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.
This resonates so much! Even though writing has always been pretty low-tech, the expectation of speed is mind-boggling. I used to spend months crafting and drafting an essay. Now I spend weeks and feel like a tortoise--like, how come I can't do this in an afternoon like everyone else?
100%! And the irony is that all that time pressure makes it harder for my brain to function well. I find myself so distracted by my deadlines that it takes me longer to figure out simple things sometimes.
The ability to go back, deepen the craft, is lost. Much like that typography at the White House, the opportunity for review, a second critique, proofing… for me these were and are the pleasure of Being in The Industry at all!
The term ‘content creation’ has purged us of refinement. All my years as editor/art director/project manager meant I wore the badge of final approval. Now even doing it for ourselves is considered a waste of time when on a commissioned timeline. No one wants to pay for the ‘revisions’ which used to be billed extra. Even if they are included as extra hours of time.
As a journalist, I didn't get paid for revisions, but I was getting $2 a word 25 years ago, and accepted that as part of the deal. I do corporate work now that caps revisions, which is good. It pays ... $2 a word.
I was *just* talking about this today. I’ve been moving more into the indie book publishing world but I’m so slow. Of course, I am comparing myself to the fastest writer I know, who can write a book in 4 weeks (and a good one at that) and then start the next. It would be better if I compared myself to the people who take 10 years to write one!
Some of my favorite writers are slow! I do think there are ways that having to write faster has been good for me, but when I compare my prose now to what I was doing before ... it was better before.
🙌🏻🙌🏻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.
I cheered you guys on during that whole fight, and also thought about how much a union could have helped us print writers. It really shows what a difference a union makes!
We felt it! Being cheered on made this strike feel completely different from the one in 2007. And the huge power that came from the other unions standing with us!
This amateurization of everything reminds me of how so many celebrities - the latest is Princess Meghan Markle - decide that they have enough experience/money/famous friends to start a lifestyle brand. Always luxury lifestyle brands with their own personal little farm and bee hives… Suddenly, they’re all master chefs and beekeepers. But, in reality, they’re amateurs. They just have money and people who stroke their ego.
It seems to me that writing has become more amateur in general. I notice so much work clearly in need of an editor. So much copy, even — the top brands use copyeditors and it shows. Many brands don’t and that, too, shows.
Books seem edited less well. There’s so many “that”s instead of “who”s, so many small errors that once would’ve been corrected. Maybe it’s the proliferation of social media and therefore writing in general—the more it amasses, the more junk we are likely to see.
I edit a lot of academic work. That’s definitely an industry where you still cannot publish garbage writing, but the entire profession has certainly been amateurized.
Unfortunately I am going to say this: The education of the new editors is not what our literary education was either. I honestly believe those being hired, for lesser salaries than tenured editors, are sincerely NOT up to par. I also think they are being pushed to produce more, spend less time, be less critical.
I am open to being proved otherwise! No insult meant to good editors still out there.
Yes, it’s become a more amateur industry. People think because they did well in English class, that’s all it takes. Whereas I think you need a lot more training and experience to even be a decent copy editor, let alone an editor!
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.
Interesting that for a while (from 2010-15 approx) the trend was to consolidate services into a “Concierge” style package with a “POP* get all this” offering. This was before the tools migrated to their own desktops. Or phone on their hands.
This is reminiscent of when using Macs moved from being independent agency services to in-house design teams in my industry of Package Design. These migrations happen in cycles (now less than 5 years, used to take longer) with every iteration of mass distribution of the next upgrade. Better to take the monthly service subscriptions from the masses to do it themselves X millions of times than have a narrower concentration of ‘experts’ using high level software at a higher cost per client. The numbers flipped. So the user flipped. So the expertise was lost.
Yes yes yes. As I say… it’s good news that everyone can publish a book and it’s bad news that everyone can publish a book. It’s good that there’s no one defining what a good book is for us and it’s bad news that no one is defining what a good book is… and on it goes.
I’m a licensed psychotherapist. My profession has been systematically diluted by armchair experts for years. Now everyone has OCD or PTSD or is a narcissist or - my personal favorite- “a little bit autistic.” Be careful out there!
