This is a series of articles I've written about writing, specifically about the problems faced by (a) the new writer who isn't selling enough work yet to make a living or (b) the older writer who isn't selling as much as they used to. To read other installments, click here.
I ended our last installment by quoting this from a message that I received from a fledgling writer…
Isn't it all a matter of who you know? You know an awful lot of people and you've worked a lot. Isn't that what it's all about? You hire someone on one project and then they hire you on their project? Isn't that how it works?
Since I teased this installment, another writer wanna-be wrote to me and said, "I'm waiting anxiously for this chapter because my inability to sell anything seems to flow from just what that guy said. I have to somehow get into a position of being able to hire others before others will hire me." That is absolutely not so.
I've been sitting here for some time now, trying to think of a time when I hired someone and then they hired me or vice-versa. I get the feeling there is one but if so, it's happened so rarely that I can't recall it. I can recall a number of times when people I hired or knew well probably could have offered me work or bought my writing and didn't, and I'll talk about that later. But no, the kind of quid pro quo you describe has not happened much if at all.
What I regard as my first professional sale came about because I studied a locally-produced magazine, wrote up some some pieces that seemed to be the kind of thing they were buying and then went to their offices with them. I steeled up my courage — which was then in need of considerable steeling — went in and told the receptionist I'd like to see the editor to show him some submissions. She checked with the editor who said he was busy but would see me if I came back an hour later. I left, had lunch, came back an hour later and sold him three of the five pieces I'd brought.
Later, he bought some more and also recommended me to the editors of other magazines published by the same company. Those gigs led to others at other firms, plus the work I did for that company led to me getting involved with a couple of local public relations firms and writing press releases 'n' things for them. But that phase of my career all started with a stranger buying my work and other strangers buying my work.
Here is something I learned: One job often leads to another. This is assuming you do it competently, of course. It doesn't always lead to another but it often does — sometimes immediately, sometimes much later.
I next got into writing comic books. That started with meeting a man named Jack Kirby and him liking something of mine he'd read. He was a total stranger on the day we met and yet that same day, he recommended me for a job and then he later hired me. Then I worked for Disney Studios writing foreign comic books, a position that my friend Mike Royer told me about. I, in turn, helped Mike get his job working with Kirby…but that's not a case of him hiring me and then me hiring him.
Writing the Disney foreign comics led to me writing the Disney American comics which led to me writing other, non-Disney comics which came from the same publisher. By the time I was nineteen, I was writing at least three comic books a month. That led to me writing for other publishers.
I got into writing live-action television because I met and teamed up with a writer named Dennis Palumbo. Among Dennis's many skills was that he was much better than I was at approaching total strangers and asking for a meeting. He got us in to see one producer neither of us had met before and that producer ended up buying a series idea from Evanier and Palumbo, plus he also recommended us to other producers he knew.
One of those producers gave us an assignment on a prime-time show he was producing and that led to us signing with one of the top agencies for writers in Hollywood. Thereafter, the agents there sent us to meet other producers (total strangers) who hired us and then when Dennis and I decided to unteam, the agents sold us as singles. One day, one of them sent me to meet the people at Sid and Marty Krofft's company and they hired me for one show…and then another and another and another…
I haven't had an agent for twenty years. When my last one quit the business, I was working steadily and never got around to replacing him. I don't know if I ever will because I still get calls from people who have some silly reason to think I can deliver what they need. It may end tomorrow but today, I have a paying assignment to jump on as soon as I finish this.
It really isn't that different from when I found a good plumber and I recommended him to friends and some of them recommended him to their friends and some of those people recommended him to their friends and so on. The guy got a reputation in some circles as a good, responsible plumber and so he got a lot of calls. If you develop a reputation as a good, responsible writer in the right circles, you'll get a lot of calls. You may not get the ones you want when you'd like to get them but someone will eventually want you for something that will fit.
So it really isn't a matter of "I hire you, then you hire me." At least, it's never been that way with me. To be honest, there was a time when I thought it would work like that and was miffed and mystified that it didn't. I came to realize that when you're in a hiring position, you can't be thinking, "Okay, who do I owe?"
First and foremost has to be "Who is the right person for this position?" That might be the same person but most of the time, it isn't…and if you just think of which buddies you can swap assignments with, you won't be in a hiring position for long.