Ghostwriting the Eulogy: How to Make Some Money & Your Name Beyond the Academy

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum | March 2012

<a href="#notes">NOTES</a> 
 
 These days it seems everyone is talking about the poor academic job market—and for good reason. Emily Lu recently reported in the AWP Job List that “job openings in English departments sharply declined 40% in the past two years… one of the worst job markets in the thirty-five years (the Modern Language Association)… has been tracking openings.”<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">1</a>

 Of course, these are full-time, primarily tenure-track jobs at four-year colleges and universities, and, as demand for full-time professorships has slackened, the demand for part-time teachers has grown. A recent article in the Washington Post states, “Across the country, students are rethinking plans to attend expensive private colleges and universities. High unemployment rates and decimated stock portfolios have driven families to find less-expensive alternatives.”<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">2</a>

 The result? There is a great demand for part-time teachers (mostly adjunct professors) at the college level. In fact, a recent study conducted by Pennsylvania’s Keystone Research Center found that 54% of courses at community colleges are taught by adjuncts. While this percentage is quite a bit lower at four-year colleges (20%), the numbers indicate a surprisingly good job market for those willing to work part-time.<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">3</a>
<div class="callout-light">
 I had an MFA, a typical publication record, and 
 three years of teaching experience. None of these credentials exactly set me apart from the crowd.
</div>

 Unfortunately, the same study found that full-time faculty make an average of $5,300 per course; part-timers, on the other hand, are paid an average of $2,500 per course with no benefits. At this rate of pay, “if part-time faculty members assembled the equivalent course duties of a full-time job at a Pennsylvania community college, they still would earn only about $25,000 a year— below state levels at which a family of four would be eligible for public assistance.”<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">4</a>

 Needless to say, this isn’t exactly the promise made to students by the institutions of higher learning for which they’ve taken out multiple loans to attend. Nor is being unable to support our families while working well over forty hours per week the vision most of us had when we were encouraged by our professors to focus on our art, attain higher degrees, and educate the public.

 These findings reflect my own experience in the academic job market. I received my MFA in Poetry from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale in 2009. I was lucky enough to be married to a woman who worked in a neurogenetics laboratory at Vanderbilt University. When her boss decided to leave Vanderbilt for the University of Southern California, he asked her to help relocate the lab.

 We weren’t sure we could survive on her salary alone in Los Angeles (I’d had no time to look for a job), so he offered me a position in the lab as well. Long story short, I’m no scientist, and while I did a reasonably good job there, I decided to start looking for a job in my field.

 I quickly discovered two things: 1) there simply weren’t any full-time teaching jobs in English or creative writing to apply for, and 2) even if there were, I would be embarrassingly low on the list of applicants. I had an MFA, a typical publication record, and three years of teaching experience. None of these credentials exactly set me apart from the crowd.
<div class="callout-light">
 In order to make, say, $30,000 a year 
 before taxes, I had to teach twelve courses 
 per year. That’s a 6/6 load spread between 
 three different campuses separated by over 
 forty-five miles of Los Angeles highway.
</div>

 So I switched gears and sent my CV and cover letter to every single institution of higher education in Los Angeles County—somewhere around seventy-five different universities, colleges, and community colleges. After about three weeks, I received three offers to teach English Composition as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, Mount St. Mary’s College, and Pacific States University. The pay ranged from $1,800 to $3,700 per course for an average of right around $2,500. 
 Let’s think about this for a minute.

 In order to make, say, $30,000 a year before taxes, I had to teach twelve courses per year. That’s a 6/6 load spread between three different campuses separated by over forty-five miles of Los Angeles highway. It made the 2/2 my professor in undergrad complained about look like a steal. 
 None of these positions were benefited in any way other than access to the library and, in Pepperdine’s case, their facilities. To make matters worse, each school had its own set of criteria to be met in the classroom. Thus, I was required to compose three different syllabi with three separate sets of expectations, papers to write, classroom preps, etc… A 6/6 quickly became something more like an 8/8.