I'm a self-taught portrait photographer starting about 8 years ago. I mainly get clients through word of mouth. Part of my business is headshots and I wasn't too worried about AI until one of my girlfriends pointed me in the direction of a FB mums career group thread where people were posting their AI generated headshots and talking about how hilarious they were. Until they weren't. Because then people were posting the results from slightly higher end sources and were getting compliments about how great and real-life they looked. Another tangent saw BIPOC members frustrated because their attempts were returned as 'whitewashed' even after submitting actual photos of themselves. I realized that this will (not could) potentially take clients away from me because it's cheaper, faster and doesn't require you to be uncomfortable (which 90% of my clients usually are) in front of a camera for 45 minutes.
I am noticing a turn in the tide where people are become tired of fake, plastic, and un-real images. How long it takes for this to actually happen I have no idea but until then I just need to keep producing the kind of work that makes AI look like a three year old using a camera 🤣
Just saw that this post is a year old so sorry for the VERY late comment!!
I love this entire piece, but the paragraph about how we no longer have editors really spoke to me. There's nothing more fulfilling as a writer than working with a great editor. I see so much writing that is almost great... and would be great with the right editor. I've tried to think of solutions, but all of them get back to the central core argument of this piece, that our work, whether writers or editors, has been devalued to the point that we can no longer sustain an industry like we used to.
The is question also comes up in the fine art industry. Does the artist/painter really want to do the work, be critiqued, go to the private length to get/be better? When I grew up my mother PAID what she could for private artists who were more advanced and/or had taught to view her work. Sometimes they would tear it down to the bone! But she wanted that. She wanted to get better. When she came home from the critique, she would be a little down and we would share some tea and sit to chat about it. Then she would dive back in.
I don’t think new writers know the value of it, but instead see editing as a personal attack on their ability or value.
I think the problem isn't necessarily the writers/editors/artists themselves. It's the fact that they are not receiving the training or support they need, they are overworked and have too much too do because companies just want them to slam stuff out.
All the people who thought writing stories and taking pictures would be fun fucked up journalism. Everyone is a model now, too.
Me, I only want to write, but I have learned a million things I never wanted to do, like how to publish and market my books. I even format them myself. Almost nobody gets to do just one thing now.
No. Quality is higher when one person isn't trying to handle every aspect of a product. But except for very large organizations, we all have to do everything now.
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.
One other comment about the final question you ask: someone I know in the brand development industry says that they can no longer get the same sorts of contracts to put together comprehensive plans for corporations. So much of what they used to do is now done badly, but for free, by AI or with tools that someone in the organization is using badly. It's really affecting so many careers in ways that aren't being documented well.
My industry! Yes! I worked on branding and packaging from the 1980s through 2015. Then, out of sheer frustration switched my industry to art. The loss of value of expertise started to snowball as millennials began launching their own brands with paper bag packaging and print solutions appealing to the public as a rebellion to polished ‘branding.’ From there it all went down hill. We watched the default Microsoft type setting be transferred into design programs and not touched. As-Is branding became a thing.
It is certainly the way of things, historically speaking, that industries get supplanted by new inventions and new way of doing things. But the sad thing about what's happening now is that industries aren't being supplanted by humans who are doing something better and more innovative, but rather by people just using cheap or free tools to do things worse.
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...
Ugh, it's so hard! I've heard that from other academics. So many career paths should come with a disclaimer--warning: if you are not independently wealthy or supported by a spouse this may not be for you.
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.
Thanks, Yi! I haven't figured out a better alternative either, and it has been great to find a community of writers, like you! I do like doing this, I'm sticking around for the time being to see if I can make this work.
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
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.
This resonates so much! Even though writing has always been pretty low-tech, the expectation of speed is mind-boggling. I used to spend months crafting and drafting an essay. Now I spend weeks and feel like a tortoise--like, how come I can't do this in an afternoon like everyone else?
100%! And the irony is that all that time pressure makes it harder for my brain to function well. I find myself so distracted by my deadlines that it takes me longer to figure out simple things sometimes.
Riiiiiight?
The ability to go back, deepen the craft, is lost. Much like that typography at the White House, the opportunity for review, a second critique, proofing… for me these were and are the pleasure of Being in The Industry at all!
The term ‘content creation’ has purged us of refinement. All my years as editor/art director/project manager meant I wore the badge of final approval. Now even doing it for ourselves is considered a waste of time when on a commissioned timeline. No one wants to pay for the ‘revisions’ which used to be billed extra. Even if they are included as extra hours of time.
