Just contacted a small press to see if they’re hiring freelancers, and the answer is yes! Right now I am booked through August, but I hope this press will have something for me. For all of March I’d stupidly taken a break from freelance work in order to try my hand at a March writing spree, and not only did I not write as much as I’d written last November but I did not make any freelance money. And now I’m playing catch-up. And I’m going to return the two Kadare books. Here’s the trade-off, at least for today: the small press is Kadare’s publisher, so I will so hit them up.
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me: I only take on fiction.
small press: Why do your contacts distinguish between fiction and nonfiction for you?
me: I have a full-time job, plus I write fiction myself, so I prefer to be choosy with the jobs I take on.
small press: Would you be open to literary nonfiction?
me: Oh, yes. Anything literary, really.
small press: All right, you got it.
6 Comments
July 15, 2008 at 1:31 am
Out of curiosity, what kind of work do you do for small presses? The actually writing of a project (and would that be ghosting)? Copyediting? Editing?
I’m curious about the freelance world…
July 15, 2008 at 9:56 am
I do freelance proofreading on the side. I haven’t worked for small presses yet, though, as some don’t have the funds to hire freelancers (New Directions, for example, or at least last I heard)—so I put out the word now and then to a small press to see if they hire. This one does, but they probably won’t have anything for me for a while yet. Meanwhile, I proofread pretty regularly for the big presses. Thank goodness for the regularity, or else I could not afford to live here.
July 16, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Great, thanks for sharing. I’m always keeping an ear tuned for freelance ideas so I don’t have to go back to the 9-to-5!
July 16, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Sure thing. J keeps reminding me that I can leave behind the 9-to-5 if we left NYC (for Portland, for example). I wonder if I should just make the decision and do it…
July 21, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Over the weekend, got the chance to listen to National Book Award winner, Denis Johnson. He said outright that we should quit our day-jobs — don’t put off the writing because of a 9-to-5 job…
July 21, 2008 at 5:32 pm
He rocks. My friend saw him give a reading (so rare) and reported that he was wise and humble. (He’ll be publishing a new novel next year, by the way.)
As for the job . . . jeez, how many years will go by before I finally do it? How many times can one say “We’ll see”? Meantime, on to the new Mac laptop that smells like B.O. . . .