(2021-08-11) Hoel Writing For Outlets Isnt Worth It Anymore

Erik Hoel: Writing for outlets isn't worth it anymore. There’s been a recent wave who’ve stopped contributing to outlets and moved to newsletters like this, such as myself.

the following is a postmortem of my decade-long career writing nonfiction for well-known media outlets like The Atlantic or The Daily Beast

This year I’ve stopped doing this, and am focused solely on growing this substack

why “cut the cord” as a writer?

The amount of work it takes to actually get something published vastly outstrips that of writing it. This iron law of freelance writing is indubitable and unchangeable. You don’t just have to write a piece, you also have to pitch it. This involves all sorts of contortions and self-promotion and nudging and mildly stalkerish behavior

you spend all your days pitching, and emailing, and not actually writing.

And while the most famous like David Brooks or Tyler Cowen get a recurring post at an outlet with millions of subscribers, even that doesn’t completely solve the next problem which is lack of audience capture.

You could worm your way into the center of culture with a good pitch

it would feel like it was contributing to an ongoing conversation

Spreading yourself thin over outlets means (some) money, but it also means no one sees anything twice, the audiences are different every time, and there’s no repetition, no loyalty, no feedback.

working in service always led to the inevitable editorial wars.

I got in plenty of them and I became good at them—the key is patience

Often more drastic measures were necessary.

At this point you might be thinking: “There is a common denominator here, Erik. You. Truculent, micromanaging, logophilic you.”

So that’s one of the main reasons I’m decamping.

Most outlets aren’t going to notice.

Speaking of: where is here? What is this? A blog? I guess, but the word “blog” brings to mind LiveJournals and life updates. A newsletter? Sure, but for what news? Mentally, I’ve settled on “an ongoing online collection of essays,” which is pretty much what “newsletter” now means

Why write essays online like this? The truth is most people wake up and the first thing they do is look at their phone and read. What they read is not a book

The essay is the native written artform of the internet. At their best an essay is varied, ranging, authoritative but amateurish, stylish, concise but unhurried. It creates the most civilized online discourse due to the context provided by its length, and since communities of voluntary readers are appropriately siloed from each other. The essay is a rare chance to break free from the straitjackets put upon thought by academia and capitalism’s incentive toward hyper-specialization.

The patron saint of the essay is Michel de Montaigne

I admit that decamping in this way was at first weird, as if I’d walked through a portal and left behind the physical. Yet now I’m like an astronaut who finds all his back pain cured after a few days in space. Gravity is working differently here and already I’m unsure I could ever fully return.