Do Writers Retire?

If you’ve been working for years as a freelance writer, will you be considering retiring as other working people do? When you work for a salary, your job has an end point. For most people that’s around age 65 or a bit later. But for a writer, is there an end point?

Some writers, especially those who write books, have one or two successes, then nothing. While they may be in the limelight for a little while, it’s not a steady income. But a freelance writer, even a moderately successful one, has the ability to publish in different market for as long as those market exist.

But after you’ve been writing for 20 or 30 years, you may be ready to switch gears. As a freelance writer, you’ve been writing mostly non-fiction. Now that you’re approaching retirement age and a regular Social Security income, even though it may or may not be as much as you earned previously,

Do you know many former writers? Does that category even exist? Do you, as a writer, have an obligation to write or is that something you have for yourself? It’s one thing to stop feeling the obligation to write and another thing to never write anything again. After all, it’s as odd for a writer to be retired from words as it is for a man or woman to be retired from love.

Perhaps it’s not so much retirement from writing as it’s retirement from commercial publishing that you seek. After all, you have been putting up with the vagaries of editors for your entire career. Don’t you wish that you didn’t have to struggle so hard?

The Retirement Book of Genesis might read like this: “ In the beginning, there was no retirement. There were no old people. In the Stone Age, everyone was fully employed until age 20, by which time nearly everyone was dead, usually of unnatural causes.” That’s not true today, as people live longer and are more active for a longer period of their lives. So, too, are writers.

Retirement resulted from the pension system enacted in Germany in the late 19th century, but it didn’t come to America until the 1930s, when the country needed to find a way to make room for younger workers by encouraging older ones to stop. Older people like retirement because they get to stop working and still enjoy some financial protection, whether from the U.S. Government or from their own pension or 401K contributions. Young people like retirement because it gets the old people out of jobs, making room for them. Maybe there are too many writers—or not enough readers to go around. Unfortunately, compulsory retirement won’t help all the young writers out there.

Unlike sports celebrities, writers have fewer fans. They earn less money and their value to the public isn’t necessarily diminished by age—Charles Dickens did much of his best writing in his older years. In many cases, it is enhanced, not simply because there’s a real possibility that their talents will improve with years of practice, but also because readers want to interact with them at 90 as much as they do with writers at 20.

All writers are different, so it’s impossible to tell when each will produce his or her best work. Some never match their earlier work while others reach their peak mid career. Still others don’t begin writing until later in life and reach their peak almost near the end of their lives.

For a freelance writer, retirement actually means the end of struggling. Officially, you’ll gain a steadier income after 65—or now 66. And you won’t necessarily have to struggle to pay bills, so you can take a much needed sigh before continuing on.

Next Week: So You’re Retired, Now What?

Improving the Readability of Your Writing

What is readability? Essentially, it’s how easy it is for readers to read your writing. Improving the readability of your writing helps your reader to comprehend what you’re saying more accurately in less time.

Figuring the readability of writing began in the late 19th century in the U.S. Schools didn’t use graded or grade level materials until around 1847. Somehow teachers expected students to learn to read all on the same level. This probably came about because so many schools were one-room affairs with students from all grade levels in attendance. And while educators established graded reading levels for students, no one ever paid attention to the reading level of adults until the U.S. military took a stab at it. They found that in 1937 general adult readers had limited reading ability.

In 1921, Edward Thorndike published his landmark book, The Teacher’s Word Book. In it, he noted the frequency of difficult words used in general literature. For the first time, a notable scholar suggested a means to measure difficult words through mathematical formulas. He showed that overall reading comprehension is directly related to the number of difficult words in any piece of writing. 

So how does this relate to your writing? While you may not know the reading level of what you write, you can take these steps to ensure that it’s readable to the majority of adult readers. Believe it or not, the average reading level in the U.S. is tenth grade. That means there are readers who read above that level and also those who read below it. The more educated a certain group of readers is, the higher their reading level.

As a writer, you can’t assume that everyone that reads your work has gone to college. Depending on your target audience, chances are that about half have done so.

To make your writing more readable, follow these simple steps:

Focus on Your Reader. Who will be reading your writing—young adults, men, women, seniors? Find out as much as you can about your readers' education, reading habits, age, sex, occupational background, and so on. Even knowing the likes of "the general reader" is better than writing in a vacuum. Analyze the advertisements in the publication you intend to write for to help you discover your what your readers like.

Focus on Your Purpose. Why are you writing? What do you expect your readers to do? Read your piece casually? Study it? Use it for reference? Read it for entertainment during leisure hours? Be sure of what you are trying to do and write accordingly.

Design Your Writing to Fit. Once you know your audience and your purpose, you can design your piece of writing to fit. Ordinarily, this means that you start raising your readability by increasing the number of "personal words." For easy and interesting reading, a story design is usually best--either sustained narrative or anecdotes, illustrative examples, and practical applications, sandwiched between straight description. For instructional pieces, the best design is the direct "you" approach, or cookbook style.

In other words, you can increase the number of "personal words" by using the first and second persons for yourself and your reader and by explaining your ideas through the experiences of people.

Use Direct Quotes at Key Points. Move your narrative along by using direct quotes at key points along the way.  After increasing the number of "personal words," increase the number of "personal sentences." In today's professional writing the proportion of dialogue to narrative is increasing steadily. Successful writing today uses a conversational approach

Break up Sentences and Paragraphs. Next, shorten the length of your average sentence. To do this, look for the joints in complex sentences and break them, changing dependent clauses to independent clauses. Also, there’s a natural relationship between the length of sentences and the length of paragraphs. After you’ve shortened your sentences, break up your paragraphs to fit the changed rhythm. And avoid using semi-colons. Put a period where a semi-colon should be. But make sure the new sentence following it relates directly to the previous one.

