Beyond the Elements of Style blogger Jeannette Cezanne, whose offshoring posts I've picked up on in the past, extends the discussion today. She acknowledges prior discussions on how much freelance publishing work is being sent overseas, and couples that with the dire implications of the economic downturn. Freelance work might be more difficult to come by these days, so she had good tips on how to scare up more work.
I just got out of a meeting with a rep from a publishing services company who commented on the downturn as well, saying that many publishers are trying to defer expenses to 2009, and thus are scheduling projects to finish up and be billed in January and after. They don't want to spend money on freelancers; yet they've gone through so many downsizings that there's nobody left in-house to do the work. So something's gotta give. Will that result in title count cuts, more things being done exclusively online, or what? I don't know, so what do you think?
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As a recently turned freelancer, I've heard both perspectives. While some of the companies I work with are freezing their freelance budgets til January 2009, several have told me I turned freelance at the right time...and keep sending projects they don't have the hands for in-house. I agree that something has to give, unfortunately sometimes that means publishers reduce the quality of what they publish and try to get out as much as they can without the needed freelance expertise. I, for one, hope that isn't the solution this time.
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