Maya Kosoff
SEASON 2, EPISODE 1:
We're back with season two of The Writers’ Co-op! This season, we’ll be interviewing other freelance writers to get a glimpse into how they run their businesses. Success takes on many shapes and sizes, so we want you to understand how others make it work. To kick off this season, we’re talking with Maya Kosoff. Maya is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. You might know her from The Internet. (She’s an excellent follow on Twitter). After journalism school, she helped launch VanityFair’s The Hive, and has written for the New York Times, GEN, MRKR, The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Business Insider, and many others. Maya and Wudan talk about finding ‘life rafts’ as a freelancer -- those ground floor, stable gigs that help your peace of mind --
how to best navigate social media for relationship building, and how to use your journalistic skills and beat areas to find other journalism-adjacent gigs that will help pay your bills. This week, Patreon subscribers will get access to exclusive resources like Maya's Twitter etiquette tips and gig bingo, to help you brainstorm unique ways to use your journalism and storytelling skills. You can join the Co-op here: https://www.patreon.com/twcpod
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Full Transcript Below:
J- Hi everybody, and welcome back to season two of The Writers’ Co-op
W- We are so excited to be back!
J- I am Jenni Gritters
W- And this is Wudan Yan
J- Happy-- what month is it, September? How is it fall? What’s happening?
W- Yeah, I don’t like fall. I mean, I don’t like the idea that time passes so quickly, so don’t say that.
J- Wudan, how was your pandemic summer break?
W- Ugh, I promise I won’t break out into song every two seconds. My pandemic summer was a lot. 2020 has been a lot. I spent a lot of time outdoors. I got married. I had a move, kind of unexpectedly. There’s been a lot to deal with in the interim. I got a therapist. How about you, Jenni?
J- You say those things with a lot of chill, but they’re a big deal. I mean, you got married. That’s not small.
Life for me has been wild and also completely mundane. I think that’s how the pandemic is. My baby is now 9 months old, and he’s crawling, which means we have to baby-proof everything in our house, so it’s been chaos. And we made the decision to put him in daycare because I cannot focus in my house with him screaming upstairs. It was a really tough decision because of the pandemic, but I think it was the right one. So, you know, turns out childcare and being a working mom feels really no-win, which I didn’t expect. I thought I could game the system, which feels very typical Jenni. You can’t game that system, I’ve discovered.
Along those lines I also hit a major burnout point in mid-August, last month, because I was working so much and taking care of my kid three-quarters of the time while my husband, who is a nurse, was still working long hours at the hospital. So as a result I took off pretty much all of this month. I took a few weeks of actual vacation and then I’ve sort of been slow roll trying to figure out what else I want to do. The recalibration was good, but I just had a full-on ‘I can’t go on’ break down. I cancelled a bunch of projects. I think it was really a good call.
Let’s see… I went to the Oregon Coast and the San Juan Islands, and I redid my office, because I’m going to have to work here for the next eleven years. For forever. I gave myself a raise. So yeah, like I said, both busy and totally boring.
W- Burnout has definitely been a big theme of my life for the past few months and probably for a lot of people too, right? Because we’re all doing the same things mostly in the same places. And I would say that burnout is a big reason why I started seeing a therapist, which has been really goo. So letter of recommendation.
J- Yeah, co-sign that letter of recommendation.
So let’s talk about this season of The Writers’ Co-op. We made it here to season 2. So Wudan, how are we thinking differently this season?
W- So many things. So first, instead of us talking all the time we are interviewing freelance creatives on how they run their businesses. In short, I think all their stories do a great job of encapsulating what we talked about in season 1: finding clients, determining their rates, how they run their freelance business, their values, etc.
J- Yeah, I think one of the really fun things about recording these episodes has been learning from other people. All of the people we’ve talked to so far have been really candid about their business, plans, the way they think about money, how much money they make, work/life balance. All that. So I have learned a lot and I hope that you all will find them really helpful as well.
Wuday, who is our guest for our first episode?
W- This wee for the launch of season 2 we have Maya Kosoff. Maya is a writer and editor based in Brookly, New York. You may know her from the internet. In 2016 she helped launch Vanity Fair’s vertical the Hive, which covers technology. You may also have read her stuff in The New York Times, Medium’s Gen and Maker, The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review and so much more. These days she splits her time between freelancing and copywriting.
