by Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Writer
Gloom. Doom. Dark prognostications. Gathering clouds. The end of prosperity as we know it. Wooooo. You can't pick up a newspaper or flip on the news these days without hearing the latest evidence of the "slowing economy," "the economic downturn," the "national reversal of fortune." Yeah, whatever.
In the past few months, I've received a small flood of e-mails asking me about the viability of starting a freelance commercial writing business in these changing economic times. I can just picture the furrowed brows and chewed-up nails as they type away. So whether you're a struggling commercial freelancer or pondering the leap, read on…
So, what's the story in the commercial writing field? OK, bad news and good news. Bad news is that sure, in some ways, there's been a slowdown. When companies scale back, projects scale back as well. Companies who used to hire a lot of freelancers might choose to pull more of their writing work in-house.
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Many writers concentrate all their efforts on trying to sell their work to national publishers and magazines. And yet, by doing so they are overlooking a huge potential market which is literally on their own doorstep.
