Oliver Bateman Does the WorkVerified account

Writers working in your subject areas are the competition, and even if they don't say as much, they're not gonna put you over at their expense. I've shared loads of business connections, and will continue doing so, but it rarely works the other way. Which is fine; I have a job

Not only will I *always* put you over, I disclose my rates and editors for all published pieces. But I don't expect others will, or even should. If the current rule is "stay in your lane," I do it and then some -- I even move over in my lane to let others pass.

One of the most important things for me as a writer is the business of writing, the making of the sausage. I study that as carefully as I study the subject areas I'm working in. Business has always been my primary interest, and I like to scrutinize the moves being made

I don't make the moves, and not only do I not make them, I'm very forthcoming about them being made so you can watch for them and not end up confusing brand promotion with heartfelt content (sometimes it can be both). My anti-brand is about full disclosure

I also don't privilege "journalism" as something special as a way of preserving my spot in it. Work is work. If I'm going to continue earning money in this field, I will, and if I won't, I won't. And if it goes away, I'll keep doing other stuff

I remember some family member was like "oh, you'll like this in-law...he's a writer!" And the dude almost immediately hit me up for my contacts, which I emailed to him in a spreadsheet. A few months later, he had a NYT Mag piece, and I inquired about that process

I wasn't back in the workforce then, so a commission like that might have been helpful. My email bounced with an auto-response telling me to...run all queries through this agent? I mean, I have agents, and they aren't sorting my queries, and I do freelance more than 1x a month

Like, this guy was kind of a nobody, the way we're all nobodies unless we write, say, The Time Traveler's Wife and even then your readers prob can't remember your name. But he was doing that weird kind of "walling off" that I'm assuming some pros do...? Strange.