I guess: what's a better alternative? I haven't found one yet, at least not one that lets me publish the way I want to. I've worked on a few other platforms, but probably nowhere near as many as some folks here. Still, my feet have gotten wet in the past, and I have a feeling about what else is out there: not a ton.
I guess: what's a better alternative? I haven't found one yet, at least not one that lets me publish the way I want to. I've worked on a few other platforms, but probably nowhere near as many as some folks here. Still, my feet have gotten wet in the past, and I have a feeling about what else is out there: not a ton.
Sadly, I think the alternative is to invent a time machine and travel backwards and make sure that newspapers and magazines remain viable places for writers to publish their work and get paid reasonably for it. I think this is about as good as it gets for individuals now provided they have the drive to keep writing and some way to spread the word about their work. The website Deadspin is an alternative for writers who want to band together and create essentially a worker's collective where everyone gets enough to do their work, but there's no superstars. A number of Deadspin writers of high profile probably could go solo at a newsletter and make much more than they do now at Deadspin, but they made a different choice. That choice was bold and not at all destined for success, but they've made it work.
It does require some infrastructure for editing/production that being solo doesn't necessarily need, though many of the big newsletters with enough revenue have some kind of staff that they pay to help keep things moving.
When I was 15 (1985) if you'd told me that I was writing a weekly column for the Sunday Chicago Tribune (as I've been doing for over a decade) I would've assumed that was my "job" and it would be how I make my living. I'm grateful for the space to write there, but the money is just one of the blocks that I need to fit together to make an income. That labor is worth maybe 1/5th of of what it was paid in the past. I guess the question to keep wrestling with is how to make that labor something that brings in income that allows that labor to continue. For pretty much the entirety of my career, that mechanism has only been degrading, with a few stopgaps (like Substack) that allow a handful of people to rescue themselves, but which don't arrest the larger fall.
It does seem like we are experiencing the "best of the worst" here. Let me know if you make any progress on that time machine, though! Writing professionally 30 years ago sounds amazing.
30 years ago, I was 18, and I was self-publishing everything: zines, music, you name it. My reach was tiny and my content was lousy, but it got better over the ensuing decades.
Unfortunately, I think I'm only just now beginning to make work worthy of pay, and now the competitive landscape is brutal. That being said, I am all right with steady income from a variety of sources. That's the message the universe has pounded into my brain as much as any other over the last several decades: thou shalt have multiple income streams.
Good! I'll check it out.
I guess: what's a better alternative? I haven't found one yet, at least not one that lets me publish the way I want to. I've worked on a few other platforms, but probably nowhere near as many as some folks here. Still, my feet have gotten wet in the past, and I have a feeling about what else is out there: not a ton.
Sadly, I think the alternative is to invent a time machine and travel backwards and make sure that newspapers and magazines remain viable places for writers to publish their work and get paid reasonably for it. I think this is about as good as it gets for individuals now provided they have the drive to keep writing and some way to spread the word about their work. The website Deadspin is an alternative for writers who want to band together and create essentially a worker's collective where everyone gets enough to do their work, but there's no superstars. A number of Deadspin writers of high profile probably could go solo at a newsletter and make much more than they do now at Deadspin, but they made a different choice. That choice was bold and not at all destined for success, but they've made it work.
It does require some infrastructure for editing/production that being solo doesn't necessarily need, though many of the big newsletters with enough revenue have some kind of staff that they pay to help keep things moving.
When I was 15 (1985) if you'd told me that I was writing a weekly column for the Sunday Chicago Tribune (as I've been doing for over a decade) I would've assumed that was my "job" and it would be how I make my living. I'm grateful for the space to write there, but the money is just one of the blocks that I need to fit together to make an income. That labor is worth maybe 1/5th of of what it was paid in the past. I guess the question to keep wrestling with is how to make that labor something that brings in income that allows that labor to continue. For pretty much the entirety of my career, that mechanism has only been degrading, with a few stopgaps (like Substack) that allow a handful of people to rescue themselves, but which don't arrest the larger fall.
It does seem like we are experiencing the "best of the worst" here. Let me know if you make any progress on that time machine, though! Writing professionally 30 years ago sounds amazing.
30 years ago, I was 18, and I was self-publishing everything: zines, music, you name it. My reach was tiny and my content was lousy, but it got better over the ensuing decades.
Unfortunately, I think I'm only just now beginning to make work worthy of pay, and now the competitive landscape is brutal. That being said, I am all right with steady income from a variety of sources. That's the message the universe has pounded into my brain as much as any other over the last several decades: thou shalt have multiple income streams.