Defining Ourselves and Our Markets

by Kate Donnellan

A look at "Where on Earth" to find a market for your writing skills and a tapping of the readership for feedback on out-of-the-ordinary places to sell our efforts.
 

Defining ourselves
Who is the international writer?  For our purposes, he/she is a native English-speaker writing professionally for a culture other than her/his own. (I'm an American, for example, writing in Arabia.)  A writer whose primary tool is English can publish outside the English-speaking world, sometimes more easily than at home.  And, as a writer with a global perspective, you might well be on the lookout for a wider readership.

In forthcoming issues, one of the aims of this column will be to explore with you how to go about publishing abroad -- or simply making a living with your writing skills.  How? And where? (I'm hoping for lots of reader feedback here-- interactive is what we're about.)  The International Writer will not discuss the artsy end of the craft-- novels, plays, screenplays and poetry already have their own slots.  Besides, the more creative end of the spectrum is by its very nature without borders. Our focus will be magazines, newspapers, technical writing and translating markets: assigned, not creative, writing.

There are many not-so-traditional ways to make use of your skills (if not your talent) while enjoying an international experience, and earn as you go. This will certainly be one of The International Writer's pet topics. How does one go about making money with good written English in places where English may not be the primary spoken language?  Consider this small case, for example:  a few weeks ago, I received a phone call on a Thursday afternoon (which is on the weekend in this part of the world). A panicked, heavily-accented voice beseeched me to fix a paragraph or so of advertising copy that had been so badly translated from Arabic as to be unintelligible in English. 

The copy was to be published as part of an insurance company's annual report on the following Saturday in local newspapers throughout the Gulf. Could I please, please help?  Of course, I could; but, as it meant working over the weekend, I made it absolutely clear it would be costly. (Already laid out for publication, the faxed copy included a photo of the company's board of directors. On discovering who the client was, I had absolutely no qualms about my high fee.) Little more than  eight or so lines were red-penciled and repaired -- virtually re-written--in about forty-five minutes and earned me about $250. These unexpected little plums pop up all the time when your skills take on an exaggerated importance simply because the medium uses your mother tongue, but relatively few people speak-- not to mention write -- that language with total fluency. That sums up the how part for the moment, but I'll be awaiting your contributions over the next few weeks.

Now...

Where on Earth can we sell our wares?  Again: feedback please! We'll be on the look-out for guest contributors to tell us specifically about their particular corner of the international marketplace. Reva Singh, for example, will be contributing a piece on writing for a living in India. (Reva currently is freelancing in her native Delhi and has featured in the Indian editions of Elle and Cosmopolitan . She is also a consulting editor for World Affairs and writes her own syndicated travel column, Great Escapes.) 

As a result of the first issue of Writer on Line and my article "Culture, Shock, and Writing in Arabia", I've already heard from writers in Indonesia and the Philippines where large portions of the population are English-speaking, and the offshoot is an active English-language press which publishes everything from simple newsletters to vanity biographies. Please tell us who you are, where you are, and give us any insights you have into the particularities of your marketplace. I'll digest the information and feed the relevant details back in the coming months for the benefit of us all.

By the way, if you don't write in English, fear not.  Much of what we will discuss can be adapted to foreign markets for the language you do write in.  So please keep reading. "Brazilian reporter turns her hand to writing for Portuguese Cosmo; French war correspondent publishes cook book on the cuisine of the Ivory Coast," that sort of thing.

We'll also look at overlapping markets: translating, for example. (I'm always confusing the word for translator in Italian, tradutore, with the word for traitor, traditore!)  There is money out there for people with total fluency in two languages. A young woman I know who is totally bilingual in English and Italian makes herself a bundle translating for the corporate sector in cosmopolitan Dubai. I used to do scientific translations when we lived near Milan; boring, yes, but fairly lucrative, and very much dependent on decent English writing skills. This is yet another area for inter-activity. I hope to gather a pool of translators from our readership and develop a method whereby Writer on Line can act as agent for those of you who do have the absolute fluency required to translate professionally. (Companies in need are, of course, welcomed to sign up, too.) 

Copywriting is another way to earn while living abroad. If I could only show you the misspelled (in neon!) signs scattered about this town!

For that matter, with the Internet and email, writers particularly are no longer required to live near the source of our income, which equals endless possibilities for total freedom and mobility. And that just so happens to be the driving force at this moment in my life. At the risk of sounding like the message in a fortune cookie, the main strategy is to set goals, not limits, for ourselves, and take in the significance that international borders are no longer the career barriers they may have been in the past. I think that sums up how I see The International Writer. I'm looking forward to hearing your views and experiences on thezoo@emirates.net.ae

No idea too small to be considered.

--KD
©1998 Kate Donnellan

Kate Donnellan is an American free-lance writer based in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.