La Quebrada Cliff Diver, Acapulco, MX. Flickr photo, esparta
Is there one? Decidedly yes. But it may not be all summer breezes, free wine and chocolate-covered strawberries. In the face of proliferating distractions, our man begins to glean that if the goal is to write more than 140 characters at a sitting, and also keep the kids in breakfast cereal, serious focus — and a good deal of risk — may be the only sure way forward.
**Disclosure: In the researching of this post, the author, as best he can remember, received approximately the following material compensation from sources other than his publisher: one chicken salad sandwich, two chocolate chip cookies, two cups coffee, assorted cut fruit and chocolate, several glasses white wine, one sip champagne, one glass fresh-squeezed orange juice, free parking, sunshine, and wireless internet.*(see comments below for clarification)
Friday, June 18, 9:15 AM, Stanford Terrace Inn, Palo Alto, CA
I PARK IN FRONT OF A CLASSIC STUCCO MOTEL handsomely done-over in Euro boutique style (where I will pay the standard, slightly-discounted group rate of $155 for a room overlooking the ice machine, plus $3 for toothpaste and $4 for shaving cream). I’ve beaten the googlemaps estimate from SF by 14 minutes. I’m dosed up on NPR and coffee, and cheered by the dissolution of the fog.
There’s a waffle bar in the lobby. Guests are gathered around it like a hearth. At reception, two young girls who might be 12 or 14 or 18 (I find I can’t tell anymore) are on their respective smart devices, texting friends in distant lands while Mom works to secure a roll-away. I can’t help but read the latest missive:
top college in US and only 72 degrees!
If I had an iPhone, I might look up who coined the phrase “The future is now.”
I procure a hard-copy map of the campus and gain permission to ditch the car in the underground lot. Remarkably, despite Griffin Dunne talking to me on the radio about his father crashing the funerals of murder victims, I remember to remove the bike from the roof rack BEFORE entering the garage.
9:55 AM, Clubhouse Ballroom. Freeing Your Inner Entrepreneur: Reinventing Yourself for the Changing Media World
I’ve missed the free bagels.
Trudeau does tweeting journos (NPR)
The discussion is well underway by the time I get my nametag and slink over to an open window along the edge of the room. The place is packed. The mood is casual and upbeat, resolutely forward-looking. A fresh breeze blows in from the Pacific. I strain to hear the panelists over the clacking of laptop keyboards and the pleasant swashing of the fountain in the courtyard.
“Err on the side of disclosure…” is about where I catch the train.
From this vantage I can see no one else working with pen and paper. Beside me stands the mastermind behind the whole event, pert, blade-sharp, quietly organizing the world from the dashboard of her red-leather iPad.
Into my current ass-molded Moleskine, with a Mexican-made Bic secured second-hand from the Marriot in Irvine, I scribble:
# of trad notebooks: 0 (am I looking backward?)
On stage, full-time freelancer and whale lover Matt Villano moves from the subject of disclosure into the importance of diversification, of expanding one’s repertoire into new subject matter and new media, “like a stock portfolio.” Having just had a kid, he jokes (sort of) of “breaking into the parenting niche.”
There’s some consensus that writing for free is only a good idea — maybe — if you have something specific to sell, rather than just for the abstract promise of “exposure.” The exposure had better be real and worthwhile. “Writing for 10 cents a word, I don’t care who you are,” says Villano, “at some point it’s offensive.”
“Don’t wait for inspiration: You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London, as poached from Christine Larson
As for Twitter and Facebook and such, baseball and tech writer Dan Fost recommends staying off the stuff. Marci Alboher, journalist/author/speaker, describes social media as the freelancer’s water cooler, which draws a wave of nods from the audience. Villano, pulling from MBA theory, advises spending no more than 10% of your overall budget (read: time) on marketing (read: social networking). He does the math:
60 hrs x .1 = 6 hours max per week invested in the public persona.
Damon Brown, who writes about sex and technology for Playboy, says he uses social media to connect more directly with his audience. Then he adds: “if you cover Amish culture your audience might not be on Twitter.”
Meanwhile, on Twitter, #ffrl:
@cmonstah: Agreement in the room that Twitter is the great journalistic water cooler.
@JessicaDuLong: Can I just say how excited I am for the upbeat, forward-thinking energy here at #FFRL ? So refreshing. Looking forward to recalibrating.
@thestrippodcast: I love that we’re having a discussion about the panel during the panel.
@kellymcgonigal: I’ve started using a program called rescuetime, and find I spend ~1/2 my time writing. Feared it was less.
Simultaneously, back at the front of the room, Fost suggests that perhaps his most successful strategy as a freelance writer has been to marry a lawyer.
In the courtyard there is fresh-squeezed orange juice and sunshine. I chat with a former staff-writer for Time magazine. After her section was shuttered, her husband got a job in Modesto and they moved to California. She’s now angling for a future wherein Modesto, which may in fact have redeeming qualities, does not figure quite so prominently.
Next up (Part 2):
In which David Granger, rockstar Editor-in-Chief of Esquire, makes a strong case for The Magazine — his in particular — as the greatest medium ever invented. And then lays out just how much blood, balls and marrow-sapping dedication will be required to participate.
Our man goes on to sample oak-aged tequila at approx. $6/oz., refrains from joining a poker game in the motel lobby, agrees to pay $3 for a sample-size tube of toothpaste, makes note of a variety of fellowships and alternative funding sources for investigative journalism (links to be provided), learns that his father has sliced off the tip of his right index finger in the drive mechanism of an irrigation pump, and also that bonobos experience self-doubt, and is reminded (once again) precisely how much hard-labor will be required to craft his next successful national magazine pitch.
