Adaptation | Pinnacle Newsletter 79
#79 Adaptation
Hello! I hope you are all keeping safe in these awful times.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? After I announced that my weekly newsletter would become a monthly one, events have taken over and the gap since newsletter #78 has been weeks longer than I’d planned. The Coronavirus pandemic has shaken up routines and priorities all around the world. That’s what I’d like to write about today: adaptation to a new and scary set of circumstances.
It’s a time of loss and tragedy. For many of us, our career is the last thing on our minds at the moment, while for others it’s right at the forefront. I know many freelance writers and editors who have lost all or most of their work. Professional photographers are staring down the barrel of an entire industry that may never be the same. It’s much the same for mountaineering instructors.
I’m one of the fortunate ones. I have work ongoing, new commissions coming in, clients sending in queries for later in the year — but I’ve also had some work scaled back significantly, writing fees cut, projects deferred. Overall I stand to lose a small percentage of my income over the next few months.
It’s beyond this timeframe that concerns me.
Right now, around 80 per cent of my income is from writing, while 20 per cent comes from editorial work. Usually the split is more like 60/40 in favour of editing, but this year has been an unusual case due to a few large writing projects. The problem is, most of my writing work depends heavily on being able to get to the mountains by public transport. I don’t drive. I think that public transport is going to change radically — will it even survive in its current form? I have no idea. All I know is that the prospect of taking a train safely and affordably from Skegness to the Highlands might as well be space travel for the foreseeable future.
I think that my era of prolific writing for outdoor magazines will probably come to an end. Due to where I live, the economics were always tenuous anyway. Unless I had at least two commissions for any given trip it would barely break even, and that’s with all non-transport expenses cut to the bone. Although profit certainly isn’t why I do this, it’s a fact that this is part of my job, and I cannot afford to visit the mountains anywhere near as often if the work these trips produce does not pay.
When you combine this with the unprecedented strain that outdoors media is only just starting to feel, it’s obvious that significant adaptation is required.
In the long term my career will have to undergo a shift of emphasis. Right now, my entire online presence is set up to showcase Alex the outdoor/nature writer and photographer. I spend almost no time marketing the editorial side of my work (in fact, it’s likely that many of my online followers have no idea that I edit books and magazines). My main website is all about my outdoor writing and backpacking, with one small section about Pinnacle Editorial. I have a long-term project to set up a new website for Pinnacle Editorial, but I never seem to have time to finish it because I have been putting it behind other priorities.
As the emphasis of my work changes, my online presence will have to change too. I will be investing a lot more time in professional development on the editorial side of Pinnacle Editorial. I love chatting about the outdoors on Twitter, love writing about it on my own website, love sharing photos of nature and wildlife on Instagram, but I need to put these spaces to work as well as play. That’s the economic reality. I have been spending a lot of time on things I enjoy but that don’t always pay the bills (or at least they won’t be paying the bills in the future).
Writing certainly won’t stop. I won’t stop being a writer, because I always have been – and besides, I have two books coming out in the relatively near future. Writing won’t stop, but it will be different. A lot of things will.
I certainly don’t have all the answers here, and I will be flying blind as I try to adapt. I’m interested to know how other outdoor professionals (in the loosest possible sense) are adapting to our new reality. Please feel free to reply to this email if you’d like to chat, and maybe we can all help to support each other through the tribulations ahead.
In other news…
Availability for freelance editorial work: fully booked until September, but I currently have plenty of slots available in the autumn and winter.
Sidetracked Volume 17, which I sub-edited, is now available to order. We’ve just started working on Volume 18.
The Great Outdoors magazine needs your support. Magazines are facing a cliff-edge of collapsing ad-sales revenue and lost newsstand sales, which means that subscriptions are more vital than ever. TGO currently have some great subscription offers. If you subscribe now you’ll get a copy of the June issue, which will include a feature about hillwalking in Torridon from yours truly.
Vertebrate Publishing, my future publishers, have been working like demons to keep things afloat during the COVID–19 crisis. They currently have an amazing 25 per cent discount on everything. Time to buy a book or three!
Pinnacle Editorial client Graeme Harvey has recently published a new book, Another ‘Way’: The Camino Portugués, edited by me. This is a fantastic short book about an adventure in Portugal and Spain. Warning: it might induce wanderlust.
Recently published
It’s been ages, so there’s a lot here.
One Minute Mountain: Creag Meagaidh – one of my recent one-minute mountains for UKHillwalking.
Grivel Air Tech Light New Classic crampons – my favourite crampons for backpacking and general mountaineering.
A Walk in the Woods – hiking Norway’s Jotunheimstien – first published in TGO magazine in 2018, this feature is now free to read online.
How you can help support outdoor writers during the Coronavirus pandemic – a blog post about ways we can all help each other at the moment.
One Minute Mountain: Glyder Fach – One of the glories of the Ogwen Valley.
I’ve Never Climbed… – I contributed to this fun piece from UKHillwalking.
Book spotlight: Wild Light: Scotland’s Mountain Landscapes by Craig Aitchison – the first in a new series of blog posts on books I’ve particularly enjoyed.
The gear that I would have taken on the 2020 TGO Challenge – Sadly the 41st TGO Challenge is not to be, but here’s the gear I would be carrying on my journey east right now.
The voices of birds: a greening of lockdown – what lockdown means to me. This blog post includes many of the nature images I’ve captured over the last few weeks.
I have also been publishing weekly ‘what I’ve been reading this week’ links lists. You can catch up with those over on my blog.
Until next time,
Alex
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