When I started as a film and TV editor, the technology we used was prohibitively expensive and/or complex. You had to train and know how to use it, and we were paid for that expertise. But also the very complexity of it built in a kind of breathing room. You weren't able to do everything quickly (you had to track all the small pieces of film you cut out! Or you had to load footage in real time, playing it down and digitizing it into the computer as you watched!) This allowed you time to think. What stories do you want to tell? What's the best moment?
As the tech got less expensive/more accessible, more and more people knew technically how to put two shots together, and make it look finished. What we editors do--tell stories, build character--became less valued than how fast we could make something look polished, which now many people now have the tools to do. Schedules have been progressively shorter and shorter, and as we are generally paid by the week, our pay for finishing a project has gotten lower and lower. And we've lost the time to craft stories well.
🙌🏻🙌🏻So great! The idea that our fight was about preserving screenwriting “as a career” came up in one of the first big Writers Guild pre-strike meetings in 2023, and I don’t know if it works as a soundbite or a picket sign, but it really moved me and gave me something to fight for.
From my corner of the world, I can confirm that the pattern pointed out by your friend Patrick is rippling into other parts of the universe.
I work for a small professional services firm.
The flagship consulting product we sell is powerful and expensive.
For decades we've sold services A, B, and C as a bundled product. It's been effective and advantageous for our clients to buy the bundle. But in the past couple years, clients have started objecting to the bundle: They can do A themselves. They know somebody who does C much more cheaply. "Can you revise our contract without A and C?"
(And I doubt that the person providing service C isn't making a steady, dependable income.)
Watching my stable, established company write shrinking contracts makes me wonder how long until the iceberg melts.
This drive to contract work & partitioning-out work flow in many industries now is, in one way, an improvement on the old suffocating company culture. The 'company' with dozens of departments providing professional services to all stages in the production & marketing of its products is quickly disappearing. I suspect it makes most workers' month to month work flow very unstable. It's hard to see it improving career satisfaction. What's the career path for young entrants to this business model? Given the stresses, uncertainty, & time pressures involved, participants who can afford to do so may increasingly just withdraw.
Brilliant title for this piece! I remember my dad telling me I should get a PhD and that I'd always have job security, so I diligently pursued the degree (and his respect). In short order I realized that faculty positions were scarce and that the accepted route of being an adjunct put me right in the same tax bracket as any freelance writer, having the same argument with the accountant about whether or not it is a hobby or a profession...
Sara, I applaud you for writing this piece! You are pointing out a systemic problem while admit being a willing participant. Many, if not all of us, are guilty of the same without taking responsibility.
Speaking of financials, I worked in the professional services area for technology product companies for over 25 years. I always told the clients (and internal sales) to focus on value and not price. When numbers are being thrown around and compared, quality and value start to go down a slippery slope. And when someone says "free" I'd tell them nothing is free. The cost is hidden somewhere, or being paid by someone else.
My profession has changed, not because of but to, writing on Substack. I appreciate Substack as a platform that enabled me to pursue my new passion, have a voice, and build a reader base without having a name or credential in writing. But I have my doubts about its model. I just have not figured out a better alternative. Until then, I will continue to write here.
Great piece, Sara. I just started my newsletter a couple of weeks ago. It’s very exciting, and it’s also a lot of work. I think it is a fantasy to imagine that I might make a living here, and I’m not paywalling anything for now, so if people want to support me financially I say a huge thank you. It’s thrilling that readers are contributing to me in this way. For now, I’m feeling my way. It’ll probably never be my career, but who knows? And if you ever decide to design a new logo, I’m
A great and timely piece, thanks Sara. The blurring of amateurism and professionalism increasingly applies to my field, which is investment and wealth management. I am thinking that if Gen Z can listen to a 10 second tik-tok and change their financial behaviour, what's the real value of our professions when people can charge one to several percent a year to manage money or your money can be automatically managed at 0.35% per year?
I am thinking along the same line to write a piece on my profession vs. the new bloggers and influencers in finance - interesting times! The lesson for the professionals is to be part of the bloggers and demystify some of the things people say and do in our profession and keep getting engaged with the larger system.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece on the apocalypse, Sara. There's another barrier that rises even before "Anyone can do it" for a professional editor. It's "Who needs it?" With industrial journalism and book publishing (visibly) binning layer upon layer of quality control, there's no model anymore to indicate that editing is even necessary. I've been fortunate to find clients who could afford me and who believe that what I add is valuable, but it's harder and harder just to get in the door.
