Freelance follow-up: Shameless self-promotion
Since we’re on the freelancing tip already, I figured now would be a good time to follow up on my post last week regarding the process I’ve gone through in (re-)establishing myself as a freelance writer. I still wouldn’t call it a comeback yet, but my first review for the great online magazine PopMatters went up a few days ago. It’s on the band The Bundles, which includes Kimya Dawson, whom you might be familiar with from her contributions to the Juno soundtrack.
The post, though it might seem otherwise, has less to do with patting myself on the back or affirming my tips on how to freelance, and more to do with highlighting the innovative way PopMatters approaches online writing and publishing. More so than any publication I’ve worked with, PopMatters is very open to incorporating new voices and more voices–though, of course, some experience does help and might be expected–in its mission to provide interesting, relevant, and current criticism on pop culture. As an indication of this mindset, the submission guidelines and calls-for-papers on special topics are prominently displayed on the site, not buried somewhere in some link you can’t find in the masthead you can’t find. The way PopMatters operates by providing more and more different kinds of opportunities for its contributors in order to continually circulate fresh content might provide a strong model for thinking about how to revamp academic publishing in the humanities, a topic we’ll be getting back to in the very near future.
Post Academic 