 This is the situation many of us with graduate degrees in creative writing now face, and it doesn’t look as though things are going to get any better. Students at Pepperdine pay around $5,000 to take a composition course, while students at Pacific States University pay roughly $1,400. This comes to an average of $3,100, slightly lower than the national average.<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">5</a>

 Translation: the tuition one student pays for a course covers the amount the institution pays their teacher to teach it. All the tuition paid by all those other students (anywhere between nineteen to thirty-four of them) is going to anyone but the adjunct. In the current climate, this is simply too good a deal for the schools to change. True, there are some institutions offering a much better situation for part-timers, but they are few and far between. 
 So, what’s to be done? One has to make a living and find some time to write, right? And while there are some of us out there surviving as bartenders and working retail, most would like to use our skills and training as writers to make a living.

 Luckily, my wife was making money during my first year of adjuncting, and we were living well below our means. So I got creative and started looking around for alternative ways to supplement my adjunct income. I took two classes at Pepperdine and one at Pacific States and applied to tutor with a company called <a href="http://tutordoctor.com/" target="_blank">TutorDoctor.com</a>.
<h2>Private Tutoring</h2>

 If you visit its website, you’ll find that TutorDoctor has locations across the country. The company hires freelance tutors to travel to students’ homes and instruct them in just about any subject. For several months, I helped a Russian businessman learn English. I also taught a ten-year old boy to calculate percentages and throw a better spiral.

 They pay an average of $25 an hour, depending on the student’s needs. You have to pay your own taxes and transportation, so the average pay comes to roughly $15 an hour. If you assume that an adjunct works ten hours per week per course they teach, the average pay of $2,500 for a sixteen-week course calculates to $15.62 an hour. Tutoring, however, requires virtually no prep, and it’s fun. The students you work with can be anywhere from five to one-hundred years old and actually desire your knowledge and instruction. You have a tangible effect on the well-being of your students and their families. When a student succeeds, they appreciate your hard work.

 Many tutoring companies also pay more per hour. I worked briefly for Beverly Hills Tutors, which pays $50 an hour. You can also work in on-campus tutoring and writing centers, which typically pay the same amount as they do for a course and require no preparation or grading.

 There is good money to be made as a self-employed tutor as well, particularly online. In the last year, I have acquired a number of students who I tutor via Google Docs and Skype. I never charge less than $25 an hour and can tutor anywhere I have an Internet connection.

 The work is rewarding. I recently learned that one of my high school students was granted a $15,000 annual scholarship to attend Pacific University, partially due to the application letter I helped her write. You won’t just make money as a tutor; you may help people fulfill their dreams.
<h2>Independent & Private Workshops</h2>

 There are also numerous independent writing groups and workshops across the country that pay teachers fairly well. In L.A., I discovered <a href="http://lawritersgroup.com/" target="_blank">LAWritersgroup.com</a>. The organization hires teachers with varying levels of experience to lead eight-week workshops from home for $125 per student. These workshops consist of seventy-five minutes of writing and seventy-five minutes of critique. At the minimum of four students per workshop (though I typically had six), my pay came to $25 per hour.

 My students were mostly beginning writers who led busy lives and needed a teacher to push them to write and to reflect upon that writing. Those workshops were full of laughter and raucous debate. I didn’t have to drive anywhere or do any advance prep. My students simply showed up and wrote and critiqued each other’s writing every Thursday night. What’s more, I actually wrote right along side them and found an audience for new work, a rare find after graduate school.

 Most cities in the U.S. have organizations like <a href="http://lawritersgroup.com/" target="_blank">LAWritersgroup.com</a> with a similar structure and pay. The Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver is “an independent creative writing center…founded and operated by working writers and university-level teachers of writing.”<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">6</a> In Boston, Grub Street pays teachers to run workshops and provide manuscript consultation.<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">7</a> In Minneapolis/St. Paul, the Loft Literary Center offers more traditional craft classes as well as a number of writing conferences for young people and adults.<a href="http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpjobs/articles/mar2012.lasso#notes">8</a> Even if you don’t live in a large city, many of these institutions hire teachers to run online workshops.