Loved this piece Sara. I wrote something along these lines this week. Making a living as a self employed journalist increasingly challenging in Ireland too
There’s also the impact of tech eliminating many jobs and forcing people to hustle as amateurs in other fields. Via my day job (editing content for a hearing aid manufacturer), I’ve seen the push for self-programmed and OTC hearing aids, making it harder for audiologists to run small businesses providing care. People think they don’t need that professional help and the truth is, in some cases, they don’t. Personally I’m trying to gradually make a living off my creative work and eventually quit my day job but good lord the unpaid labor part (researching and pitching for peanut pay) is exhausting.
I spent nearly 30 years as an educator. Most districts pay teachers poorly, provide insufficient training for the demands of the job, insufficient time to do an adequate job, and provide insufficient resources for the range of student needs. Since the dawn of any time teachers I've talked to can remember, teachers have been using their own time and money to create "supplements" to use in the classroom to fill the gaps they see. Then comes a site literally called Teachers-Pay-Teachers. So teachers can finally make a little money selling their work to other teachers. And teachers can trade their money for time spent creating something some other teacher has already made. Seems good, right? Except, there's no quality control and it's a Wild West hodgepodge of approaches and standards. The research I've read shows that the number one impact on student achievement is coherence among the school's classrooms, and TPT blows that up completely...😅
There was a lot of insight and wisdom in this essay. I've been writing a lot about where American capitalism stands. The statistics bear out that wage compensation as a % of total national income has fallen. A large part of that is the phenomenon you write about in journalism, but it affects many industries and sectors. This is one of the causes of economic inequality and economic precarity.
I'm wondering how this trend ever gets reversed in the marketplace and whether what we really need is a more progressive tax system coupled with getting much closer to the benefits and services funded by some of the European governments.
You're so right. I've spent the last couple of post-baby years having a similar mental overhaul. I started out thinking I would write big nonfiction books involving lots of travel. I did that. One was pretty successful! But now I have a child and not much of a pension, and it turns out that a wobbly income doesn't lead to increased creativity. I also have ethical doubts about flying myself to Mongolia and back for books (and the train takes a very, very long times). I decided to shelve my Substack because I actually want to write a book, not a newsletter, fun as it is. I am also dubious about once again pouring my creativity, time and energy into yet another unpaid project for yet another venture capital-supported startup that promises me I might make money maybe maybe. Especially when I had to opt out of Substack using my work for AI training, and especially when I see the lack of reach for newsletters outside the Substack ecosystem now that Twitter is dying. Everything in writing feels rather like a Ponzi scheme these days...
When I started as a film and TV editor, the technology we used was prohibitively expensive and/or complex. You had to train and know how to use it, and we were paid for that expertise. But also the very complexity of it built in a kind of breathing room. You weren't able to do everything quickly (you had to track all the small pieces of film you cut out! Or you had to load footage in real time, playing it down and digitizing it into the computer as you watched!) This allowed you time to think. What stories do you want to tell? What's the best moment?
As the tech got less expensive/more accessible, more and more people knew technically how to put two shots together, and make it look finished. What we editors do--tell stories, build character--became less valued than how fast we could make something look polished, which now many people now have the tools to do. Schedules have been progressively shorter and shorter, and as we are generally paid by the week, our pay for finishing a project has gotten lower and lower. And we've lost the time to craft stories well.
🙌🏻🙌🏻So great! The idea that our fight was about preserving screenwriting “as a career” came up in one of the first big Writers Guild pre-strike meetings in 2023, and I don’t know if it works as a soundbite or a picket sign, but it really moved me and gave me something to fight for.
From my corner of the world, I can confirm that the pattern pointed out by your friend Patrick is rippling into other parts of the universe.
I work for a small professional services firm.
The flagship consulting product we sell is powerful and expensive.
For decades we've sold services A, B, and C as a bundled product. It's been effective and advantageous for our clients to buy the bundle. But in the past couple years, clients have started objecting to the bundle: They can do A themselves. They know somebody who does C much more cheaply. "Can you revise our contract without A and C?"
(And I doubt that the person providing service C isn't making a steady, dependable income.)
Watching my stable, established company write shrinking contracts makes me wonder how long until the iceberg melts.
This drive to contract work & partitioning-out work flow in many industries now is, in one way, an improvement on the old suffocating company culture. The 'company' with dozens of departments providing professional services to all stages in the production & marketing of its products is quickly disappearing. I suspect it makes most workers' month to month work flow very unstable. It's hard to see it improving career satisfaction. What's the career path for young entrants to this business model? Given the stresses, uncertainty, & time pressures involved, participants who can afford to do so may increasingly just withdraw.
Brilliant title for this piece! I remember my dad telling me I should get a PhD and that I'd always have job security, so I diligently pursued the degree (and his respect). In short order I realized that faculty positions were scarce and that the accepted route of being an adjunct put me right in the same tax bracket as any freelance writer, having the same argument with the accountant about whether or not it is a hobby or a profession...
Thanks for your clarity and candor. Also: UGH.
