Tag Archives: writing

Question: When does an apparently fun way to earn income become a "job"?

Posted on by
5

Answer: From the moment you start.

While I was in the middle of the Big September Gig, I found several times to post “tweets” to Twitter about my progress, using the text messaging feature of my Treo. Later, when I got a chance to read the tweets of the people I follow, I found this comment from a fellow Twitter member:

Wish I was out flying but after so much, does it become a “job”?

The question kind of floored me. After all, the flying I do for hire is a job. So I replied:

Any time you’re required to perform a task at someone else’s whim in exchange for money, you’re doing a job, aren’t you?

But that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad thing.

And that pretty much sums up the way I think about all the things I do for a living, whether it’s writing or flying.

Why People Might Think Otherwise

That got me thinking about why some people might think that my flying or writing was not like a job. What did they include in their definition of job that I wasn’t including?

And I came up with the following list of items:

  • Many people’s jobs require them to be in a certain place at a certain time every day, such as an office or a jobsite. There’s usually some regularity to this, for example, 9 to 5, five days a week.
  • Many people’s jobs have a limited amount of time off that has to be approved before it’s used. For example, a 2-week vacation or “personal days.”
  • Many people’s jobs include a manager or supervisor or some other kind of “boss” who keeps tabs on their work and has the final say over how their work is done. This same person will also evaluate performance and provide input into promotion and raise decisions. And this person can terminate employment at any time.

For many people, this is the true gist of what a job is. They go to work on a regular basis, they do something under the supervision of a boss, and they get paid. A few times a year, they take time off.

Freelancing and Business Ownership is Different

I’m a freelance writer and the owner of a business. These are my two “jobs.” And in both jobs, I’m subject to the same requirements of a regular job, but in different ways.

As a freelance writer:

  • Although I’m not required to be in a certain place at a certain time every day, I am required to complete my work on time. So that means I have to sit at my desk and work to get the book or article or whatever is due done. And if meeting a tough deadline means working 12- or 14-hour days — even on weekends — that’s just the way it is.
  • I get as much vacation time as I like and no one has to approve it. However, if I don’t work, I don’t get books or articles written. And I don’t get paid.
  • I have a boss: my editor. He or she decides whether I’m creating the content the publisher wants to see. He or she can also make changes to my work or require me to redo it a different way. And if I don’t do my job right, he or she is not likely to recommend me or hire me for future assignments.

As the owner and chief pilot of Flying M Air:

  • When I have a gig, I have to show up on time and stay until my client is satisfied that the job is done. That job can be any day of the week, any time of the day or night.
  • I get as much time off as I want — as long as there isn’t an upcoming gig on my calendar. But when I’m not working, I’m not making money.
  • My boss is my client. If he wants me to be on the ramp, ready to fly at 6 AM, I have to be there. (There are exceptions to this. For example, as pilot-in-command, I have final say over whether a flight is conducted. So if I feel a flight cannot be conducted safely due to weather or other conditions, I can cancel it.) If I don’t do my job satisfactorily, my client will probably not hire me again in the future.

But Wait, There’s More!

I can make a good argument that being a freelancer or business owner is a lot more work than being an employee with a desk job.

  • When I’m not working and have no work lined up, I have to work to find work. For example, I might need to write a book proposal or pitch an article idea. I have to maintain my Web sites to keep potential customers — editors, readers, passengers — interested in my services. Or meet with hotel concierges to convince them that they should be recommending my helicopter day trips to their guests.
  • I have to manage the finances of each of my businesses. That includes keeping track of all banking records, balancing bank accounts, paying bills, and filling out sales tax returns. (Thank heaven I don’t have employees anymore; dealing with that paperwork is a nightmare.)
  • I have to keep my competitive edge. That means learning about the new technology I might have to write about and purchasing the computer hardware and software I need to get my job done right. I have to take an annual Part 135 check ride with an FAA inspector and work with helicopter instructors to get advanced ratings (like the instrument rating I want to get this season) and practice emergency maneuvers. It also means preflighting and washing the helicopter and managing its maintenance.
  • I have to think about and plan for my businesses 24/7/365. So yes, I lose sleep when I have a seemingly impossible to meet deadline ahead of me for my biggest book. (I made it.) Or when I can’t figure out where that pesky oil leak is and wonder whether it’s serious enough to be squawked. (It wasn’t.) And I’m thinking in the shower or while driving or flying about things I can do to grow my businesses and my income.