J- I’m really excited about this one.
W- Me too.
J- So many of us fall into freelancing. I think Wudan and I were just reading about how many people have become freelancers in the past 6 months. It’s nuts and I really love the way that Maya thinks about finding ways to do the work that you want to do, but then also buoying that work with the things that pay well. Because this is how both of us approach this thing too.
W- Totally. So, let’s dig in. Here is my interview with Maya.
Thanks so much, Maya, for coming on the show today. It’s so lovely to have you.
Maya Kosoff- Thank you for having me!
W- Yeah, so these interviews are meant to be pretty informal. And we want to hear about how you’ve built your freelance business. So tell us: what are you doing right now, freelance career-wise.
M- Yeah, so freelance-wise, I’m kind of not doing as much as I normally do. I’m kind of full time at this agency right now, so this summer I’ve kind of let my freelance stuff dwindle. But I have one consistent thought leadership copywriting gig I do freelance. I'm signing a contract with Medium to write for them on a regular basis, so that will be like an anchor freelance gig for me. And I kind of pick up assignments here and there. I had one go up in Study Hall. A friend of mine started a new website about internet and influencer culture called No Filter, so I’m writing a piece for her site. Kind of doing this and that here and there.
W- That sounds super super busy.
M- It is. I don’t know how to not be busy all the time because I feel like I’m so used to it from full-time freelancing that now only working nine to five, I’m like “where’s my homework assignment? Where’s my extracurriculars?” I feel like I need something else to do.
W- Maybe that’s just a fault of our generation that we need to be perpetually busy.
M- Exactly.
W- Well Maya, let’s go back a little and I want you to tell me about what it was like growing up for you, and what your relationship was with money when you were a child. Jenni and I talked about this on season 1, and we think those experiences are really foundational in how we think about money and how that trickles into how we run our business. So can you say a little bit about that?
M- Yeah, that’s a really interesting question and I agree. I feel like the way that you’re raised to deal with money is formative. My parents are divorced. I grew up in a single-parent household of lower income. I never had an allowance growing up. There was no fiscal literacy for me when I was younger. I didn’t really learn how to save money. Frankly I’m still learning how to save money as an adult. But I worked starting in high school, my first job I got when I was 15 and I kind of always had a job like babysitting on the side for people or doing odd jobs to make money. So it was very clear to me from a very young age that there was no safety net for me in the form of family money or generational wealth or anything like that. It became very important for me to hit the ground running and making money where I could.
W- How did that impact what you were doing earlier in your career? Did you have any financial fallbacks at that time? What were you up to?
M- Yeah, so I graduated from J-school in 2014. I went to Syracuse. And the week before I graduated, I got an offer for a post-grad internship with Business Insider. I always viewed moving to New York as this intangible thing for me that I couldn’t do because everyone I knew who ended up in New York was working in an unpaid internship. Their parents were paying for them to live in the NYU dorms over the summer. And that wasn’t really a possibility for me, and for a lot of people I knew. So I had kind of already written off the idea of moving to New York, which I had been told over and over again in college was the epicenter of where all the media stuff happened, and if you weren’t there then you weren’t going to really work in media and that’s that. And so I got this offer and it was a full time, 40 hour per week thing. So I didn’t have anything else going on, so I accepted the offer, graduated and moved to the city. My mom’s family lives out in the Rockaways in Queens, which had just been decimated by Sandy two years prior to this. So it wasn’t like the cool, fun Rockaways of today. There was no boardwalk. Everything was kind of in ruins. I moved out there with them and stayed with them for a summer while I was making $13 or $14 at BI and I didn't really have a safety net. I didn’t really start my career like that. So at the beginning of my career it was very important to me to have a stable gig, and by that I kind of only knew to look for full time work because I felt so financially insecure, I kind of felt like I needed a stable way to be making money. So my internship with BI turned into a full time job where I was reporting on startups and venture capital and Uber.
From that point on, for a few years I thought this makes the most sense for me. I don’t have a savings account. I have $50,000 in student loan debt. The most viable path for me is not freelancing. It’s working at a job like this.
W- So I know you stayed at staff jobs for a while, right? After Business Insider you went to work for Vanity Fair and then this new Gawker and then a little for The New York Times, right? So tell me a little about how you made the decision to go freelance.
