Age: 56

Location? Jersey City NJ

What are you working on now?
I always try to have multiple projects on my to-do list and right now is no exception. I'm working on the text for a New York Times special advertising section on technology; a department-length piece for American Way on corporate boards of directors; and a Selling Power Magazine piece on top sales meeting locations. This year I'll file around 84 stories -- figure seven every month -- and I try to mix up subjects. I stay flexible. In 2000 I was all tech, all the time -- even wrote a book about the internet, How to Dotcom -- but when the tech bubble burst I began writing much more about energy, biotech, selling, CEOs. The great thing about freelancing is that it lets me pursue my interests which, fortunately, are manifold.

What has been your most difficult project of late and how did you deal with its challenges?
I just finished a 7000 worfd text for a New York Times special advertising section on online investing (pub date: October 11. 2005). With magazine writing, I usually work in my little niche -- I do the words and that's pretty much it. With this NY Times section, I was in effect on a project team -- working with a copy editor, an art director, the top editor, and more. It was different, invigorating (and, fortunately, the people on this team were all superb). Little changes kept happening, essentially up to pub date. Deadlines were very tight. One early morning I wrote 700 new words sitting in Newark Airport and filed them as soon as I checked into a hotel in Chicago. I was in Chicago to attend the Motivation trade show for Selling Power and put in long days checking out the incentives scene, but at night in the hotel I was at my desk taking care of little chunks of business for the NY Times. Successful freelancing is about so much more than words. It's about time management, working with people, having fun. Words are a building block, but just as bricks are nothing without mortar, without a mason, without a vision, so can be words.

What's the most helpful thing you've learned about freelancing?
Repeats and referrals are the nature of the business. This business is about customer service. Editors are my customers. This year I won't work for more than 10 outlets, maybe fewer. Besides the ones listed above, I'll write for Fortune Magazine (a big energy advertising section is due in November), Imagination, Continental Airlines, Porthole (I write a regular column). I will walk from editors who are pains, who are untalented, who aren't fun to work with; in fact, every year I probably dump one customer. But this business is fundamentally about building and maintaining collaborative relationships. That's why my biggest lesson, which I seek to learn anew every day, is ego control. It takes ego to write, to put words on paper and assume others will want to read them. But a writer with an out of control ego won't succeed. Seek to be humble is my daily mantra. I fail, frequently. I surrender to my anger too often. But tomorrow is a new day and tomorrow I will do better.

What's been the worst advice you've ever received about writing?
That you cannot make a good living at this work. When I went into this business fulltime circa 1978, I'd quit a good-paying speechwriting job (I was earning in the mid-twenties) and many folks thought I'd starve. I never did and, in fact, in that first year I earned about as much as I had as a speechwriter. I'm here to say: you can make a good living at this work. Six-figure incomes are very possible. Set financial goals and work for them. I believe a successful freelancer ought to make about what a staff reporter on a newspaper earns and, while that isn't big bucks, it isn't poverty line either. , I offer 25 tips on making money at freelancing.

What advice do you have for new freelancers on how to build good relationships with editors?
Listen to your editors -- give them what they ask for. Don't be afraid to ask for clarifications -- is this what you want here? And be forgiving. Recently an editor called with a problem. He had double-assigned a story (i.e., he gave the same assignment to two freelancers). How far along was I? I told him to forget about it, I no longer had the assignment. Am I crazy? I had in fact done about a day's work on the piece. But this is an editor who is very easy to work with and who this year along will put over $20,000 in my pocket. Am I supposed to throw a tantrum? Make him look sloppy in front of his bosses? I don't think that benefits him or me. Editors are human, so am I, and I strive to acknowledge and respect this.