Do you do all that in your job?

I’m Not Complaining!

I’m certainly not complaining. While it’s true that being a freelancer or business owner can be a headache sometimes, it’s never bad enough for me to face the alternative — that desk job. I’ve been there and I know.

There’s something enticing about collecting a regular paycheck (with benefits, if you’re lucky) and moving your way up the corporate ladder — or even just skating at a ho-hum job. There’s something sweet about not having ultimate responsibility for profitability of a business. It’s certainly great to leave your job at the office door when you leave at the end of an 8- or 9-hour day.

I made the move to a freelance career in 1990, after eight years of a “9 to 5” job. And after 18 years of working for myself, building a writing career and flying business, I simply could not go back to the 9 to 5 grind. I’d rather work my ass off on my own schedule, taking the ups and downs that come with the freelance/business owner lifestyle, and be completely responsible for my livelihood than to tie myself to an office job again.

But that’s me.

What do you think? Use the Comments link or form for this post to share your thoughts.

And please, no get-rich-quick links. They will be deleted.

Still Working Hard

Posted on by
3

I am so incredibly tired.

September knocked things up a notch when two things happened at roughly the same time:

  • I got a bunch of flying gigs. To be fair, the biggest gig was booked back in March or April. That’s the gig I’m on now — flying a group of Russian photographers around Lake Powell, Monument Valley and Shiprock. (I’m in Monument Valley now; more on that later.) But in addition to my annual appearance at the Mohave County Fair, I scooped up two photo shoots at Lake Powell and three relatively lucrative custom tours for Realtors. And did I mention the Australian photographer I needed to take around so he could get shots of my helicopter operation for an upcoming book? (Of course I did. I’m still tickled about that.) I flew more than 45 hours in September, and most of them were solid revenue hours.
  • My editor reminded me that Apple promised to deliver Leopard in October. Counting back from the end of the month, it became obvious that I’d have to have my book done by the first week in October if Apple delivered on that promise and we wanted our book to be in stores the day Leopard became available. And one look in my personal bank account reminded me that I write for a living and had been neglecting my livelihood.

Thus began a month of very long days. And timing couldn’t be worse. Not only was I scheduled to do this big gig with the Russians, but the dates happened to fall on the very last days I had to write the book. So I had to finish it before I left. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I was packing for my trip as my computer was generating PDFs and uploading files to Peachpit’s server.

I worked 14-hour days last week. Basically, every waking hour was spent in front of my computer, writing about Leopard. And, believe it or not, I have two laptops with me here on my trip so I can knock off the Introduction before the book goes to the printer.

But although the book work is not 100% over, it’s over enough to relax a bit. And even though I’ve been flying my butt off, I do have a nice quiet evening to myself.

And I know — I’m way overdue for a blog post.

Working Hard

Posted on by
2

Writing, flying, writing, flying, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I realize that I haven’t been blogging lately. I have a good excuse. I’m unbelievably busy with work.

I have a drop-dead deadline for my Leopard book coming up very quickly now. So whenever I’m at home, I’m in my office with my fat butt planted in the chair in front of my computer, writing about Leopard. The book is coming along very well, but not without some minor problems. Still, if I keep at it, I’ll get it done on time.

Trouble is, I’m not spending much time in my office. After a seriously crappy-to-the-point-of-wasted-time gig in Kingman last weekend, I had to fly up to Page to take some photographers around Lake Powell. For three days in a row.

Confluence of San Juan and Colorado RiversI love Lake Powell. I think it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. And if you think it looks great from the ground or water, you should see it from the air! But after a 4 hour flight on 4 hours of sleep today, I decided I’d had enough of the Lake. Fortunately, I’m going home tomorrow, after dropping off one of my clients in Phoenix.

I’ve been in the Marriott Courtyard here since Monday night. I’ve had five flights totaling over 10 hours of billable time, with about 3 hours more to come. Great for the Flying M Air bank account, which can always use a good cash inflow — especially after a slow summer in Wickenburg. But not great for the Leopard deadline.

So now I’m sitting here at the desk in my hotel room with two laptops in front of me — my MacBook Pro test mule running the latest Leopard beta and my trusty 12″ PowerBook G4 — revising text and making new screenshots for my Leopard book. I’ll finish Chapter 7 today and, with luck, start Chapter 9. (No, I’m not doing them in order.)