 Another route is to start your own, private workshop. Kim Addonizio started her teaching career the way most people do: “In my thirties and early forties, I did a lot of adjunct teaching at various Bay Area colleges and universities.” After a few years, she began looking for ways to run a private workshop from her home. “When I first started teaching private workshops, very few people were doing it. I couldn’t get enough students the first couple of times I tried. I took a bartending course and was going to do that, but finally I got enough students, so I taught a class instead.” Now, after several years, Addonizio’s workshops help afford her a reasonable living. “(And) I really enjoy teaching,” she says. “I like trying to help people figure out their writing.”
<div class="callout-light">
 With tools like Google Docs, Skype, 
 and Adobe Connect, running your own 
 workshop online can be surprisingly simple.
</div>

 Of course, starting your own workshop isn’t going to instantly become your primary source of income. But, as Addonizio told me at the Ropewalk Writers Retreat, “Why not start now?” See where it goes. With tools like Google Docs, Skype, and Adobe Connect, running your own workshop online can be surprisingly simple. When Addonizio started out, she was trying to draw customers from the Bay Area. An online workshop (like online tutoring), however, might be populated by people from across the globe.

 I have been helping an amateur novelist write a mystery novel online for over a year now. We meet via Skype each Friday and go through whatever she’s written that week. Sometimes, I implement lessons on things such as dialogue or world-building into our session. Sometimes, we simply discuss where the novel is and where she thinks it’s going, the gaps in the plot, inconsistencies in character, etc... Like Addonizio, I greatly enjoy helping her put this book together, and four hours of work per month covers my car payment. Zoom. Zoom.
<h2>Selling your Writing</h2>

 Most of us who publish our work in journals rarely get paid actual money for it, but journals will often pay for nonfiction such as book reviews, essays on craft/publishing, interviews, and the like. Pay for this sort of writing varies widely, but it’s fairly easy to sell due to a much less competitive market for such writing.

 Writing nonfiction also allows you to get to know the writers you love and to benefit from their wisdom. You get free review copies of most of the books you want to read as long as you have a solid track record of actually writing about them. And it feels pretty good to promote someone’s work and increase your own exposure while, oftentimes, getting paid for it.

 Simone Muench presents a “poem of the week” feature as a contributing editor for <a href="http://sharkforum.org/" target="_blank">Sharkforum.org</a>, but she doesn’t do it for the money: “Many writers have supported me by providing a space for my voice, so being able to reciprocate by offering a platform for various voices via Sharkforum is my small way of contributing to, and thus underscoring, the significance of connectivity and community.”

 There is also money to be made in books on craft and anthologies. In addition to her workshops, Addonizio makes a portion of her living from sales of her two books on craft: The Poet’s Companion and Ordinary Genius. They don’t afford her much, but they contribute to helping Addonizio make a living outside the academy.

 Laura and Pinckney Benedict’s anthology Surreal South doesn’t make them a tremendous amount of money either, but “we’ve also enjoyed being editors,” says Pinckney Benedict. “It is pleasurable, after decades spent asking (begging, pleading with, hoping for, too often in vain) others to publish my work, to be in the position of choosing what work will be privileged and what will not. It is good to be a ring-giver…Surreal South is a labor of love, certainly, but Laura and I have indeed made some money from it.”
<h2>Copyediting & Ghostwriting</h2>

 Finally, copyediting and ghostwriting may be the most profitable means of making a living as a writer. I have copyedited a number of fiction and nonfiction pieces and manuscripts as a freelancer, which is easy (if not somewhat tedious) but highly profitable work. There are also numerous companies you can work for as a copyeditor. The pay is good, you often work from home, and you can take on or turn down as much work as you like. The pay is anywhere between $50 and $300 an hour.

 Ghostwriting pays even better and is less mind-numbing. Most of the pieces I’ve ghostwritten have been technical in nature, i.e. letters, speeches, manuals, etc… The pay for this sort of work is as high or low as you like. The first piece I ever ghostwrote was a eulogy for a woman’s dying father. The process was simple. I met his daughter (my client) for a drink. She gave me a few details about her father’s life, told me some of his favorite stories, and wrote out a check for my fee on the spot. It was a bit bizarre to write a eulogy in the voice of a dying man’s daughter, but it was surprisingly easy for me, given my experiences as a poet. Finding other copyediting and ghostwriting gigs has been as easy as posting an ad on Craigslist and responding to those seeking my assistance.
<div class="callout-light">
 It takes a lot of courage and organization to 
 step away from the comfort of a guaranteed 
 paycheck, no matter how small it may be. 
 Luckily, it’s pretty easy to get your feet wet...
</div>

 These alternatives, of course, aren’t for everyone. It takes a lot of courage and organization to step away from the comfort of a guaranteed paycheck, no matter how small it may be. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to get your feet wet working for companies like <a href="http://tutordoctor.com/" target="_blank">TutorDoctor.com</a> and <a href="http://lawritersgroup.com/" target="_blank">LAWritersGroup.com</a> while still adjuncting. After a while, you’ll probably find you can cut back on the classes you teach and replace that income with more satisfying, less stressful, and more profitable alternatives.

