Digital Marketing and Writing Assignments
The Internet has changed the way digital marketing and writing assignments are conducted. New media content providers interact more with their audience than traditional media journalists and copywriters.
According to Scott Robson, vice president for MTV’s new movies initiative, “Work doesn’t end as a freelancer after you turn the piece in. You have to be able to blog about it and get it out to your network. Get involved in comments, look at web traffic and decide if it all warrants a follow-up article.”
Following up on reader response isn’t the only challenge—or triumph—facing freelance writers. In fact, a host of experts weigh in on the unsung heroes of the written word.
“I have certain rules that I’ve established for myself that took a while post-day job to figure out,” shares author Sloane Crosley. “Everyone says people who freelance or are writers struggle with the structure of it [so] I’m not allowed to check email before a certain hour. I’m not allowed to run errands during the day. I have to write a certain amount every day.”
“I knew that you couldn’t make a living simply writing about the outdoors, so I made an effort from the beginning of my freelance career to write about other subjects,”explains writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer.
“If you dig deep and keep peeling the onion, artists and freelance writers are the leaders in society—the people who start to get new ideas out,”adds Allan Savory, Zimbabwean environmentalist and co-founder of The Savory Institute.
“I always feel freelance writers are leading a heroic life,”notes Northern Irish poet and critic Thomas Paulin, while the French Nobel Prize winning author and philosopher Albert Camus has said, “The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.”