About the Author
More By This Author
- Notes on the Other Side of Hawaii (5 comments)
- The Future of Freelance Journalism, Part 2A: Sweaty Balls (17 comments)
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20 Comments... join the discussion!
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d – any good rides / surfs / hikes on the way to/from the event?
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Not much time for it. A quick insider behind-scenes tour of Yosemite Village on the way down, a couple new vantage points. Otherwise just speeding up and down 120 and 280, checking out built landscapes and watching for cops. Oh and a little scenic eucalyptus-popping on the bucolic campus bike trails.
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Surely there’s some bias engendered in free parking.
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Good point, Hal. Thanks for keeping me honest
* Luckily, I can argue that the parking beneath the motel was not really free but included in the cost of the room (although I wouldn’t officially check in until hours later). And as it turns out Stanford offers free parking to everybody on Sundays.
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Loved this, David! Thanks, and can’t wait for Part 2.
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David, I admire your explorations into the freelance world and this is a great take on a conference like that. Looking forward to Part 2.
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Before I became a fabulously wealthy freelance travel writer and blogger like yourself, I was an impoverished lawyer. In my field of practice we were saddled with what became known as the “No Cookie” rule (sometimes called the “Give A Cookie, Go To Jail” rule) which prevented us, unlike the rest of the legal profession and business community, from engaging in most client-entertainment endeavors, especially those involving “food distribution.”
I’m glad to see that when you took a break from the Stanford conference to participate in the panel discussion on “Ethics & Etiquette of Travel Writing” at last Saturday’s Bay Area Travel Writers meeting in San Francisco you fully absorbed Edward Hasbrouck’s commentary on FTC rules for disclosure of “freebies and discounts” by writers. If you’d missed the BATW meeting, those reading the first installment of your report on “The Future of Freelance Journalism” would have never learned about the free table scraps you scarfed up at the Stanford event.
I look forward to reading your further dispatches about where the world of writing and publishing is headed. In the meantime, I’ve got to grab my cardboard sign that reads “Wil Rite 4 Fud” and go stand in Union Square hoping that some travel editor visiting San Francisco will take pity on me and throw me at least a “roundup” bone if not a travel feature writing assignment. I promise full disclosure in the unlikely event that should happen.
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Humorous. Interesting. Thanks.
A note on diversifying: When I freelanced full-time, I always maintained at least a foot in another profession — picking up outdoor guiding and instructing jobs to supplement. If’n I return to freelance full-time, I’ll likely seek out new-media work, like social media and web design. Not that those offer much long-term stability…
Case in point: Has anyone here ever checked out Elance.com? People charging $5/hour for web design, 5 cents/word or less for copy. Thoroughly depressing.
I think the future of freelancing involves outsourcing yourself — live in the less-expensive world while working for media companies based in the more-expensive world. It might be the only way to make it work.
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“Has anyone here ever checked out Elance.com? People charging $5/hour for web design, 5 cents/word or less for copy. Thoroughly depressing.”
5 cents a word sounds a lot compared to freelancer.com, where buyers are looking for 500-word articles (“native English speakers! original research! must be well-written! must pass copyscape!”) for $1.00 (yes, that’s one dollar) per article. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had a free sandwich… or even a free coffee.
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Ick.
*And that’s a good point: there was nothing free about that sandwich. Conference registration cost $190 for ASJA members, which fee not only covered access to the events and panel discussions but also included occasional nosh and beverage, and which, alas, I had already paid for using plastic from my own pocket.
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Hi,
Freelancer always lives on edge, the edge of uncertainty uncertainty.
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The running joke in my office: The best way to make money online is to host paid webinars about how to make money online.
So, maybe the best way to make money as a freelancer is to host conferences about how to make money as a freelancer.
@SatuR Yikes! That’s less pay and probably more work than writing for a content farm. Who’d do that?
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or start a for-profit trade school:
http://thetravelersnotebook.com/asides/breaking-free-the-easy-way-a-cautionary-tale/
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This is so fantastic. I hesitate to compare to HST, of course, because I would hate to pigeonhole the future of freelance journalism. I will say this is fantastic, and beyond a your comments on our property, it was simply an enjoyable read all the way through. Well done!
Thanks for mentioning us.. it means a lot. Cheers!
Sincerely,
Michael | Online Concierge
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Hey Michael,
Thanks for reading. Glad you enjoyed. As for your fine motor lodge there in Palo Alto I really did have a pleasant stay. You’ve done some lovely things with the place. I can see spending more time there in the future. Like once Mad Men starts up again and I need some AMC. My only suggestion is: if you really need to squeeze the extra seven bucks, I’d sure rather you build it into the lodging rate. Take it from Motel 6: charge $162 for the night and make me feel like I’m getting a free toothbrush and shaving cream out of the deal! Most people won’t have forgotten to pack their sundries (though they’ll still appreciate your apparent generosity) and you’ll make out like a bandit!
Cheers,
dp
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Great post! No matter what you make in dollars (or euros?), don’t you feel grateful for the chance to invest yourself in two passions, writing and seeing the world? In what other profession can you satisfy wanderlust, learn about other cultures and get paid for your efforts?
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A case of too much going on and better late than never… Part 2A up now:
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Keep rockin’ the notebooks David!! We are a dying breed.
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i am JUST stumbling across this now. hilarious and tragic. like our careers.
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