Every year, I write a post about writing. Here’s my writing advice, my advice for creating a successful Substack-type newsletter, and some thoughts on how to add value as an opinion writer/pundit/commentator. This year’s post is about some big advantages that independent op-ed writers like myself have over those who write for publications.
I’ve been blogging independently since 2011, but for most of my years as a paid op-ed writer, I wrote for online publications. First I freelanced for The Atlantic, Quartz, Bloomberg Opinion, and The Week for a couple of years, and then I became a full-time writer at Bloomberg Opinion (though I was still counted as a contract employee, which allowed me to do side jobs).
I enjoyed writing for Bloomberg, but writing for Substack is a lot better. It’s brought me a much bigger readership, for one thing — each post now gets read by about three times as before. A lot of that is because of the magic of email distribution; I didn’t have my own newsletter until now. But I’ve also just been able to put out a lot more content on Substack than I did for Bloomberg — and in my personal opinion (and the opinions of many readers), it’s higher-quality content as well. As for whether I’m generating more subscription revenue for myself now than I did for Bloomberg back then, I can’t say; they didn’t let me see those statistics (and they probably couldn’t separate out each writer’s contribution, either). But I would bet that I am.
Independent op-ed writers are certainly at a disadvantage in some respects. They have to do all their own marketing, and they don’t automatically get their columns in front of a big existing readership. Instead of earning a steady salary, they have to cope with income volatility as subscriptions go up and down. But they have one huge advantage over op-ed writers at publications: They don’t have editors.
It may come as a surprise to hear that I think this is a big advantage. Usually, “such-and-such doesn’t have an editor” is used as an insult, meaning that a writer is too verbose or disorganized. But after having written with and without an editor, and having watched other writers do both, it’s my considered opinion that editors generally subtract value from the opinion writing process.
Before I explain the (many) reasons why I believe this, I should issue a couple of qualifiers. First of all, I’m only talking about the value of editing for op-ed writers, not for reporters. News journalism — reporting original facts by quoting sources — is something I’ve never done, and it seems like much more of a team exercise than op-ed writing. Editors seem like they play a useful role in determining the appropriate tone for reporting, maintaining objectivity, etc. They help reporters decide which sources are reliable and which aren’t. And they also play a critical role in assigning reporters to beats, so they don’t all report on the same thing. Throughout this post, I’ll keep coming back to the differences between reporting and op-ed writing.
Second, what I’m saying applies to most op-ed writers, but not to all of them. There are some independent newsletter writers who employ professional editors to edit every post they put out, and I defer to their judgement. It’s not hard to imagine some writers who are great at most of the tasks involved, but just persistently bad at one or two of them — for example, a writer who’s great at writing paragraphs but simply terrible at organizing them into a coherent flow. An editor can fill that gap.
But I think that most op-ed writers — or at least, most good ones — would thrive and flourish without editors. And most digital publications could save a lot of money by letting their op-ed writers work without editors; this could help a lot of publications survive in an increasingly competitive content marketplace.
Let me explain why I think this.
Editors prevent writers from finding product-market fit
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Author: Noah Smith
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