Tomorrow, I’ll check out of here at 7 AM and take my luggage — including my “portable office” — to the airport. By 8 AM, I hope to have my passenger on board for the flight to Phoenix. With cooperative weather (read that, “no headwinds”), I’ll be at my desk again by 1 PM, laying out the chapters I wrote in Page. Friday, I’ll be in my office all day.

Then, on Saturday, I pick up another photographer. He’s from Australia and he’s doing a coffee table book about Robinson helicopters. I’m one of his featured operators. I’ll fly him around for a few days, taking time to work on the Leopard book in early morning hours, before he’s awake. He leaves on Tuesday. Then I have two more days in my office before another helicopter gig at Lake Powell, Monument Valley, and Shiprock.

Anyone who thinks being a freelancer or owning a business is an easy living should walk in my shoes this month. It’s times like these that I think back with a bit of longing for those cubicle days, when I spent more time shooting the bull with co-workers than working long hours to meet deadlines and client needs.

But by mid-October, things should be back to normal. Until then, bear with me. On the priority scale, blogging has slipped behind a few more important tasks.

eZineArticles.com

Posted on by
19

Could be hazardous to your good name.

A few months ago, I read a blog post by some A-list pro blogger that briefly discussed eZineArticles.com as a place to publish articles and generate hits for your site. The idea was that the articles contained a byline with links and people who read them would come back to your site to read more. The result: more hits.

I dug deeply into my well of content and found a handful of articles I didn’t mind republishing. I formatted them as required and submitted them to eZineArticles.com, after setting up an account as an author. A bunch of the articles were bounced back because they read like blog posts. But I successfully argued that they did provide useful information in my somewhat conversational and bloggish writing style. All five articles were published on the eZine Articles site.

First Surprise: Anyone Can Republish!

What I didn’t realize at first was that anyone who sets up a publisher relationship with eZineArticles.com could republish my work, as long as it was republished exactly as written and included my byline, bio, and links. I discovered this when an article I wrote about flying at sunrise was picked up by a Web site with content about cruising.

After a few e-mails went back and forth between me and the site owner and eZineArticles support staff, I realized what I’d missed by not reading the fine print — I was basically granting a very broad set of rights to eZineArticles.com. But the site that had used the piece was a high quality site and I didn’t mind my recycled work appearing there. And the eZineArticles folks assured me that publishers had to meet certain requirements to use the work.

Second Surprise: Hot Sex?

But I wasn’t very happy when I traced a link to one of my Antelope Canyon photos article to a Blogger blog with the words “hot-sex” in its domain name. Although the site didn’t appear to contain any porn, I didn’t want my content — or name! — associated with it. So I wrote to eZineArticles support to complain.

Today, I found the same article used on a site with “nurse-fetish” in the domain name. Now I was pissed. I wrote again to the eZineArticles staff.

eZineArticles.com Responds

My new message crossed their response to the first one in the ether. In their response, they told me that if I didn’t want my work on a specific site, it was my responsibility to contact the owner of that site and ask him to remove it.

Ever try to contact the owner of a Blogger blog? It’s not possible if they don’t want to make it possible.

I replied that their response was completely unsatisfactory and that I would be deleting all of my articles from their site.

And then I did.

Lessons Learned

I am certainly not desperate enough to be published or to get hits by releasing my work on a site that allows distribution without prior approval by the author. Frankly, I don’t think any author should be that desperate.

eZineArticles.com obviously doesn’t give a damn about its authors if it won’t work to prevent this kind of activity with an author’s work. Any author who publishes with them deserves whatever shit he gets — including his name spread around on sites of questionable quality and purpose.

From now on, I will publish my work electronically in only three places:

  • Here, on this site, where my work is covered by a copyright notice that helps protect my work from misuse.
  • On the sites of publishers who pay me for my efforts and protect our copyrights.
  • On the sites of other bloggers who have asked me to guest author for them and will protect our copyrights.

I’m angry about this, but I know it’s my own fault. I was conned, first by the pro blogger who pushed eZineArticles.com and then by eZineArticles.com itself. I don’t understand why anyone would allow their work to be reproduced in a way that they cannot control. Could they all be as stupid as I was when I signed up?

As for the “hot-sex” and “nurse-fetish” sites, I wonder how the other female eZineArticles authors feel about their work — and their names — appearing there.

On Revisions

Posted on by
Comment

At the halfway point of my Mac OS X book revision.

Yesterday, as I completed the revisions to Chapter 10, I reached the halfway point in my revision for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.