M- Yeah. I mean, when everything kind of imploded with new Gawker very quickly, I didn’t really have time to think about it. I just knew I had to quit. So I did quit and suddenly I was freelancing. I kind of made the decision for myself quickly, and I suddenly was finding myself thrust into the world of freelancing during the time when there were mass layoffs at Buzzfeed and Huffington Post and all of these other websites. So I was suddenly on the market with all of these other very talented reporters and writers and editors. Because of the way that the Gawker thing played out, it was so public that I was very fortunate to have people seeing what was happening as it was happening and immediately coming to me with offers to write a piece for them or to help edit, or whatever they could throw at me I would take. I was not picky at the time and had never freelanced before. My worst nightmare was to enter freelancing. It was voluntary, I had quit my job voluntarily, but there was no foresight. I had no savings account. I had $1200 in my checking account and it was not the way I wanted to start a freelancing career to the extent that I ever thought I would have one. It was very sudden. And it took me a while to find my sea legs. I stil feel like I’m finding my sea legs.
W- I’m interested in hearing more about this, mostly because with the coronavirus pandemic there are so many people losing their jobs due to the shifting market. Were there things you did as you were on your way out that you think set you up to get assignments from other publishers and editors?
M- Not intentionally if it happened like that. But also when you look at someone leaving their job after a couple of weeks of employment there I think for a lot of editors that’s probably like, oh, we don’t want to work that person. That person must be difficult to work with. I don’t think it telegraphs something good about me that I was quitting the way I did. Maybe I was a problem employee. I don’t know. There was no thoughtfulness behind that, I don’t think. I was barely there long enough to make on epaycheck. There was nothing I did to set myself up to find work in freelance immediately Obviously I used my platform on Twitter to connect with editors and people who were hiring and who could bring me on to write a piece or whatever. I met with a lot of editors kind of in the wake of the fallout of leaving Gawker, but there was nothing intentional about the way I did anything.
W- Say more about using Twitter, because we get a lot of questions about this, actually. Like, how good is Twitter as a networking too? What is the best way to use it? When I think about people who are good at Twitter, you definitely come to mind.
M- For me, Twitter has been incredibly helpful in a professional sense. I think that it’s helped me meet so many other writers and connect with so many editors, and particularly in that moment it was really instrumental because of the way that the Gawker thing played out. It did kind of play out on Twitter, so it was kind of ground zero for that entire thing, so a lot of editors immediately DMed me or emailed me, who had my email address. And it became, and always has been for other assignments and other items in my career, a really helpful platform for connecting with editors. I don’t know how much of it has to do with the size of my platform or how public-facing I have been in the past as a full time reporter. But I would say Twitter has been such a boon to me, and it’s so bad in so many other ways. But it has also been very helpful to me in terms of connecting with editors.
W- And when you say “connecting with editors,” it’s a DM? It’s you riffing on something? Just constantly replying? What does that look like? What are the rules of engagement, if you will?
M- Yeah, I think for me it’s like I will follow an editor or an editor will follow me and then the other person follows back and then maybe there is something I very dumbly tweeted about and they DM me like “Hey, this would be a good piece. Why don’t we talk about this?” And then I’m like “You’re right. I should not tweet all of my ideas.” Or I will come to them with an idea. If they’re an editor that I’ve wanted to work with I’ll follow that publication’s guide for pitching but I’ll start with a DM and be like “Hey, I’m not pitching you via DM but are you the best person to contact? And if so can I shoot you an email?” or something like that.
I think there are ways to do it poorly, so I’m wary to give advice in a template because I feel like there are lots of ways it could go wrong. But I’ve had a lot of luck just building a rapport by like you make some tweets and then you respond to some tweets and thern there’s a DM and it feels very organic that way. That's kind of been the way that I’ve worked with some of my favorite editors. It starts with an authentic, genuine, not forced back and forth on twitter.
W- I love this. It really resonates with what Jenni and I talked about in season one, instead of calling networking, "networking," which sounds terrible, calling it relationship building, which is basically exactly what you described just on the Twitter verse. When you were freelancing, you know, starting when you first quit Gawker and was thrust off the deep end. How did you decide what assignments to take on?
