Probably the biggest one was that I could afford to take the risk. My mortgage payment was only $300 a month, I knew how to live cheap, and I didn't have anybody but me to support, since my son was grown up. Fox was paying about half my basic living expenses, and I was pretty sure I could make up the rest with speaking engagements.
WHAT DID YOU DO TO BUILD THE BUSINESS?
First thing, I bought the marylaine.com domain, got an internet service provider, and placed NeatNew, BookBytes, and my resume there. (Later, I had to break it into two separate resumes: my internet librarian resume and my writing resume.)
I started ExLibris, and archived it, as a way to expand my reputation among librarians by sharing what I knew about the internet, searching, and other professional issues. When people told me they preferred to have their information come to them, I made ExLibris and NeatNew available in a combined free e-mail newsletter as well as online, which dramatically expanded its reach. And I increased my usefulness to librarians by making all my conference and workshop presentations freely available on the web <http://marylaine.com/handouts.html>.
I made a decision up front not to accept any advertising. That was partly to avoid any appearance of conflicts of interest, since the greatest asset I have to offer is my integrity. But mostly it was because I wanted to use my web page frames to promote my own work. Which ever route brought readers to me -- BookBytes, Neat New Stuff, or ExLibris -- would lead them to my other work.
All of the archived work on my web site allows editors and conference planners to see the kinds of work I have done, and the kinds of topics I have addressed. The fact that I clearly meet a weekly schedule also assures editors that I know how to meet a deadline.
HOW MUCH OF A ROLE DID DUMB LUCK PLAY?
A big role -- as in any business. I was fortunate in the word of mouth from librarians, who forwarded my newsletters to colleagues, or recommended particular columns in the weblogs.
I was also fortunate with search engines. I always tell people I was doing all the right things to get search engine attention before anyone knew there WERE right things to do. Because the engines paid great attention to librarians' web pages, they followed me from Best Information on the Net to marylaine.com. Because search engines also give preference to sites that update regularly, they spider my site often, keeping up with the new material I add.
Since I cover such a wide variety of topics in my handouts, columns, and ExLibris backfile, and Google routinely spiders my site every week, librarians and other information seekers are frequently referred to my work, regardless of what they're searching for: "out of print books," "library marketing," "cool quotes," "Images on the Web" -- even, would you believe, "Burma-Shave signs." Once searchers find one of my pages, they can and do explore others.
Thanks to the fact that one of my subscribers was a technology writer, I got some entirely unexpected free publicity when he wrote an article for Wired about NeatNew and other e-mail lists in February, 2002 <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.02/lists.html. Within a month, I'd added more than 1500 techies to my subscriber list.
DO YOU MAKE MONEY?
Yes, though not as much as I'd like. Like many self-employed people, I start the year not knowing how much money I'll make and where it will come from, so it's not a job for the faint of heart. My income comes from an ever-shifting mix of writing, speaking fees, and royalties from my book, Net Effects <http://marylaine.com/book/index.html>. This year, as library budgets have dried up, my speaking business is down, but my writing business is up.
It helps that my costs of doing business are not prohibitive: my server, my DSL connection, and distribution charges. These are offset by the tax deductions for business expenses and my home office.
I chose not to charge a fee for NeatNew and ExLibris, but to use them to promote my writing and speaking business. My users can make donations, though, through their Amazon accounts <http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/pay/T14QALG15ZGLR9/002-9315885-1222427>. If all my subscribers donated even $5, I'd be making as much money as I did in my last year at work. That would certainly be nice, and I'd welcome your donations.
WHAT ARE THE GRATIFICATIONS OF THE WORK:
There are many. The greatest is that I have the opportunity, in both my print and online publications, to influence the way librarians respond to our challenging new technological and economic environment. I love the e-mail I get, the very personal responses to my articles, and I enjoy seeing my ideas picked up in weblogs and listservs. But I'm even more pleased when I see my articles turn up as required reading in LIS courses.
I love the opportunity my work has given me to meet librarians all over the country, including some of my own personal heroes, who I've gotten to mingle with at conferences or interview for ExLibris. One of the regular writing jobs I've gotten is the Movers and Shakers issue of Library Journal, which has given me a chance to get to know some of the most interesting up-and-coming young people in our profession, and find out about the exciting things they're doing.
I can't tell you how much I love setting my own schedule. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have set an alarm clock since July, 1999, when I began this enterprise. When it's 20 below zero, or the snow is up to my waist, I don't have to go out unless I'm stupid enough to want to. I can hang clean laundry up to dry on any day when it's sunny and warm, instead of waiting for a Saturday or Sunday that's sunny and warm. I can read during the day, on my sunporch, instead of in dim fluorescent light. When daylight dwindles down, and you all are going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark, I get to enjoy every little bit of daylight we are allowed.
Of course the other side of setting my own schedule is that I work whenever the job needs to be done. That sometimes means working on Thanksgiving and Christmas, or writing and researching at 2 in the morning or 11 at night. I routinely work on Saturdays and Sundays. I can live with that.
WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS WORK TO YOUNG LIBRARIANS?
Not unless you are are extraordinarily confident in your own abilities and are willing to take risks and live cheap. Most independent information professionals already had a base before they went private; they knew who their prospective clients were, and already had a good reputation within that group.
But is it something you might want to aspire to after you've gotten a few years of experience? Absolutely. Because the bottom line for me is this: it's been a fun ride, and I've had a ball doing it. Thanks to all my readers for keeping me company on the ride.
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COOL QUOTE:
I’m working on an interface directly to the human mind,
So I can capture concepts that have not yet even been defined;
In fact, in finding information, most utilitarian,
I am the very model of computerized librarian.
Lyrics by Diane M. O’Keefe, M.S.L.S. and Janet T. O’Keefe, M.L.S. Based on the song "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
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You are welcome to copy and forward any of my own articles (but not those by my guest writers) for noncommercial purposes as long as you credit ExLibris and cite the permanent URL for the article. Please do NOT copy and post my articles to your own web sites, however. Instead, please copy a brief excerpt and link to the URL for the remainder of the article.
Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies.
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2004.
[Publishers may license the content for a reasonable fee.]
Please do NOT copy and post my articles to your own web sites, however. Instead, please copy a brief excerpt and link to my site for the remainder of the article.
