Writing for Web Sites: AMWA-DVC Freelance Workshop Roundtable Discussion

This weekend I led a roundtable discussion on the topic of writing for Web sites at the American Medical Writers Association–Delaware Valley Chapter’s Freelance Workshop, held in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. More than 80 medical writers and editors—most of them freelances—attended the workshop, which included four presentations in the morning and two sessions of roundtable discussions in the afternoon, interspersed with a ample opportunities to network during breakfast, two breaks, and one luncheon.

Participants in the roundtable I led discussed the positives and negatives of well-known association Web sites and of individual freelance writers’’editors’ Web sites. We were surprised to see that the Web sites of some of the most prominent consumer/professional associations are less than user friendly. Part of the problem may be the need to create a Web site for two disparate audiences.

Nonetheless, participants identified certain components that work and fail, formatting that enhances or detracts, and wording and formatting that increases or decreases user participation in a Web site. The feedback from participants led me to re-evaluate my own Web site—a site that’s always in transition to meet the needs of my audience.

Kudos went to the Web site of an AMWA member, Lori Alexander, whose Web site’s style, formatting, navigation, and function was deemed to far surpass those of much larger health care association and those of other writers and editors.

What’s for Lunch?

 

Our family has a rather unique schedule in that I work from a barn in the back of our property (the chickens that occupied the barn before me have long ago met their maker courtesy of Mr. Perdue), and my husband works as a train conductor. Working for the railroad means that he has a split shift. He leaves before the crack of dawn, takes a train in and out of NYC, and then comes home for a layover. He later goes back to work and returns home after dark.

So, he is home in the middle of the day when I am trying hard to concentrate on my work and my clients, who are at their desks demanding my attention in mid-day. My husband, however, is asking “What’s for lunch?”

His schedule allows us to spend quality time in the middle of the day, but creates a glitch in my workday schedule. Yet, isn’t that why I’m freelancing—so that if I choose to work at 1 am, that’s when I can work, rather than at 12 noon? But, invariably, I sit down to lunch with my husband at noon, and my office phone rings in the house (that may be part of my problem—I set up my business phone to ring in the barn office AND the house), interrupting mealtime and disturbing my digestion.

Separating work and home is a problem for anyone who has both family responsibilities and work responsibilities. But it becomes even harder when working from home.

While at my previous full-time position, I viewed freelance work as the greener pasture. Now on the freelance side, I look back at the full-time position and realize—at least there was a fence separating the pastures.

 

Making the Difficult Cuts

I’ve been lucky to have clients who have treated me like a valued colleague even when I have not been a full-time part of their teams. They’ve been quick to pay, reasonable with deadlines, good communicators, and, in general, just plain fun people to work with. I have yet to meet a client I want to gracefully axe from my list.

And yet I find myself, even in these times, faced with a dilemma—or is it a dilemma? My work is moving in many directions. I’m an editor, a copy editor, a writer, a managing editor, a reference librarian, and a market researcher. I am all of these and more. And I enjoy all of them. There are benefits to being diversified—there are always incoming projects, both short-term and long-term, large and small; there’s little chance of becoming bored; the revenue stream is steady; and the opportunity to learn new skills is nearly always available. The dilemma is that I wonder if I’m too diversified. Is that possible in economic times like these?

Is there greater value in finding a niche? Or does finding a niche create the possibility of landing in very dry times? Do I let go of some clients and keep only others? Or do I just stop trolling for new clients and hold on dearly to those who have been valuable to me throughout the years?

Those are my quandaries and I’ve decided to take my dilemma “by the horns,” so to speak, and get the advice of a mentor. This is my first step in working with a mentor—a mentor I found through the Editorial Freelancers Association. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Is Freelance Really Another 9-to-5 Job?

I am not alone, I’m sure, among freelance writers, designers, artists, and other type of business owners to wonder why I continue to work for myself rather than go back to the 9-to-5 job working for someone else.

The conversation with myself happens when there are too many looming deadlines: a 750-page clinical article due in 2 days, a 20-page clinical editing job due in 3 hours in which I have to “dummy” down the copy so that a healthcare worker who reads at a 6th grade level can understand it (ee gads, that’s a scary thought, right?), a press release due in 1 day, and a final proofreading of a 48-page journal due in 1 day. It happens when I am asked for a 1-day turnaround on a job I promised to complete but that came in 2 days late and is now on a crash course with another deadline.

An editor friend and I have a running joke about a copyeditor we once knew whose “real job” was decorating cakes. Her copyediting skills reflected this fact. But we often say, “Wouldn’t life be easier if we had to lop off a burnt cake crust rather than cut 500 words down to 250? Wouldn’t it be easier to embellish with icing than stretch a scant 100 words into a full-page journal article? Would anyone question our use of the comma or semicolon? Would we have to provide a treatise on why hyphens are used in double-word adjectives that precede the noun but not when they follow the noun?

The desire to freelance is based on the need to be one’s own boss, to call the shots, to nap in the middle of the day, to watch a child’s school play at 11 am, to be flexible. But how flexible can a freelance really be? Of course, we can turn down a job that requires a fast turnaround. But how many times can we turn down a client and expect to hear from the client again when we’re good and ready for more work?

Clients need their work completed when they need it, not when I, as a freelance, feel moved to do it. How does my freelance status really differ from that of full-time employees? Whether I do the work at 6 am or at 8 pm, I still have to do the work. And I find that my hours are far longer as a freelance than they were when I worked full-time. And I realize there’s no such thing as a 9-to-5 job these days. Everyone I know works far more than the 40-hour work week.

But as a freelance, I find my work becoming ME, or ME becoming my WORK, far more than occurred when I worked for someone else. Is the need to work freelance tied to a type-A personality? Are we compelled to say yes to every job offer we get and to perfect that job no matter how many hours of sleep we lose? I think so.