As a journalist, I didn't get paid for revisions, but I was getting $2 a word 25 years ago, and accepted that as part of the deal. I do corporate work now that caps revisions, which is good. It pays ... $2 a word.
I was *just* talking about this today. I’ve been moving more into the indie book publishing world but I’m so slow. Of course, I am comparing myself to the fastest writer I know, who can write a book in 4 weeks (and a good one at that) and then start the next. It would be better if I compared myself to the people who take 10 years to write one!
Some of my favorite writers are slow! I do think there are ways that having to write faster has been good for me, but when I compare my prose now to what I was doing before ... it was better before.
Thanks for this perspective. I can see that the tech piece of it makes it even harder.
🙌🏻🙌🏻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.
I cheered you guys on during that whole fight, and also thought about how much a union could have helped us print writers. It really shows what a difference a union makes!
We felt it! Being cheered on made this strike feel completely different from the one in 2007. And the huge power that came from the other unions standing with us!
This amateurization of everything reminds me of how so many celebrities - the latest is Princess Meghan Markle - decide that they have enough experience/money/famous friends to start a lifestyle brand. Always luxury lifestyle brands with their own personal little farm and bee hives… Suddenly, they’re all master chefs and beekeepers. But, in reality, they’re amateurs. They just have money and people who stroke their ego.
And people who do the work for them.
Cleaners, sous-chefs, housekeepers, beekeepers, interior designers, nannies….
🤦🏻♀️
It seems to me that writing has become more amateur in general. I notice so much work clearly in need of an editor. So much copy, even — the top brands use copyeditors and it shows. Many brands don’t and that, too, shows.
Books seem edited less well. There’s so many “that”s instead of “who”s, so many small errors that once would’ve been corrected. Maybe it’s the proliferation of social media and therefore writing in general—the more it amasses, the more junk we are likely to see.
I edit a lot of academic work. That’s definitely an industry where you still cannot publish garbage writing, but the entire profession has certainly been amateurized.
oh, copyeditors! yes, I miss them so!
Thank you from a working (for the moment still, I hope) copy editor. 🤗
My hope is somehow we will find our way back to the Guild system… Where fine work is rewarded.
Instead of degraded! I feel this every day.
I see this all the time too - even in national and international publications
Unfortunately I am going to say this: The education of the new editors is not what our literary education was either. I honestly believe those being hired, for lesser salaries than tenured editors, are sincerely NOT up to par. I also think they are being pushed to produce more, spend less time, be less critical.
I am open to being proved otherwise! No insult meant to good editors still out there.
Yes, it’s become a more amateur industry. People think because they did well in English class, that’s all it takes. Whereas I think you need a lot more training and experience to even be a decent copy editor, let alone an editor!
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.
So sorry to hear that! That iceberg-melting metaphor really resonates, sadly.
(Correx: I doubt that the person providing service C *is* making a steady income. Oops.)
Interesting that for a while (from 2010-15 approx) the trend was to consolidate services into a “Concierge” style package with a “POP* get all this” offering. This was before the tools migrated to their own desktops. Or phone on their hands.
This is reminiscent of when using Macs moved from being independent agency services to in-house design teams in my industry of Package Design. These migrations happen in cycles (now less than 5 years, used to take longer) with every iteration of mass distribution of the next upgrade. Better to take the monthly service subscriptions from the masses to do it themselves X millions of times than have a narrower concentration of ‘experts’ using high level software at a higher cost per client. The numbers flipped. So the user flipped. So the expertise was lost.
*Pay One Price
Yes yes yes. As I say… it’s good news that everyone can publish a book and it’s bad news that everyone can publish a book. It’s good that there’s no one defining what a good book is for us and it’s bad news that no one is defining what a good book is… and on it goes.
yes, so true!
I’m a licensed psychotherapist. My profession has been systematically diluted by armchair experts for years. Now everyone has OCD or PTSD or is a narcissist or - my personal favorite- “a little bit autistic.” Be careful out there!
Arrgh!
I'm a self-taught portrait photographer starting about 8 years ago. I mainly get clients through word of mouth. Part of my business is headshots and I wasn't too worried about AI until one of my girlfriends pointed me in the direction of a FB mums career group thread where people were posting their AI generated headshots and talking about how hilarious they were. Until they weren't. Because then people were posting the results from slightly higher end sources and were getting compliments about how great and real-life they looked. Another tangent saw BIPOC members frustrated because their attempts were returned as 'whitewashed' even after submitting actual photos of themselves. I realized that this will (not could) potentially take clients away from me because it's cheaper, faster and doesn't require you to be uncomfortable (which 90% of my clients usually are) in front of a camera for 45 minutes.
