I’ve recently witnessed an email exchange among professional writers that started innocently enough. Someone suggested that we, as writers, collaborate on a book — a sort of “why we do what we do” compilation. The idea would be that young writers would learn a bit about writing and what it takes to make it as a professional writer. I thought it was an interesting concept because I didn’t know anything about professional writing as a student.
It seemed like a harmless enough suggestion to me. Sure, you have an idea of what novelists do, and maybe even newspaper or magazine journalists. But what about copywriters, tech writers, medical writers or PR professionals? For me, I learned everything as I went along, mostly by trial and error, but it would have been nice to have a mentor to clue me in, or even a book full of virtual mentors.
Yet this concept sparked a firestorm of controversy. Dozens of people voiced loud and vehement protests. By producing this book, they argued, the marketplace would be flooded with new writers — college students and educated professionals from developing nations — that would drive our rates down to mere fractions of what they are today.
I was shocked to see this response. Am I naive? Have I been ignoring a terrible risk to my livelihood? I’ve been pondering this all day, but I don’t subscribe to the risk theory. There will always be writers who undercut the market. Yet in my experience, good writers — people who not only write well, but can also understand the technical or medical nuances behind the content — are hard to find.
Maybe there’s some truth to both perspectives, but I simply can’t believe that mentoring others would lead to nothing but doom and gloom.