No, the book isn’t 20 chapters long. It’s 27 plus an appendix. I’ve revised 14 chapters. I’m not revising in order. I’m revising in the order I think it might be safe to revise in. Some features are still in flux and if I revise based on what I see, I’ll likely have to revise again.

And no, I can’t tell you what I think might be in flux. I’m under non-disclosure and I take that stuff pretty seriously. That’s also why you won’t find Leopard screenshots here (yet). And why I haven’t written any articles about the new features (yet).

This is a Deep Revision

I’ve settled into a pace of about one revised chapter per day. That might seem like a lot. It is, especially since I’m doing what I call a deep revision.

I not only write my Visual QuickStart Guides, but I also do layout for them. This is called packaging — the author provides final files to the publisher, who then (after editing, of course) sends them on to the printer.

I currently use InDesign CS3 for all my layout needs. But that’s not what I was using when I wrote the first edition of this book, which covered Mac OS 8, back in 1997. (I still remember that book’s release at Macworld Expo in Boston. Peachpit sold out on the first day of the show, but UPS was on strike and we couldn’t get any more books in.) In 1997, I was using PageMaker. And that’s what I used to create the original book files.

A revision is a revision. That means you start with something and modify it to bring it up to date. So each year, I’d start with the previous year’s file and modify text, replace screenshots, and make various other changes to bring the content and file up to date.

Every time I switched to a new version of my layout software — PageMaker became InDesign 2 which became InDesign CS which became InDesign CS3 — I can’t justify the expense of updating my software for every release — I’d simply convert the file to the new version at the beginning of the revision process.

Over the years, this led to inconsistently set up files. Sure, the differences were minor, but they were there. And it bugged me that there were tiny differences in the style definitions and that some text included indexing codes from a failed experiment with the indexing feature and that the Zapf Dingbats font applied to bullets wasn’t working right in all files. And that in some chapters, each page was a different InDesign “story” and in others, the stories would go on for several pages.

So this year I decided to clean up the files by recreating them all. I built a brand new template in InDesign CS3, adding the staggered tabs that many other VQS books include but mine never had. I took full advantage of InDesign’s nested style feature to automate bullet and reference formatting. I made my styles intelligent and highly functional.

Then I got an InDesign plugin that enabled me to export the individual stories in a single chapter file as one big story in plain old text. I do this for each chapter. I make sure the text has smart quotes and paste it into my template. I then manually reapply all the styles as I go through the text and edit it to bring it up to date.

Along the way, I reorganized much of the content to remove 2 chapters, add 5 chapters, and move a bunch of content around.

A deep revision.

Other Revisions

Contrast this with the last book revision I did. That was for another publisher which doesn’t allow author packaging. Instead, the book is submitted as a series of Microsoft Word files.

I start with the previous year’s “final” files. I turn on the revision feature so all my changes are marked — supposedly for the benefit of the copy editor, so she doesn’t re-edit the whole thing — and go at it. The result is a mess that only gets messier as the book goes through the editing process. In the end, it’s all cleaned up, laid out and sent to me as proofs so I can make any final corrections to it.

If the software I’m revising the book for hasn’t changed much, this can be incredibly quick — I can sometimes turn out 3-4 chapters in a day, with plenty of time for my morning coffee, blog entry, e-mail processing, and even a little Web surfing. My record was 2 weeks for the entire 400+ page book.

Time Is Not on my Side

But for a deep revision, things go much more slowly. If I’m lucky, I can turn out a chapter a day. That’s a complete 20-40 page chapter, laid out with dozens of screenshots — I’m averaging about 80 per chapter right now — and captions and even a few callouts.

I just did the math. If I can keep up a chapter a day as my production rate, I should have the whole thing done by September 20. Right?

Well, unfortunately, I don’t have the next 13 days to work on this book. Next Friday, I’m flying my helicopter at the Mohave County Fair, giving rides for the whole weekend. On Monday, I fly directly to Page for two separate flying gigs over Lake Powell. I should be back by Thursday afternoon. Then the Saturday right after that, I’m hosting a photographer/writer and pilot from Australia who are preparing a coffee table book about Robinson Helicopters, featuring about 20 operators all over the world. (Can you imagine that they picked me?) When they leave, I have a few days before I head back up to Lake Powell, Monument Valley, and Shiprock with the helicopter for a group of Russian photographers for a big photo excursion.

What does this tell me?

It’s 6:26 AM on a Friday morning. I’d better get to work.