"CREATION," DETAIL FROM THE CEILING OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL, MICHELANGELO
Writes-A-Roni was inspired by a self-described 28-year-old Internet marketer who made himself “semi-financially independent and gained more free time” by cracking the code to social networking. I’m 50-something and the arc of my career has been the mirror-reverse of my mentor’s.
Twenty years ago I was earning a six-figure salary and vesting deferred compensation benefits as the editor of a large-circulation consumer magazine. When the writing appeared on the wall that print would be subsumed by the Web, I landed a job as director of content with a nascent business-to-business Web site. It was one of those go-go ideas, shrewdly planned by ruthless investment bankers who’d just bought my friend’s publishing company, which was preeminent in the homebuilding industry. I was asked to help create content for the new Web site because I have a professional reputation for, among other things, knowing more about building products that anyone else on the planet.
Investment bankers, housing, Internet. Veni, vidi, vici. What could go wrong?
When the bottom fell out, I took a modest tech-writing job with a government contractor but was laid off when business dried up during the 2008-2009 recession. Among the tech writers, I had been the highest paid at about half of my Web-publishing salary—and by far the oldest. At the Friday-afternoon massacre, I was assured that there was nothing wrong with my work, that my talent and effort had been truly appreciated. It was simply a “business decision.” Cold comfort.
I spent months crawling job boards, sending out five resumes with cover letters per day and attracting little interest. I came in contact with my mentor through a want-a-blogger job post forwarded by my wife from Craig’s List:
Looking for somebody who can write intelligently about management, HR and the business world for a couple hours [sic] a week. Must be willing to ghost-write for a blog. Able to take constructive criticism. Writing style should be FUN, short and tight. Email me something about yourself and some samples of your writing. You set the price.
I sent him some samples of business-oriented blog posts that I’d written, each relatively conventional in its own way. And sensing that they lacked the tone he was looking for, I included a droll account of an episode from my fruitless job search in my cover letter.
He loved my stuff. He wanted to see more. I sent it. Noting my “uncommon story-telling ability” in his return email, he wrote, “I laughed, I cried, I pounded my hands on the table and proclaimed, ‘This is the guy!’“ He wanted a fee quote. Anticipating what this market might bear, I set a rate slightly below a living wage. He was “heartbroken” because he couldn’t pay anything close to the amount.
We spoke again by telephone to sift through the ashes of our potential business relationship. How could we help each other? I’d already helped him, he said, by proving beyond doubt that the five-cents-a-word e-lancers whom he was also considering produced products inferior to those of a professional writer. He’d just have to handle the blog himself to get started and revisit the idea of my writing for him when his new site was fully “branded and revenued.”
“Go for it,” I said, as my faith in his judgment and, therefore, his future need for a blogger faded with consideration of his penchant for coining nouns as verb forms. “I’ve come to the conclusion that if I want to continue to make my living as a writer, I need to become a better marketer. What I need from you is advice on social and business networking.”
“You should have your own Web site, and take a course, my mentor advised.” Thus was Writes-A-Roni born.