Remember that book, What Color Is Your Parachute? Actually, it never went away. The best-selling career book of all time is still coming out with new editions, hand-holding newbies in the job market, helping them decide what vocations best suits them. But I'm not sure anyone in this economy has the luxury of 'finding themselves'...or maybe that's exactly the wrong attitude. Maybe it is time to experiment in the same way an argument can be made that the only chance for the survival of publications is for them to expand off of loans, doing the opposite of the logical, a la George Costanza, and take a chance by improving their product to create some separation from what one can find on the web. (Traditional newspapers must demonstrate that web new sources can't keep up.)
Speaking to struggling freelancers, of course the first step is to arm yourself with all the news in your field. This is not an obvious comment – I, myself, for years cruised in auto-pilot as a freelancer not getting caught up in every development or even feeling compelled to. But's it's kinda all hands on deck right now. Many or most of the readers of Freelancer's Lament rely on publications as one of their main sources of income and one of the best and latest article on the subject comes from The Nation by Eric Alterman. The comments also, to a lesser extent, provide some insight.
Before continuing with more productive dialogue on the subject, I ask you to please participate in the Freelancer's Lament polls on the right.
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