M- Definitely, well, in the beginning, I wasn't picky. I said yes to everything and I didn't know that I didn't have to do that. Um, I felt like I was barely treading water at that point. And I needed like all of the income I could find because I, you know, I was so new to this and I was suddenly without the source of income, I'd been kind of anticipating I would have for the year I pitched things. People came to me with ideas. I said, yes, to everything. I was doing lots of journalism. I started kind of exploring corporate freelance work at that point too, which I'd never done before. I'd never done any kind of content marketing copywriting, anything like that. And then as time went on after the first couple of months under my belt money started coming in and I could start saving money.
I found it easier to have some agency in saying no to assignments or telling myself I didn't have to do everything all the time because that's kind of my inclination as a worker all the time is to be a yes man. And it's like being like, "Oh, what's the worst quality about me. I'm a perfectionist." But I really have a hard time saying no to things. And that really extended to freelancing because of the way I started freelancing, because I felt like I had to do everything because I really needed to make money and pay my rent. But yeah, over time it got kind of pickier. And I started understanding that the rate that was offered to me was not necessarily the rate that I had to accept. And, you know, I think resources and talking to other freelancers and learning from other people was really kind of invaluable to me those first few months.
But it definitely took probably two or three months of like learning that I didn't have to do everything all the time. And there was also things like, I remember one time an editor at the New York Times opinion section had asked me if I wanted to write a piece for her. And so I sent this person over an idea. She was like, that's great. Will you write it for us? I was so naive. I was so new to freelancing. I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to be in the New York Times. This is amazing. I'll just write this piece without talking to her about the fee for it. And I wrote the whole thing on spec basically. And just didn't know that I didn't need to do that, but I guess I sent her a draft of it and she was like, "This is so great. But yeah, we can't like take this." And I was like, "Okay, well, is there like a kill fee that you're going to give me for it? What's the rate?" And she was like, "No, no. We only accept things on spec." I felt so burned by that, but I was also so naive. Like there were so many things I didn't know at that point about freelancing that I didn't realize. I didn't know. And I don't mind like talking about how dumb I was then, because I feel like if I talk about it now, people will maybe learn something from me. So it was a lot of trial and error.
W- Yeah. I'm the exact same way. All the mistakes I make —and I still make mistakes. Like this morning, I realized my editor had a 7:00 AM deadline in for an assignment that I had due. Not only was it 7:00 AM. It was also 7:00 AM Eastern and I'm on Pacific time. And I just completely missed that in my scope of work and felt like an idiot. And I was like, of course I would never agree to that. So yes. Then I went on Twitter and was like everyone learned from me and just double check if your scope of work has a time attached to it. Yeah. Still making mistakes. Okay. Tell me about how you started getting corporate freelance work. Right? Because a lot of our listeners are journalists wanting to get more lucrative assignments and with journalism, that's obviously hard. So how do you navigate the two?
M- Yeah, that's a good question. I think by merit of having been a tech reporter for a really long time, again, when the Gawker thing happened and I was suddenly kind of floating and not doing anything very suddenly and had no work coming in, in addition to, you know, editors at publications reaching out to me, I also had corporate folks DM-ing me. And so this woman who runs this PR marketing thought leadership agency that works primarily with people from underrepresented backgrounds, people who are first time founders, lots of women and people of color, queer people DM-ed me and was like, "Hey, I'm looking for a ghost writer for some of my clients. Like, do you want to do that work? And like, again, this is someone who has followed my career for a while just primarily by seeing me on Twitter and knows I'm a business and tech reporter, but also understands that I, you know, don't have a background in, in ghost writing or in thought leadership.
And so I felt kind of lower stakes because she knew my background and where I was coming from and what the work I typically do is. So she knows I'm not like an expert in this, but it definitely feels like the first time I take on some of these, you know, freelance, corporate assignments for the first time, or at least last year when I was doing it for the first time, it felt like people were placing a lot of trust in me. And I was very scared that I was going to mess it up because, you know, I'm used to one kind of writing and it's not corporate copywriting or whatever, but I started writing for her and it was consistent. It was good money. And you know, it taught me new skills and a new way to write that I didn't know I could do before.
And from that point on, you know, there's other tech people who follow me on Twitter who saw what was happening with the Gawker thing and reached out. And so there were a lot of like one-off copywriting assignments. So kind of like writing an email newsletter for Skillshare, you know, things like that slightly more lucrative than like a piece for a website or a magazine would be maybe, and typically like the same amount of work or maybe slightly less work. Those kind of started coming in. And then 14 months ago, late last spring, I got an offer to go in house at The Times for six months. And so I had just finally gotten in the swing of things with freelancing and then the New York Times offered me this life raft. And they were like, do you want to come here for six months?
