Dear Writers: We Don’t Have to Put Up With This

We ain’t nothin’ and it’s time we started acting like it

I’ve been a magazine writer twice.

My first career took place in the 1980s — the era of big, glossy magazines appealing to broad audiences. Writing then was a genteel game run largely by a New York establishment that adhered to certain conventions. Writers submitted pitches on paper by surface mail to editors who considered the ideas and, if uninterested, inserted pre-printed rejection cards into the writer-provided, self-addressed stamped envelope to let the writer know to shop the article somewhere else.

After 20 years working in television and doing start-ups, I’ve returned to my first love and am a magazine writer again. There isn’t enough beer in the world to power a full discussion of how economics and technology have commoditized labor, including writing. The point I want to make is that we should never forget that writing isn’t a commodity, no matter if the business treats it that way.

One of the first things I learned upon my return to magazine writing is that Writer’s Market no longer matters. Writer’s Market was the bible for freelancers then, but because it was a physical book it was always at least six months behind reality. To stay current, writers formed groups — often secret…