This month, long-term Insight contributor Anica Boulanger-Mashberg reflects on her career as a freelance writer and editor across various sectors of the publishing industry.

So, what do you do for a living?

There are times – usually just after someone has asked me, ‘So, what do you do for a living?’ – when I wish I did an ‘ordinary’ job. It would be so much easier to answer ‘I’m a teacher’ or ‘I’m an engineer’ than to explain that I work part-time as a freelance editor and writer, and part-time in a bookshop. But most of the time, I wouldn’t want to swap my career for anything else.

What subjects did you study at school and university?

At school, though I enjoyed and worked hard at subjects in diverse areas including STEM, performing arts, French, Japanese and psychology, it was always the English subjects that I had the greatest passion for. I loved everything about language and narrative, but I never really imagined that studying English could be the basis for a career. So, at university I studied performing arts and then did a psychology major, taking just one creative writing subject. When this one subject led to a creative writing Honours degree and a Masters degree in Australian Literature, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but my love of language and story had only deepened.

What are the positives about being a freelancer?

Looking back over nearly twenty years of work within the creative and publishing industries, I feel so delighted to see how most of my interests from when I was at school have combined to support the career I have had so far.

The nice thing about an ‘ordinary’ job might be that it’s easy to describe and easy for others to understand, but the very nice thing about a less conventional job like mine is that it can bring together many areas of passion, diverse types of work, a variety of challenges and so many different opportunities.

My main focus these days is as an editor and proofreader, working with genres including fiction (especially during my time as Fiction Editor for the Tasmanian literary journal Island Magazine), memoir and educational texts. I also write, including short stories, plays and theatrical material, nonfiction and reviews of both literature and theatre. And I have done very tricky-to-describe, but indescribably fun, jobs such as writing interactive content for the online companion to a children’s historical drama television series on the ABC.

I have also been really lucky, for nearly two decades, to have what many people would consider a dream job: working in a bookshop. This has not only given me a regular income (an undeniable benefit when building a freelance career, where work can be very inconsistent), but also kept me blissfully immersed in the literary and publishing world.

My work as an editor makes me a better writer (I write more carefully); my work as a reviewer makes me a better bookseller (giving me broad perspective on new books to recommend); and my work as a writer makes me a better editor (I am more empathetic). I get to spend my life caring intensely about words, sentences, ideas, imagery, imagination, and stories. Perhaps that’s what I should answer when people ask, ‘So, what do you do for a living?’

What advice do you have about building a career in publishing?

Over the years, there have been many ways I have developed and progressed my career; here are three that have worked particularly well for me.

1. Say yes to every opportunity

When I started out I said yes to every opportunity that came my way. This meant sometimes working for free or for profit share (which, in the arts, is usually very little!). This can be a valuable way to gain experience but it is something you should always be careful about, as it is not ok for an organisation or a publisher to take advantage of your eagerness for opportunities, particularly if you are just starting out.

2. Join a professional society

Joining a professional society (such as the Institute of Professional Editors) and attending professional development opportunities (a favourite of mine was a grammar workshop!) can be a terrific way to challenge, learn and strengthen skills, as well as to create networks. Professional networks are useful for making contacts who might direct work towards you; for finding people you trust as sounding boards to help you through professional challenges; and for connecting with friends who have similar passions.

3. Build strong, ongoing relationships

I think the most important thing I’ve learned about finding work in my career isn’t even directly related to my field: it’s that building good, respectful relationships with colleagues is one of the best ways to find interesting jobs and to keep on finding work as a freelancer. When people know you are reliable and enthusiastic to work with, they will work with you again and recommend you to others. This is really important in freelancing: a career where you never have the guarantee of your next job, or of what kind of work that job might be. This is what makes it scary, but also more than a tiny bit exciting.