And I was like, yeah, absolutely. I do. And so it was a contract thing. It was working with our news product. It was really fun. It wasn't the kind of work I'm used to doing, but it was, it was great. And so I kind of stopped freelancing while I was there because, you know, I was suddenly making more money than like on an annual basis than I ever made previously in journalism. I also never got lan anchor gig. Like I wasn't freelancing long enough to like develop one of those. And so I went in-house at The Times. I was there for six months, I left at the end of 2019 when my contract was up. And I started freelancing again. And then when I was freelancing in early 2020 for the first four months of the year, I developed like a really good series of freelance corporate clients that I just didn't have before.
It was that ghostwriting client I had talked about earlier. I had signed a contract to do editorial for this small female founded VC firm, a couple of other similar clients. I was doing some work for my alma mater at the J school at Syracuse, a couple of other things like that. And so I finally had built this stable of freelance corporate work. And it was all just word of mouth and people in my network. And I hate being like, "Oh, they're people in my network," but it really is people who know me from my reporting, who I've developed relationships over the years because I've, you know, covered companies like there's, or they are people who just know me through other friends of ours or anything like that. And, you know, they hear that I need editorial work and they need someone who can edit all of their social copy and their editorial that they're putting on their website. And it's like a good fit. And it's easy. I suspect if I have another beat that was not business and tech, it would have been more difficult to get clients like that. But I do feel like depending on what your beat is, there's room for you to kind of find your niche if corporate freelance work is kind of what you're hoping to do.
W- That's really great advice. And I love it. I wonder if you can talk a little, Maya, about applying for these different things, right. Or just taking really the amalgam of experiences you've had and reflecting that on something like your resume. Do people still ask for your resume? How do you make the skills you have from all these different parts of your career widely applicable to different types of writing?
M- I think, yes, people still have asked for my resume. And I think that what I do is kind of market myself. And the other thing is that where I am now, where I'm doing corporate work full-time during the day, going into that it's, you know, when I was applying for that job, when I was applying for other jobs like it, when I was applying for kind of full-time copywriter jobs and things like that, I realized I didn't know how to market myself, because I never had to as a journalist. You get hired in different ways in journalism than I think that you do typically in like more corporate roles. I got my job at Vanity Fair because I was poached while I was still at BI. Ditto Gawker when I was at Vanity Fair. The editors that I worked with at the New York times followed me on Twitter and they connected with me through that medium. I've only recently come to grasp the fact that I don't really know how to market myself and I'm trying to get better at that. And I also kind of hate all of the terms that people in marketing use to describe themselves as "storytellers," which is technically true. But ugh, God, it's like everyone's a storyteller. So I'm trying to kind of find that balance where I'm accurately describing the things I do for work during the day, but also trying to not make myself sound horrible in the process, because I don't want to describe myself as like a marketing storyteller guru. So I feel like there's enough people like that. I don't need to contribute to that. I'm still kind of figuring out what my identity is now that I've had this job for like four months or five months. I'm also trying to get back into writing more for myself, kind of on the side. So doing more reported pieces, doing more journalism, I've kind of let that lapse since April or may. And the next most important thing I need to do now is find that balance of doing both of those things successfully and also explaining to people what it is I do. So I'm definitely still grappling with that.
W- I'm really curious to hear more about how coronavirus changed the way you work. And can you talk a little bit more about that? Because it feels like the copywriting stuff came at the right time when journalism was, or is, still in freefall. Yeah. Can you talk more about that?