I am noticing a turn in the tide where people are become tired of fake, plastic, and un-real images. How long it takes for this to actually happen I have no idea but until then I just need to keep producing the kind of work that makes AI look like a three year old using a camera 🤣
Just saw that this post is a year old so sorry for the VERY late comment!!
Wow, so frustrating. Yes, that's all we can really do is continue to do the best work we can!
I love this entire piece, but the paragraph about how we no longer have editors really spoke to me. There's nothing more fulfilling as a writer than working with a great editor. I see so much writing that is almost great... and would be great with the right editor. I've tried to think of solutions, but all of them get back to the central core argument of this piece, that our work, whether writers or editors, has been devalued to the point that we can no longer sustain an industry like we used to.
I know. I miss them, and I have seen some brilliant writers here whose pieces are great but would be so much better with a good editor!
I see it in my own work. Even just having someone ask you a question can spark the realization that really makes a piece come together.
The is question also comes up in the fine art industry. Does the artist/painter really want to do the work, be critiqued, go to the private length to get/be better? When I grew up my mother PAID what she could for private artists who were more advanced and/or had taught to view her work. Sometimes they would tear it down to the bone! But she wanted that. She wanted to get better. When she came home from the critique, she would be a little down and we would share some tea and sit to chat about it. Then she would dive back in.
I don’t think new writers know the value of it, but instead see editing as a personal attack on their ability or value.
I think the problem isn't necessarily the writers/editors/artists themselves. It's the fact that they are not receiving the training or support they need, they are overworked and have too much too do because companies just want them to slam stuff out.
All the people who thought writing stories and taking pictures would be fun fucked up journalism. Everyone is a model now, too.
Me, I only want to write, but I have learned a million things I never wanted to do, like how to publish and market my books. I even format them myself. Almost nobody gets to do just one thing now.
I remember when it was someone else's job to write the headlines! Amazing how much has changed.
Yes! Everyone did a specific job they had mastered. Now everyone does a bunch of jobs they’re good enough at!
"Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one.” 🤗
This came to mind directly. Somehow it still applies. I guess the question is the loss of expertise at the cost of proficiency worth it?
No. Quality is higher when one person isn't trying to handle every aspect of a product. But except for very large organizations, we all have to do everything now.
I’m with you on this. Completely.
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.
Yes, good question!
You are reminding me how glad I am I never took those job offers at McAnn, Grey or Wallace-Church.
So good. Depressing, but good. :)
Thank you! It felt good to put it out there instead of just always ranting about it at the bar (not that I will necessarily stop that).
One other comment about the final question you ask: someone I know in the brand development industry says that they can no longer get the same sorts of contracts to put together comprehensive plans for corporations. So much of what they used to do is now done badly, but for free, by AI or with tools that someone in the organization is using badly. It's really affecting so many careers in ways that aren't being documented well.
ugh, so frustrating!
Well said. And AI.
My industry! Yes! I worked on branding and packaging from the 1980s through 2015. Then, out of sheer frustration switched my industry to art. The loss of value of expertise started to snowball as millennials began launching their own brands with paper bag packaging and print solutions appealing to the public as a rebellion to polished ‘branding.’ From there it all went down hill. We watched the default Microsoft type setting be transferred into design programs and not touched. As-Is branding became a thing.
It is certainly the way of things, historically speaking, that industries get supplanted by new inventions and new way of doing things. But the sad thing about what's happening now is that industries aren't being supplanted by humans who are doing something better and more innovative, but rather by people just using cheap or free tools to do things worse.
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...
Ugh, it's so hard! I've heard that from other academics. So many career paths should come with a disclaimer--warning: if you are not independently wealthy or supported by a spouse this may not be for you.
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.
Thanks, Yi! I haven't figured out a better alternative either, and it has been great to find a community of writers, like you! I do like doing this, I'm sticking around for the time being to see if I can make this work.
Great comment to read! Regarding the model, I suspect it’s a better jumping off point, not a means to an end.
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.
Thanks, Nan! And so exciting about your newsletter!