#6: The Freelancer Snowball Effect, & How I Accidentally Became An Industrial Writer

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with professional suck-up Josh Horowitz, professional Irish treasure Cillian Murphy re-ran his weirdly hustle-culture-influencer phrase ‘work begets work’.

(He also says ‘good work begets good work’, which, maybe I enjoy more?)

It’s his go-to interview line; he’s re-used it when speaking to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Irish Times. And I know this because of work which I got… from other work.

I think you know what it means, but if you don’t, it means if you take a job and you’re good at it then you’re probably going to get another job through that one. Either someone at that job will offer you something (better) within the same company, or someone will remember you from that job when they move into another (better) project, or just having that job as a reference will be the reason you’re hired when you’re applying for something (better) else. It’s pretty simple, and also just a nice idea to remember when you’re in the rut of ‘why am I even doing this’ – like, remembering the possibility is essential for wondering what you’re going to do with it.

Freelancers sometimes call this the ‘snowball effect’. You get one gig, and it goes well, and that client kind of recommends you to their friends, and suddenly you have two clients, then three, then five. I had this when I was house-sitting and dog-sitting – suddenly I was spending every second week at an upper-class middle-aged lady’s place in inner-south Brisbane walking two Labradors and trying desperately to figure out how rich people showers work (it’s different, I swear).

But there’s another side to work begets work.

It’s not just good work begets good work; it’s this work begets this work.

Let me explain.

I came across Cillian Murphy’s quote while working for Cover Media, a UK-based news agency which produces a lot of arts and entertainment content for Yahoo, MSN, tabloids, and random sketchy websites you’ve never heard of before. I don’t work there anymore, but my path to getting the job was part of a long-haul ongoing project to write in the arts and entertainment space.

I started on this goal in university, photographing for events like Brisbane Writers Festival and Supanova Comic-Con, indie musicians like Patrick Williams and Amy Elise, and The Photo Studio in West End. I wasn’t the sharpest photographer in the world, but I was cheap (mostly free) and keen. 

The Supanova gig led me to write for their website, on Supanova News. For four years, I (sporadically) produced interviews, reviews, and advertorials. It was this volunteer work on my resume which convinced Cover to hire me.

But I was foiled. During my volunteering years, I received a job offer at a marketing company which would come to be known as Constructiv Digital. Of course I took it; I needed money. There, I wrote website and blog copy for clients in the industrial sector and articles for the (now defunct) Flapping Mouth trade magazine. I do not come from a construction background, but I learnt the lingo and now play games with friends whenever we drive past a construction site: Name That Machine. I started asking industry folks the right questions, which meant I was hirable as an industrial writer.

My work at Constructiv Digital led me to One Mandate Media, which produces magazines like The Australian Farmer and Innovatia. There, I produced advertorials for The Australian Farmer and was eventually named the deputy managing editor for an Innovatia issue. I now had a string of industrial writing work under my belt, so of course, I could write a YouTube video script for the channel Engineering With Rosie – titled What Happens When Lightning Strikes A Wind Turbine?

You can see how I’ve fallen off my track.

If this is a cautionary tale for freelancers, the moral is to remember what ‘good’ work looks like to you. It can be difficult to work actively towards your goals when you’re taking whatever comes, and whatever comes can turn into a line of work you never asked for. Don’t forget the gig that made you say this is what I want to do more of.

I’m still working towards that pop culture writing dream, even now.

In a cost-of-living crisis, however, employees and freelancers are often forced to take whatever they can get. My strongest advice, if I’m in a position to give it, would be to employers: beware of specialising your workers to death, and believe in the people who want to be there rather than searching for those who already are.

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