M- Yeah, definitely. Earlier this year in January, after I left the New York Times, I started applying for jobs, both in journalism and not journalism, at full force. So between January and March, I applied for something like 120 jobs. I don't know the exact number, but it's something that. And so I was just kind of like, I need something full-time like a freelance isn't working for me. And then obviously, as this is all happening, freelance started working for me and I developed anchor gigs and I developed the things that I didn't really have enough time to do the year before, but then coronavirus happens and then I'm like, "Oh no, the bottom's going to fall out. I need to find something full-time now." So it kind of sucked because I'd finally gotten into the swing of things with freelancing. And I was doing really well at it. And then COVID happened. And I was like "Oh no, all these budgets are going to dry up. I would hate it if I lost three of these anchor gigs and suddenly didn't have a means of making money anymore. Time to continue looking for full-time things in earnest. And so COVID was absolutely a motivator for me going back in-house somewhere. And what also happened was, you know, I was in like third and fourth round interviews with all of these places. None of them journalism outlets, because at this point, I had been ghosted by or been rejected by three or four different journalism-related jobs I'd applied to. I think that also all the news outlets kind of freaked out at the start of coronavirus and kind of froze hiring for a lot of roles. And so anything I was in the running for suddenly was out of my grasp and it's like, whatever it sucked and it's fine. But the same thing started happening with some of these corporate roles where— there was one week, I want to say it was like mid-March or the end of March when the stock market was falling, falling, falling. And I was in these last-round interviews at these couple of tech companies. It seemed like it was a done deal. And then they wrote back and they were both like "Thanks for your interest. We're not hiring for this role anymore." And I was like, Oh no, is this what I have to look forward to? I'm just not going to get a job this year. That's it.
Then I cold-applied for my current job on LinkedIn, which again, I would not necessarily advise that anybody else do, but it did work for me for some reason. The agency I worked for had been acquired last year by this bigger agency. And so I had an intro call with a recruiter from the big acquirer agency. Over the next couple of weeks I had calls with the people who I now report directly to who are also former tech journalists in particular. One thing led to another and they made me an offer at the beginning of April. And I was like, I would be so stupid not to take this right now. I don't know what's going to happen with the world in the next X number of months. This is a life raft for me. That's how I ended up with my current job.
W- Talk a little bit about money. I'm curious if you would feel comfortable sharing approximately how much you make right now. I guess that's in addition to this copywriting job.
M- My income from my day job is $95,000. And then my freelance income for this year will probably be about $35,000. And that's probably better than I did last year, freelance-wise.
W- Wow. That's impressive. So how do you manage all these projects? What's your system?
M- Not well. I don't really have a good system. I'm seeking advice for new systems to use. My current system is my day planner that I have to write everything down in or else I'll forget it. And then a Google spreadsheet of assignments and money owed and things like that. And I also have a Google doc where every Monday I open it up and I write down all of the things I have to do that week, writing assignment-wise and also like work task-wise. And then it feels very satisfying to me for some reason to just be able to delete them from that Google doc. And at the end of the week when the Google docs empty I get to close it, I don't know. I don't know. I don't really have a good system. I guess the Google spreadsheet is my primary means of keeping myself organized.
W- Yeah. I'm also a very avid Google spreadsheet user and I track my assignments every month. So when I get an assignment, it goes in a slot and I say, when it's due and I always have an assignments-due-within-the-month bracket and it feels really good to get everything out of there and move it into "In edits" and "Need payment." Yeah. A hundred percent agree. Tell me about building a career as a freelancer. I mean, it can be tough in all the ways that we've already discussed. I want to hear about how you've built skills and gotten mentorship along the way.
M- Yeah. Again, you know, I felt like I was kind of going into it blind last year and I felt unsure of myself. I kind of, you know, I thought I was kind of like a one trick pony who could only do one thing, which was write about tech and I didn't know how that would transfer into being able to do other things. But I worked with a lot of really great editors during my time as a freelancer. And that has been really invaluable to me and super helpful. I didn't realize how many different editing styles there were until I started putting myself out there more. And I also kind of, when I first started freelancing, I got into this rut where I would write one story for one publication and then not pitch another one. And I would just be like, I guess that's it for me as if it were not my fault that I wasn't pitching the editor again to write there. As if they wouldn't want me to. It was like a self fulfilling prophecy where I only ended up writing like one story for all these outlets. And I was like, I guess that's it. I guess, I guess no one wants to hear from me more than once. And it was like, no, you just haven't been pitching them. Get a backbone and get some self-confidence. A lot of the skills that I learned were very self-taught. I mean, I've also relied a lot on other freelancer resources. Like I am a member of Study Hall and I became a member last year after I went freelance. I didn't really think it served a purpose for me when I was in-house, because I wouldn't have used any of the resources there. But I was grasping at straws last year. Just kind of learning how everything works as a freelancer. All of my friends at that point were in-house at different places. Even they couldn't help me.
