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Career options: Survival without depression in a writers' recession
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If asked a year ago, after a 20-year successful career in writing, I would never have said I would be writing an article like this. How times have changed! As I talk to friends, colleagues, and people in the field, plus tallying up my own experiences with free-lance work, I come to an obvious conclusion. The job market and career paths for writers totally suck in today's economy. Maybe it's just a result of our much-maligned "recession." If so that's a believable explanation, but just how long will our current prosperity deficit last?
I may be wrong, but I just don't see a rapid, rosy recovery coming right away. Face it, the hiring comeback predicted by the government and most top "experts" in economics may not happen any time soon. I'm not being overly pessimistic here or political, but merely realistic. There's no great money engine out there, like high-tech in the '80s, to rev up the U.S. job market in just a few months. I'm not writing a piece on economics either, nor am I predicting disaster, but I do see hard times ahead for the next few years. Workers in a small number of professions, like healthcare and education, may do all right. However, as history and common sense tell us, 95 percent of all writers live on the edge career-wise. Unfortunately, that means those of us who are mere scribes generally end up being the last hired and first fired.
So what's a success-seeking writer to do nowadays, if left "out in the cold" by the brave new economic world? If you don't want to starve, steal, or work in sub-challenging jobs (hamburgers anyone?), here are three decent alternatives that are relatively easy for writers to take:
- Law: Should you become a lawyer or move into some area of the legal profession? Clearly, there are many lawyers out there who spend most of their time writing legal briefs, not playing Perry Mason. Practicing law or doing law-related work requires skills like doing research, following strict writing guidelines, and communicating with accuracy, brevity, and clarity. Many states, including California, don't require you to go to law school to become a lawyer. Also, there are paralegal professionals and many others who do fairly well for themselves financially without undue burdens of time and money in college to get into their chosen field. This is not easy work, but it can be extremely rewarding in many ways.
- Internet publishing: Increasing numbers of people nowadays do more reading on the web than on paper. Even former television addicts are turning on to their computers. Why not start your own online publication, publishing service, or information source? This would be a dot-com business of course and subject to the vagaries of markets and the business world. However, if you've ever had the inner wish to go into business for yourself, this is the way to do it. There are numerous types of "traditional media" that have now become so successful on the Internet, they are driving their competition either out of business or onto the web themselves. BTW, forget about pornography. This field has just about maxed out on the Internet and dozens of porn-dot-coms are dying every day.
- Free-lancing: This is the most chancy of these options, but for many of us, it could work out well. Do you have a special talent, interest, or hobby that a lot of people want to read about? Even if your specialty only appeals to a minority audience, if they are gung-ho about the subject, a lot of gold could be there ready to mine. For example, one of my friends is an expert on cars and makes a living writing for a multitude of publications about every kind of automobile you can imagine. The downside of free-lancing is of course, the insecurity. However, if you can carve out your own needed niche, you can get work indefinitely, depending only on your ability to network and make connections.
To summarize, having a fall-back career option never hurts and may open more professional vistas for you in the future. Also, this option allows you to work at something else satisfying and always return to writing later on, when the economy improves. If you have fantastic job security, or you're planning an early retirement, you probably don't need this advice. If you like your current professional situation as-is, congratulations! For the rest of us, having a "Plan B" is or could be vitally important. So, if necessary, hunker down, be prepared, and good luck!
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