Indy Comics Writer

I assume that most fans of comic books and most aspiring comic-book writers don’t necessarily turn to the business page of the newspaper first thing in the morning. I know I don’t. I turn to the comics page, of course, and shake my head at how terrible Hager the Horrible and Broom Hilda are.

But it’s time for every write to start paying close attention to the business section, and, especially, to the nation’s struggling economy. For years, I’ve written about residential real estate for newspapers, magazines and Web sites. Well, that market has crashed, as you know, and has pretty much brought the rest of the economy with it. Yes, times are tough. Actually, they’re rotten.

This has a huge impact on writers. Many of the magazines and newspapers I regularly wrote for have either gone under or have curtailed their freelance budget. Instead of getting two assignment a month, I may get one every other month. Advertisers are cutting back, so that means fewer pages. That, of course, means fewer stories.

Here’s what happened to me yesterday, within about two hours. First, a blogging network that I had just signed on with to create a mortgage blog suddenly imploded. I was waiting for the tech people to put my mortgage site together before I began posting. Then an e-mail came into my inbox informing me that my contract had been canceled. Seems money is tight at Creative Weblogging, the blog network I had just been hired at. The company is canceling most new contracts, such as mine, and not renewing several existing ones.

Then I heard from a newsletter publisher who planned to hire me to write financial e-mails for him once a week. It looked like a good, steady paycheck. Unfortunately,the publisher changed his plans. Money, again, had become too tight.

This doesn’t bode well for comics-writing opportunities. The market is already dominated by the big two. Independent companies have always struggled to make a buck. What happens now when the economy continues going south? Expect to see many smaller publishers go under. I’m already not hearing back from a publisher who accepted a short script for one of his anthologies earlier this year. His Web site hasn’t changed in a long time. I fear that the publisher may have gone under.

The only solution? For me, it’s to tackle as many projects as I can at once, including comic writing and regular non-fiction writing. It also means taking some jobs that pay less than I’d like. After all, every little bit helps.

Writing has always been a tough job to make a living at. These days? It’s even tougher.

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