Marc Luber: Hey everyone - welcome to Careers Out There where we help you find a career
that fits you. I'm Marc Luber, the host, and today we're talking to successful writer Brad
Herzog. Brad, thanks for joining us at Careers Out There.
Brad Herzog: Happy to be here.
Marc Luber: So what you're all watching now is a short version of this interview. To learn
more abouut being a writer, you can check out the full version of the interview at Careers
Out There dot com. Brad's a successful writer with over 2 dozen published children's books.
He also has a career as a freelance magazine writer, he's a professional blogger and he's
a critically acclaimed author of 3 travel memoirs. His most recent book is Turn Left
At the Trojan Horse. Let's learn now from Brad. If someoneís watching right now and
thinking I want to be a freelance writer, whether itís for sports or music or something
totally unrelated. Whatís that path like? What is the life like if someone's living
it? What is the pay like? How do you get paid? How do you get jobs? Tell us that - let's
learn what thatís all about.
Brad Herzog: Itís not easy. But it's a great - I love the lifestyle, I am my own boss,
and I work from home. My job is to convince a magazine editor - as a magazine writer,
my job is to convince an editor that my idea is worthy of a magazine story.
Marc Luber: So that editor is being hounded by writers all over the place competing for
the same ink?
Brad Herzog: Yes ñ and there are lots of tricks of the trade. We donít have time to
go into all of them. For me one of the best things I did was to cultivate relationships
with editors. If I get one article in there, I do a good job with it ñ Iím easy to work
with ñ Iím professional ñ I write it well ñ and that will get me a second story, you
know? And over the years, when I was really doing a lot of magazine writing, I had a handful
of magazines that were my go-to magazines that I would write for. But truly, my favorite
part of the job is my ideas. I have two huge filing cabinets in my office that are filled
with folders, filled with ideas. My job is to take my imagination and turn it into ideas
ñ grab those ideas when they come to me ñ and write a good letter ñ a query letter
itís called ñ to a magazine editor telling them what my idea is, why Iím the right person
to write it or why I should write for their magazine. So I have to know their magazine
well and I have to know the editor well. And I have to write this query letter well and
convince them that itís a good idea. Cornell Alumni Magazine is an example ñ thatís the
one magazine Iíve written for for 19 years. Iíve written articles about Jimmy Smits who
is a Cornell grad ñ the actor Jimmy Smits, a Sesame Street writer that Iíve found. Whatís
it like to write for Sesame Street? A transgender politician, who, if she gets elected ñ she
used to be a man, now is a woman, if she gets elected to the Maryland legislature this year,
sheíll be the first ever state-level transgender politician. Thatís a great story! How could
they possibly pass up that story?! But I had to find that story. So locating a story is
important, and then I have to convince the editor that itís worthy of their magazine.
Then they send me a contract or sometimes, often Iíll work without a contract ñ in
fact, usually. Theyíll say OK, we want you to write this story, we need it by May 15th,
it should be 3000 words long and weíre going to pay you 75 cents a word. Then Iíll go
from there. But the pay...
Marc Luber: Do they have a word limit? Is there a limit there or can you stuff as many
words as you want in there?
Brad Herzog: I wish, there is definitely a limit; it is much easier for me to write long
than it is to write short. I want to put it all in there ñ I want to tell my story poetically.
And when you have a limit on words, you have to really be sparse with using words and you
have to edit and re-edit and re-edit. Usually when I write something thatís supposed to
be 3,000 words, my first draft is about 4,500 words.
Marc Luber: Is it kind of like the publication bases a certain rate per word or is it based
on how much experience you have? Do they say ñ well itís this much per word if youíve
written for us before, but since you havenít, youíre worth half of that. How does that
work?
Brad Herzog: Yeah, probably a little of both. Itís not as itemized as you would think like
itís just sort of what they offer generally. You know I wrote an article for Readerís
Digest once and think I got almost $3 a word. So I got about $5,000 for a 1,500 word story.
Iíve written for other magazines where Iíll write 1000 words and theyíll pay me $300,
so thereís $300 versus $5000. It really varies. Itís hard to get those high paying ones.
It's hard to cobble together a living with those kind of numbers.
Marc Luber: So then thatís something everyone should know! Right?
Brad Herzog: Yeah!
Marc Luber: Is that, should we say this is red magic marker territory ñ should everyone
get out their red magic markers right now? Everyone this is red magic marker territory
ñ Brad is saying itís hard to scrabble together a living as a freelance writer ñ but you
still enjoy it and itís rewarding.
Brad Herzog: Yeah, itís very rewarding as a lifestyle especially and as a person who
is intellectually curious. For me to be able to enter all these lives and look at the world
through a writerís eyes where everything I see is fodder for a story... Anytime a phone
rings or an email clicks it could be somebody on the other end saying we want you to do
something interesting.
Marc Luber:Hey everyone - to learn more about the different ways to have a writing career,
you can watch the full interview at Careers Out There dot com. Brad's going to share how
to find work as a writer, what the money is like, what the lifestyle is like, the biggest
challenges of the career path, some keys to success and much more. Brad, thanks again
for joining us.
Brad Herzog: My pleasure, Marc.
Marc Luber: Thanks for watching, everyone. I'm Marc Luber and I look forward to seeing
you again soon. Take care.
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