Use Simpler Words. While you should generally choose a simpler word over a more complex one, some of the long, complex words may be technical terms that shouldn't be changed. As for the rest, remember that complexity rather than length makes for reading difficulty. Many complex words are abstract nouns. Change these nouns into verbs, particularly simple verbs with adverbs. For example, instead of using the word “condescension,” use “look down on.”  And no, using simpler words won’t make you seem less intelligent. That’s a myth fostered by academics who like to show off how smart they are. As a writer, no one cares how intelligent you are, only that you communicate your thoughts well.

Help Your Reader Read. You’ll raise the level of readability indirectly if you try to help your readers read. Point out to them what’s significant. Using bold type, tell them to remember what they should remember, use headings to prepare them for what they’re going to read, and summarize for them what they’ve read.

Learn to Cut. The most common problem with beginning writers—and some advanced ones, too—is wordiness. Tightening up your writing by cutting non-essentials will make essentials stand out better and save the reader time.  If your piece of writing is too long, some readers may skip it altogether.

Rearrange for Emphasis. Readers remember best what they read last. Rearrange your writing with that in mind. Repeat important concepts towards the end so that readers will remember them.

Punctuate for Readability. Avoid semicolons and colons which tend to lengthen sentences. Parentheses make writing appear more formal and take away from its conversational casualness. Also, get in the habit of reading what you’ve written aloud to “hear” where punctuation should go.

Following these simple steps will help to drastically improve your writing with an almost immediate effect.

The Elephant in the Room

Copyright is probably the most misunderstood concept in writing. With information being so readily available on the Internet, everyone is on the defensive. If someone uses even one word of a text, the author is ready to jump on them. The same goes for ideas. Many people believe that if someone uses an idea the same as or similar to there’s without permission that they have stolen it. But actual copyright is very different from these common misconceptions.

Most beginning writers think that if they put their work out in public view that someone will steal it. If it only were good enough, someone might do just that. But most of the time it isn’t worth stealing. So how did they develop this notion.

It all started back when they were in school. Teachers ingrained in them that all their work had to be original. Let’s face it, the last time something totally original was created was at the point of the creation of the universe. Everything since then is influenced by all that came before it. Traditionally, academics have a fear that someone is after whatever they’ve uncovered or created. But that’s not how the real world works.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, copyrighting a work reserves the rights by the author to reproduce, distribute, and perform a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work. That covers a lot of territory.

It all began with the Statute of Anne, passed in England in 1710, that recognized that authors should be the primary beneficiaries of copyright law and established the idea that such copyrights should have only limited duration, after which works would pass into the public domain. The U.S. Congress enacted a similar law in the United States in 1790. Over the years, subsequent legislation changed the duration of a copyright and the necessity of registration.

Essentially, a copyright is placed on a work from a particular date onward for a period of time during which the copyright holder has exclusive rights to reproduce, modify, and distribute the work in whatever way he or she sees fit. In the U.S., that period is 70 years plus the age of the author at the time of publication. For anonymous works, that period is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation date.

A work that was created in tangible form for the first time on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author’s life plus an additional 70 years after the author’s death.

Copyright law protects short stories, novels, nonfiction articles, poetry, computer software, software manuals, text advertisements, manuals, catalogs, brochures, and  databases. Other categories include plays, films, musical and sound recordings and multimedia works. Copyright law doesn’t protect your ideas, facts, words, and names, although it may protect the way you express them.

You own the copyright to your work, unless you assign those rights to a third party. Copyright protection arises automatically the moment you create it. The work must be "original," and not based upon someone else's work. The fact that your short story may be similar to other stories doesn’t mean it isn’t "original” for copyright purposes, so long as you don’t copy the complete story from another source.

For works published before March 1, 1989, you needed to place a copyright notice— “Copyright © 2014 by Your Name. All Rights Reserved”—on your work in order to receive copyright law protection. That’s no longer the case. For works published after March 1, 1989, you don’t need to place a copyright notice on your work in order to be protected by copyright law.

Such a notice warns people who view your work that you take copyright issues seriously and may have a deterrent effect upon possible infringers, especially those who are unfamiliar with the intricacies of copyright law. Furthermore, if your work carries a proper notice, in the event of a subsequent infringement lawsuit the defendant will be unable to claim "innocent infringement"—that he or she didn’t realize that the work was protected.

Do you have to register your copyright? Not necessarily, but if you need to take legal action, a registered copyright will hold up in court. You may register the work after someone has infringed upon the work, but the registration will only apply to infringements that occur after the registration. However, if you register your work within 90 days of publication, the statutory damages provisions apply to infringements before and after the actual registration. Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages up to $100,000 and attorney's fees in successful litigation.

Registration costs $35 per work. To register, you simply fill out the copyright application and mail it to the U.S. Copyright office with a check and a nonreturnable copy of your work—one copy if your work is unpublished and two copies if it has been published. Works that have been published must be registered within three months of publication. This is called "mandatory deposit."

Copyright registration is considered effective the day the Copyright Office receives all the materials required for registration. You may copyright the work in a pen name or pseudonym by simply checking the "Pseudonymous" box on the application.

Works published or created after January 1, 1978 aren’t subject to renewal registration. For works published or registered prior to January 1, 1978, renewal registration is optional after 28 years but does provide certain legal advantages.

The length of copyright protection depends on when the work was created, who created the work, and when the work was first distributed commercially. For works created on and after January 1, 1978, the copyright term for works created by an individual is the life of the author plus 50 years.

The term of the copyright for "works for hire" is 75 years from the date of first "publication" or 100 years from the date of creation, whichever expires first.

Remember, it’s up to you to enforce the copyright to your works.