularly for writers, who are an introverted bunch. But they can also be invigorating and uplifting, a chance to move forward in unexpected ways.

I’m sure the weekend will provide more insights for the Guide. Weekends like this one often do.

Yet even with the workshop, I wouldn’t have thought of this topic without Carolyn.  So there is something else you think I need to discuss, please e-mail that as well.

Because of the network of Guide readers, this Guide is much stronger than it would have been had I just written it in the silence of my own office.  I appreciate the support from everyone who has e-mailed, commented, or donated.  You’ve kept me going on the Guide, which is still growing, despite my best efforts to wrap it up.  People who donate will get an e-version of the Guide.  When I do publish a hard copy version, it cannot be a single book, since I’m already at 130,000 words and counting.  So in addition to writing the Guide, I’m figuring out how best to present it in permanent form.  I’ll let you all know when I have that figured out.  Thanks for everything!

“Freelancer Writer’s Survival Guide: Networking Part One” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.