Past time for a roundup of a few Web sites particularly useful to freelance science writers, not least because they are all free. All but one, anyway.
All about freelancing archive
Secondary rights are the rights to resell your work after its first publication. With all-rights contracts growing like kudzu, some authors' groups are trying to work out collective deals and micropayments in order to facilitate reselling stories. Here, freelance Jeff Hecht relates some recent news on these efforts.
Looming over the otherwise idyllic life of the freelance writer is the dark cloud known as health insurance, for which the only silver lining seems to be the silver lining the pockets of the insurance companies. In this report, David Lindley provides a snapshot of how NASW freelances are getting their insurance (or not), and provides some recommendations, both for the individual freelance and for NASW as a whole.
Contracts, rights grabs, negotiations — What advice are magazine editors getting from their lawyers, and how does it affect the freelance? Robin Marantz Henig sat in at a meeting of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and files this report from the other side.
In early March 2003, the NASW-freelance list held a lively discussion about query letters — their value, their formality, their structure, and their success. What follows is edited from that discussion.
. . . so Beryl Lieff Benderly became a freelance. Benderly explains how she went from a prospective anthropology Ph.D. to a highly productive freelance science writer. Along the way, she spent a little time at the U.S. Employment Service, wangled a creative writing stipend from the D.C. unemployment office, and stumbled on a book-writing project that made her an expert in deafness.
Rebecca Skloot gives her advice and tips on crafting successful queries. "Queries aren't just about showing that you have a good idea, they're about making yourself stand out by showing that you can write."
Some make a living at it, but most do not.
Results of first freelance survey are out. Can freelance science writers make a living at what they do? Make a decent living at it? What kind of stuff do we write, and for whom do we write it? How do we think the National Association for Science Writers treats its freelance members?