A Curious Exercise

March 11, 2008

I started putting together a bibliography of all my published works. Since I was first published in about 1990 (and got my first paid piece in 1993), you might wonder why I waited 18 years to do this.

I'm not really sure. I've kept everything I've had published in 3-ring binders in those acetate files, but I thought it might be worthwhile for a variety of reasons, to put together a bibliography. Curiosity mostly, but also, as time goes by I can't always remember what I wrote, and there are things I've done that aren't attributed or that are parts of larger works where I'm a contributing editor. It may also be useful for certain future projects to be able to hand a publisher or editor or client a list of publications.

It's an interesting thing, though, going back through your work like this. I see trends sometimes. Here's an example:

“What Is Esoteric Testing?”—Molecular Milestones/ADVANCE for Medical Laboratory Professionals, November 20, 2006

 “HIV Testing For Everyone?”—Molecular Milestones/ADVANCE for Medical Laboratory Professionals, October 23, 2006

 “Writing Columns For Local Newspapers.”—Podiatry Online, October 9, 2006

 “What Exactly Is Molecular Diagnostics?”—Molecular Milestones/ADVANCE for Medical Laboratory Professionals, September 25, 2006

What I noticed here was just how often my headline was a question. That makes senses, doesn't it? Everyone then knows what the article is about and you can presumably answer the question in the context of the piece. It's a neat trick, and I don't think I was doing it intentionally. It just sort of happens. Plus, titles don't really come all that naturally to me. A lot of times they're changed by my editors. I think I wrote all those, although I know the Podiatry Online article was assigned by my editor.

The other thing that comes to mind, since I'm currently working my way through 2006 published articles, was how my writing career has changed and evolved.

2006 was the last year I wrote a lot of articles. Probably over 100. In 2007 I wrote probably 25 or 30, but spent most of my time writing business reports. 2008 seems to be much more of that as well. Also, instead of writing a ton of articles for amounts from $150 to $1000, I seem more likely to mostly be writing reports for $7,000 to $20,000. There are both positive and negative aspects of that, but I can honestly tell you one of the pluses is not having three deadlines every week. On the other hand, big projects typically pay once or twice, sometimes three times depending on how the money breaks down, and it takes some getting used to and some money management skills. It's also one thing if a check for $250 runs 6 weeks late and another thing entirely if a check for $10,000 runs 6 weeks (or 12 weeks) late.

Another thing I'm seeing is how few of my earlier clients I still write for. Just taking those four articles above, three were columns (Molecular Milestones) that I used to write for ADVANCE for Medical Laboratory Professionals. The column used to be called Genetics Jargon. Anyway, although I had an article in them this January that I wrote back in the fall, I no longer regularly write for ADVANCE. The reasons are numerous, but mostly it comes down to money and a shift in expertise. First, I've sort of grown out of their relatively low pay range, and second, I was writing a column about molecular diagnostics and/or clinical genetics for med techs and lab professionals. But after being out of the field for a couple years, I began to feel very, very remote from the topics I was writing about. Probably if they'd paid three or four times better I would have gotten over that, but they didn't, so I didn't.

Thirdly, as I allude to, I see many of the things I write about have shifted. Not all of them. I've got this odd little sideline where I write about practice management issues for podiatrists, and although Podiatry Online no longer works with freelancers, Podiatry Management does and I write about half a dozen articles a year for them. I also write some personal finance pieces for Bankrate.com, although this year I seem to be writing more about insurance issues for them.

But a bigger thing is that I used to write about biotechnical issues a lot. The actual science of medicine and genetics and molecular diagnostics. Now I'm much more likely to write about the business side of all of those.

I didn't set out to move in that direction. I followed the work and I followed the money. In that respect, there's a kind of Darwinian natural selection going. I have a hard time competing head-to-head for tech articles with writers with Masters, PhDs, and MD degrees. (Sometimes I do simply by being competent). You could argue that business writers would have an easier time writing about the business matters than I would, but what seems to be the case is that my understanding of the technical aspects of medicine and labs and technology give me an edge in terms of reporting and analyzing the business aspects of things. It may be as simple as the fact I'm skeptical of a lot of what companies indicate are trends in the area because I can see potential technical pitfalls, which informs my business thinking. Either that, or, as I've commented before, I like to learn new things, and learning about business is, for me, a new thing.

There's also the little fact of the 80/20 rule. If you haven't heard of this, it's been around for a couple hundred years. It's an economic observation that over time, businesses typically make 80% of their income form 20% of their clients. And it's probably true.

Cheers,

Mark TErry