Journal: News & Comment

Changing fortunes

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When I named the Penmachine Media Company back in 2001, I chose "Media Company" because I expected to gain income from writing, editing, computer and Web work, music, layout, and photography. Rather a mix. That year, I made 80% of my money from writing and editing (mostly technical editing), 18% from music, and only 2% from pure technical work like helping people design Web pages and get their computers working.

I just did my accounts for 2002, and the proportions have shifted: 60.5% writing and editing, 38.5% music, and only 1% techie stuff. Of course, there's a lot of techie stuff in the other work -- I run the band's Web site and created our promotional video on my computer, do a lot of desktop publishing and image manipulation in my technical writing and editing, and so on. I also offer plenty of free technical advice to my friends, family, editing colleagues, and clients for other projects. Still, it would be pretty hard to include "computer consultant" on my business card at this rate. I should probably add the "drummer" part on there, though.

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