Sara, I applaud you for writing this piece! You are pointing out a systemic problem while admit being a willing participant. Many, if not all of us, are guilty of the same without taking responsibility.
Speaking of financials, I worked in the professional services area for technology product companies for over 25 years. I always told the clients (and internal sales) to focus on value and not price. When numbers are being thrown around and compared, quality and value start to go down a slippery slope. And when someone says "free" I'd tell them nothing is free. The cost is hidden somewhere, or being paid by someone else.
My profession has changed, not because of but to, writing on Substack. I appreciate Substack as a platform that enabled me to pursue my new passion, have a voice, and build a reader base without having a name or credential in writing. But I have my doubts about its model. I just have not figured out a better alternative. Until then, I will continue to write here.
Great piece, Sara. I just started my newsletter a couple of weeks ago. It’s very exciting, and it’s also a lot of work. I think it is a fantasy to imagine that I might make a living here, and I’m not paywalling anything for now, so if people want to support me financially I say a huge thank you. It’s thrilling that readers are contributing to me in this way. For now, I’m feeling my way. It’ll probably never be my career, but who knows? And if you ever decide to design a new logo, I’m
available for coaching! Be well.
So good. Depressing, but good. :)
A great and timely piece, thanks Sara. The blurring of amateurism and professionalism increasingly applies to my field, which is investment and wealth management. I am thinking that if Gen Z can listen to a 10 second tik-tok and change their financial behaviour, what's the real value of our professions when people can charge one to several percent a year to manage money or your money can be automatically managed at 0.35% per year?
I am thinking along the same line to write a piece on my profession vs. the new bloggers and influencers in finance - interesting times! The lesson for the professionals is to be part of the bloggers and demystify some of the things people say and do in our profession and keep getting engaged with the larger system.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece on the apocalypse, Sara. There's another barrier that rises even before "Anyone can do it" for a professional editor. It's "Who needs it?" With industrial journalism and book publishing (visibly) binning layer upon layer of quality control, there's no model anymore to indicate that editing is even necessary. I've been fortunate to find clients who could afford me and who believe that what I add is valuable, but it's harder and harder just to get in the door.
Loved this piece Sara. I wrote something along these lines this week. Making a living as a self employed journalist increasingly challenging in Ireland too
https://open.substack.com/pub/howtofallapart/p/a-love-letter-to-journalism?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=i982n
There’s also the impact of tech eliminating many jobs and forcing people to hustle as amateurs in other fields. Via my day job (editing content for a hearing aid manufacturer), I’ve seen the push for self-programmed and OTC hearing aids, making it harder for audiologists to run small businesses providing care. People think they don’t need that professional help and the truth is, in some cases, they don’t. Personally I’m trying to gradually make a living off my creative work and eventually quit my day job but good lord the unpaid labor part (researching and pitching for peanut pay) is exhausting.
I spent nearly 30 years as an educator. Most districts pay teachers poorly, provide insufficient training for the demands of the job, insufficient time to do an adequate job, and provide insufficient resources for the range of student needs. Since the dawn of any time teachers I've talked to can remember, teachers have been using their own time and money to create "supplements" to use in the classroom to fill the gaps they see. Then comes a site literally called Teachers-Pay-Teachers. So teachers can finally make a little money selling their work to other teachers. And teachers can trade their money for time spent creating something some other teacher has already made. Seems good, right? Except, there's no quality control and it's a Wild West hodgepodge of approaches and standards. The research I've read shows that the number one impact on student achievement is coherence among the school's classrooms, and TPT blows that up completely...😅
There was a lot of insight and wisdom in this essay. I've been writing a lot about where American capitalism stands. The statistics bear out that wage compensation as a % of total national income has fallen. A large part of that is the phenomenon you write about in journalism, but it affects many industries and sectors. This is one of the causes of economic inequality and economic precarity.
I'm wondering how this trend ever gets reversed in the marketplace and whether what we really need is a more progressive tax system coupled with getting much closer to the benefits and services funded by some of the European governments.
You're so right. I've spent the last couple of post-baby years having a similar mental overhaul. I started out thinking I would write big nonfiction books involving lots of travel. I did that. One was pretty successful! But now I have a child and not much of a pension, and it turns out that a wobbly income doesn't lead to increased creativity. I also have ethical doubts about flying myself to Mongolia and back for books (and the train takes a very, very long times). I decided to shelve my Substack because I actually want to write a book, not a newsletter, fun as it is. I am also dubious about once again pouring my creativity, time and energy into yet another unpaid project for yet another venture capital-supported startup that promises me I might make money maybe maybe. Especially when I had to opt out of Substack using my work for AI training, and especially when I see the lack of reach for newsletters outside the Substack ecosystem now that Twitter is dying. Everything in writing feels rather like a Ponzi scheme these days...