Writing about science is a hobby for some, and puts dinner on the table for others; yet others, like me, fall somewhere in between. People enamored of the idea of so-called “citizen journalism” (a nice way of describing the mechanism whereby professional media outlets fill their pages with content that they either pay nothing for, or a token far underneath standard union rates, while giving the public that warm fuzzy sense that they are “interacting” with the outlet in question) frequently take people to task for fearing it’s a conspiracy to do freelancers out of a few quid.<\/p>\n
\nI’m sure it’s not a conspiracy, but it is a real problem for some of my friends who subsist entirely on freelance science writing earnings. It’s not as easy to pitch a story now, when there seems to be legions of people \u2013 presumably in well-paid day jobs \u2013 willing to “interact” for free. There is, simply, less paid copy required. Nature Network, for example, used to pay freelancers like me to write news stories; I assume this was discontinued because they realized it wasn’t economical when there was so much engaging reporting going on about local events amongst their own bloggers, for absolutely free. It makes perfect business sense, and it gives a voice to people who before had none, but I do wonder at the long-term implications for professional writers. Traditional ‘Letters to the Editor’ pages typically made up a minute fraction of a media outlet, but user-generated content is expanding far beyond this. <\/p>\n
\nThere is another issue. Amateurs may be engaging, but they might not be conversant with the basic tenants of journalism. A few years back a particular blogger “broke” a story about some perceived evil that a big publishing company had apparently perpetrated, and it made a huge stink, but (as it turns out), she had failed to perform the basic, Journalism 101 task of simply checking her facts with a second source. In the end, her story was based on a faulty assumption and contained patent untruths \u2013 oh, and she also managed to commit libel at the same time. Because she was an amateur, no one bothered to correct her (and she was lucky she wasn’t sued). There are probably still people out there who believe her story because there was no self-correction, and no editorial desk to act as a safety net.<\/p>\n
\nBut that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about cold, hard cash. Science writing is surprisingly lucrative \u2013 and I didn’t really internalize how lucrative until I received the first royalty statement for my novel Experimental Heart<\/a>. Now, the book is doing very well; after launching in November, my publisher recently ran out of the first edition and had to do a second printing \u2013 and now I hear a third printing is just about to commence. Is seems really promising, financially, until you do the sums. If I sell a thousand books, I receive…about five hundred US dollars. <\/p>\n \nTo put this into perspective, I’ve called up one of my invoices for a London science trade magazine I occasionally write for and have done a comparison. To earn the same amount, I would have had to have written three science news pieces for them at 300 words each. <\/p>\n \nTo put this into even more perspective, those 900 words would have taken me about six hours: two to research, two to find and ring up experts for quotes, and two to write the pieces (and respond to the subeditor’s queries after submitting my copy). In contrast, my novel is 140,000 words; it took two months to write the first draft and three years to edit it into shape. <\/p>\n \nSomehow, this just doesn’t seem right. Are book authors getting a bad deal? And how does any author survive without an additional income? I suppose that in the absence of doing a J.K. or a Da Vinci, full-time book writers must supplement their earnings with honoraria from personal appearances \u2013 and possibly, by writing for magazines at an exponentially higher per-word rate. <\/p>\n \nThat is, if there is anyone left willing to pay for professionals in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writing about science is a hobby for some, and puts dinner on the table for others; yet others, like me, fall somewhere in between. People enamored of the idea of so-called “citizen journalism” (a nice way of describing the mechanism … Continue reading