yay for booze and freelancing (not both at once)

Trying to make good on one of my New Year’s resolutions, I dipped my big toe into the proverbial pool that is freelancing tonight, by taking a seminar course that was titled “Breaking into the beer, wine, and spirits niche.”

Throwing caution to the wind (as well as my sobriety-the course included a wine tasting which did leave me a bit flush) I decided yesterday that March 19th would be the date; I’m seriously going to get serious about cracking the shell and pitching myself as a brand-work skills that will no doubt supplement my career and just looks like a lot of fun.


First things first: besides my career interest, I knew this was course was going to be right up my ally: I mean, hello! What (normal) 20-something doesn’t like the prospective thought of getting paid to drink!

Okay, okay, so it’s not that simple: we’re not talking about just picking your old haunt and getting hammered on cheap pink well drinks. Instead, the course focused on the extreme and relatively untapped (no pun intended, haha!) market that lies out there for writers that would love nothing more than to revel and write all about the culture of drink.

The instructor Kara, was an accomplished freelance who said she stumbled into the booze niche by complete accident. Honestly I think that’s great; and while the exact details escape me (forgive me it’s been a long day) I couldn’t help but wonder if she “stumbled” into the market because she was drunkenly babbling with a bartender, asking him about he pretty colored bottles at an off-the-wall-yet-still-retardedly-expensive uptown bar.

Anywho, the class began with a brief syllabus overview, and she explained quickly that she intended to basically inform the class of 10-person class that she hoped they would come away from the discussion with a fast and dirty knowledge of the appropriate avenues to both conduct research, and places in the alcoholic beverage market to pitch ideas to.

See that’s the very thing about freelancing, it seems so obvious that the market is just some great fuzzy entity that has it’s arms forever outreaching and attracting writers. It can be, but it’s a bit more tricky then thinking that you can simply write, la,- la- lance freely, and just get paid for it.

So back to the seminar that I was at. It was very informative, although the focus was on wine. Wines cool and all, but I prefer the beer and spirits end.
(And now I’m going to interrupt this posting for a shot-out: thank you, to all of my guy friends-you guys know who you are- for taking me [and Pam, Laura, Holly, Abbie, Flo, etc.] on endless microbrewery tours in PA/VT/NY/pretty much every state we’ve visited. I seriously accredit my love of the brewed beverage to all of you.)

A really EXCELLENT point that the instructor brought up is the fact that even in the recent meh-economy-stuff that’s been going on, there is pretty much always going to be a hearty market for the hard stuff. Think of the serious dough that those glossy mags charge for the prime real estate for the back cover advertisements. And besides when you’ve had one of those days that just straight up suck-we’re talking dog throwing up on the carpet-which makes you miss the bus which makes you late for your promotional presentation day, what are you likely to reach for? A drink.

In total, it was a very positive and encouraging entryway into the freelancing sphere. I even made a few friends, (yay for networking) including some random guy who wants me to do some pro-bono review-style writing for a beer-oriented Web site he is launching in the early summer.

All in all, the experience was extremely positive, and I would recommend mediabistro.com’s seminars to anyone; the instructors are accredited, (meaning they are EXPERIENCED and they know what they are talking about) the atmosphere is casual (lots of time to talk, openly ask questions) and the wine was a-flowin (we had an informal writing exercise which focused on doing the whole taste-texture-smell-color of two different Argentinean wines).

And with that, I’m off to go have a nightcap.
Until next time!