So I found resources like that to be helpful. Anything that could just explain how you ask for payment or what a good pitch looks like for this outlet or something like that. I also think I'm very fortunate in one way, which is that a lot of editors who I work with have come to me first. And these are those who I have like ongoing relationships with. I'm thinking about Michelle Legro at Medium, for example. And having people like that kind of champion your work and always be in your corner is super, super helpful. And I feel very lucky that that's something that has been afforded to me in certain instances. In terms of learning skills along the way, it's been trial and error. It's been a lot of self-taught stuff it's been learning from forums and from other people who are way better at freelancing than I am.
W- Yeah. I love that. I feel like that's the beauty of freelancing is that there's so much learning on the job. Maya, last question for you, tell me about the best business decision you've made as a freelancer.
M- didn't really have the means when I was in-house because I was making significantly less money then, and it really hasn't been until the past probably six or eight months that I've been able to kind of have a real savings account. And obviously like, I wish I'd had this when I left Gawker. It would have been amazing to not have to worry about paying my rent the week after I quit. But again, it's all trial and error. I'm learning as I go. And that's one of the things I learned then, and you know, I'm very happy to have something like that now.
W- For people who don’t know what an FU fund is, what is it?
M- Yes. And I'm sorry for cursing. It's a fund that you save up so that if you ever need to leave your job, for some reason, you have enough savings to kind of buoy you until you can find another means of income. It's really no different than a savings account to me anyway, maybe some people have it in a different account, but I think of it in terms of, you want three months of expenses in that account. So, you know, three months of rent, three months of utilities, three months of payments on your car, or, you know, student loan payments or something like that, just so that you have the confidence and ability. If you ever need to say, walk out of your job after three weeks of working there, you can do that. And you're safe. And you feel confident in doing that. You're not making money, make decisions for you.
W- Yeah, absolutely. And so are you putting a little bit of money every month into that? How does that work for somebody who wants to start one?
M- Yeah, definitely. I started it with a full check I'd received from, I think it was like a story I'd written for one of the medium pubs, like earlier this year or last year into a separate account. And I kind of started building from there. And then once I got this job, it was easier for me to make more steady contributions to that fund. So, you know, like $800 turned into $2,000, turned into $4,000, et cetera. And it's definitely a privilege to be able to put money away like that every month or every paycheck, every two weeks. And I don't take it for granted, but I've been without it for so long. This is the first time in my adult life in like 28 years that I have a savings account. So I'm proud of myself for getting to this point right now amid everything. But yeah, I would say putting away what you can when you can is probably good advice, but I am far from someone who should be giving financial advice at all. So, but that's my two cents.
W- Yeah, I love it. That's super great. Well, that's all I had today. Thanks again for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.
M- Of course. Thanks for having me on.
J- Maya is so great. I think my favorite bit here is definitely about those Twitter rules for engagement. I'm super bad at Twitter. So the other day I looked and I've had a Twitter account for 10 years, but like y'all, I barely ever used it. I think recently I've been pulled back in because of this podcast and, like, many of you exist on Twitter. And so that's a good place to talk to everybody. And I know most journalists hang out on Twitter too, but I'm really bad at it. So I love hearing her talk about authentic engagement in conversation because I think it really tracks with how we look at networking and connecting with other people. It's like being a nice, normal human being because the person on the other side of the screen is also probably a nice normal human being.
W- Totally. Yeah. I think the way that she's described it is really good networking. I've honestly not used Twitter in the bold, very gutsy way that Maya described, but editors have definitely reached out to me via Twitter DM for assignment details. And I feel like my response is always, please email me immediately. I have no capacity to remember to respond on Twitter.
J- Yeah. I'm really bad at DMs. I think it's funny you say you're not bold on Twitter though, because I think that any of us would beg to differ.
W- I’m controversial on Twitter. Let’s put it that way.
J- This is true. So I also liked what Maya said about branding. I am constantly fiddling with my portfolio website because I'm constantly changing my work balance. So I appreciate that she said that it's hard because it is. Like, if you're doing a mix of journalism and non-journalism, you don't really fit in a comfortable quote-unquote box. And so lately I've even been trying to decide if I should call myself a journalist, like, am I a writer? Am I an editor? Am I a journalist? Am I a storyteller? It just gets weird and complicated. But I also think that agility is why my business is successful. I think that's probably the case for Maya too. How do you feel about that, Wudan? Do you have sentiments for how you come up with the phrasing that's on your website?