 In L.A., I found that the more small jobs I took on, the more opportunities came my way. Now, after doing a combination of adjuncting and small jobs for only two years, I have managed to find adjunct positions in creative writing rather than composition. It turns out that earning a living in a multitude of ways is an attractive quality to English departments and a great networking tool as well.

 As I continue to adjunct, I take on whatever small jobs fall in my lap, depending on my situation. I’m not where I want to be yet, but I’m getting close. Some day I hope to echo Addonizio’s sentiment: “I pretty much have the life I want, which is to say, I can afford to live in the Bay Area and spend a lot of my time involved in my creative work. That’s the freedom I always wanted, and it took me until my late forties to get it, after a lot of jobs of all kinds—waitress, cook, secretary, bookkeeper, academic serf… My first priority is to be an artist. Everything I’ve done is about protecting that need and desire from a world that wants to swallow it whole.”

 AWP

 Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum’s poems, essays, reviews, podcasts, and interviews recently appear or are forthcoming in the Writers Chronicle, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee, the Spoon River Poetry Review, Poet Lore, the Missouri Review, Glimmer Train, storySouth, Blackbird, and <a href="http://InsideHigherEd.com" target="_blank">InsideHigherEd.com</a>, among others. He writes a web-column, poetry=am^k, as a Contributing Editor for the Southern Indiana Review, is editor of an e-anthology, Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days, to be published by Upper Rubber Boot Books in 2013, and Founder and Editor of <a href="http://PoemoftheWeek.org" target="_blank">PoemoftheWeek.org</a>, and Managing Editor of <a href="http://AdHominem.weebly.com" target="_blank">AdHominem.weebly.com</a>. Andrew holds a Masters of Fine Arts Degree from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and is an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Colorado-Denver.

 © 2012 The Association of Writers & Writing Programs. May only be reprinted with the permission of AWP.

 <a name="notes"></a>NOTES
<ol>
 <li>
 
 Emily Lu. “Job Seekers Face Historically Weak Academic Job Market.” AWP Job List (2010). <a href="http://awpwriter.org/careers/elu04.htm" target="_blank">http://awpwriter.org/careers/elu04.htm</a>.
 </li>
 <li>
 Valerie Strauss. “Economic Downturn Elevates Community College Enrollment.” The Washington Post (2009). <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053001762.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053001762.html</a>.</li>
 <li>
 Jaschik, Scott. “Documenting Adjuncts’ Pay Gap.” Inside Higher Ed (2011). <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/20/study_documents_pay_gap_faced_by_adjuncts" target="_blank">http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/20/ 
 study_documents_pay_gap_faced_by_adjuncts</a>.</li>
 <li>
 Ibid.</li>
 <li>
 “What’s the Price Tag for a College Education?” CollegeData (2012). <a href="http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064" target="_blank">http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl. 
 jhtml?articleId=10064</a>.</li>
 <li>
 “About Us,” Lighthouse Writers Workshop, <a href="https://lighthousewriters.org/page/view/id/8/" target="_blank">https://lighthousewriters.org/page/view/id/8/</a>.</li>
 <li>
 “about grub street,” Grub Street, <a href="http://grubstreet.org/index.php?id=2" target="_blank">http://grubstreet.org/index.php?id=2</a>.</li>
 <li>
 “Classes at the Loft,” The Loft Literary Center, <a href="https://www.loft.org/classes-at-the-loft-literary-center" target="_blank">https://www.loft.org/classes-at-the-loft-literary-center</a>.</li>
</ol>

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Association of Writers & Writing Programs

Ghostwriting the Eulogy: How to Make Some Money & Your Name Beyond the Academy

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum | March 2012