W- Yeah. I have nothing really valuable to share. Which, surprise, sometimes I don't have valuable things to say, besides it being really hard, you know. Jenni, one thing you said recently on a panel with Tim Herrera is that you want to make your brand yourself. And so I think when clients hire me, whether it's for journalism or brand work, they want my approach to storytelling, research, reporting. So maybe, I don't know, to an extent it doesn't matter how I brand myself. Maybe?
J- Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, we will never know, right? I think I did say in that panel that it's important not to hitch yourself to anybody else's wagon, essentially. Like, your priority is you. And that's a good way to think about that. Maybe I'm going to cut myself some slack in terms of branding.
W- If they're hiring me for my eye and my taste then great, I guess. I mean my resume though, I do break down the types of writing that I do, whether it's institutional, journalistic, for brands, et cetera.
J- So, can we also talk about the FU fund? I love that idea.
W- Yeah. A hundred percent. I'm really into it too. My friend and colleague Paulette Perhach actually coined that term "fuck off fund." And it is exactly how Maya describes it. It’s a savings account in essence that lets you quit your job, walk away from something terrible, right? Break up with your boyfriend and like get a place of your own and just take care of yourself if you need it.
J- Do you have one?
W- I don't call it a fuck off fund, but I definitely have a lot of money in the hopper if I need to pull out of something really fast. I think I mentioned this in season one. I've had it for a few years. It's a good cushion. It's good for my brain that wants stability. Some semblance of it, at least. What about you, Jenni?
J- I actually feel like I have this for the first time in a substantial way right now. It's probably because I knew I was taking maternity leave before. So I was a little bit more hesitant to dig into our savings. And now that the baby is here, this month I was able basically dump all of my projects in the trash and agree not to get paid for a month. And it was because I needed it for my own mental health and for my family. And so having that savings compiled, like it made a really big difference mentally. It feels like it's a huge deal.
W- Yeah. Agreed. I mean, that's the mental part that I think that whether you want to call it the fuck off fund or savings, that's what makes it worth it.
J- Yeah. This is part of why we're so pushy about making money on this podcast and on the internet at large. I think, you know, making money and having reserves helps you make better decisions that are more aligned with your values. So you can make choices out of freedom and not fear. And you can take a break if you need it, just like I just did. Because you will need it at some point as a freelancer. My husband and I ended up putting about a thousand dollars a month into our savings account for the past few years, which is how we built it up. And it's funny, you know, Maya said that she's bad at savings, but actually I think from your conversation, it sounds like she's pretty good at it. Or at least like better than the average person. Savings and budgets are really hard, especially now in the middle of a pandemic. But if you can chunk some money away, I was talking to a client about this, even like $50 a month. It really makes a big difference, I think, in terms of how you run your business to know that you have a safety net.
W- Yeah. I one hundred percent agree. Some freelancers I talked to actually say, you know, for every like third or fourth story, I got paid that entire paycheck just goes into savings. Super interesting. Okay, well on that note, we are going to head out, we still have our Patreo program going strong this season and we hope you'll become a member if you're not one already.
J- Yes. We also have some new tiers that we've added. So you should go check those out. There's one for pitch review, which includes a monthly pitch workshop and advice tailored from Wudan and I about your pitch. There is another option that involves small group coaching with a few other people. So you and three other people meet with Wudan or I and you get community and advice on all the issues you're facing. We think it's great because a lot of us face the same issues. And it's really a great solidarity moment to hear that you are not alone. And then we still have that classic All Access membership, which means resources alongside every single episode. You'll get some of those today based on the notes that Maya sent to us. And you'll get those for every episode, along with event discounts, resource discounts, all sorts of other fun stuff.
W- Just the plug to say, we'd also love for you to subscribe to our podcast if you don't already. Leave us a review. It helps us get noticed on iTunes and brings more people into this fold. As we talk about improving freelancers' businesses and lives, the more people, the better, you know what we love to say about rising tides.
J- Okay, well we will see you on the internet. Goodbye Wudan.
W- Bye, Jenni.
J- Season two of The Writers' Co-op is made possible by a grant from the International Women's Media Foundation. Our editor is Susan Valot, and Jen Monnier handles research, admin and more as our producer. The Writers’ Co-op is hosted by me, Jenni Gritters and Wudan Yan.
