We recently connected with Paul Boutin and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Paul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?

You can get paid well if you’re talented and deliver what people want, but you’ll need to find the right clients.

I had the unusual start to my writing career as a contributor to Wired magazine in 1997, which I did as a sideline from my software engineering manager work because I felt called to it at the time. In a few years I was a senior editor and then a freelance writer for Wired, which had become one of Condé Nast’s portfolio of top-tier publications. I was cold-called by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Slate, which was funded by Microsoft at the time. So I was spoiled in a way.

After the 2008 global financial crash, the publishing industry collapsed. Advertisers stopped spending, and had already for a decade been moving away from what they called display ads in publications (print or online) to AI-targeted ads on Google searches and Facebook feeds. Many, maybe most of us A-list writers had trouble finding work. The pendulum swung the opposite way. Marketing managers for various companies learned they could hire us cheap.

Here’s the lesson: Many of us let ourselves be convinced that these new cheapskate rates were all we would ever get ever again. Fifteen years later, I still had people at companies with plenty of money troll me to work for them at entry-level rates that aren’t enough to live on. “It’s the going rate,” they said. Ok then, I said, at that rate I’m going … to do something else. Many of us did. A smart, professional person who is on the ball can switch careers.

During a stint as a messaging and content strategist for a tech startup that had millions in funding but no marketing people yet — my sweet spot as a consultant — I reluctantly came to realize something. No matter what else I do, once people see anything I’ve written for them, it’s game over. I’m typecast as a Writer. It’s a backhanded compliment, because they see the talent (and I always file a day early so no one ever worries about Paul getting it done) but they reasonably assume that marketing copywriting must be my focus in life, my passion, probably a formal education and training and I must struggle hard at it. Haha no. It just falls out quickly. I’m a pretty good strategic consultant, but a standout writer.

You can guess the problem with that: The people who budget for that work still think it’s 2008. They gush about my writing, omg you’re the best and I loved that story etc etc, they they offer me a laughably low rate to work for them, certain that I’ll jump at the offer. My fellow former senior writers and I joke that they are like the movie villain Dr. Evil, who has been asleep for 30 years and awakes to threaten to destroy the world unless they pay him … ONE MILLION DOLLARS, which won’t even buy him a house in California now. We put our pinkies to our lips like Dr. Evil and tell each other some retail site’s marketing director offered us … ONE DOLLAR PER WORD. That’s what national magazines paid in 1968.

Most very good writers from 25 years ago have exited the field. These companies get people willing to work for a few hundred dollars per week. This is why so much of what you read online is so helplessly mediocre. I think it’s why AI writing is so bad — overly wordy, all cliches, no nuance or wit — because it has been trained to write like these not-so-great people on the Internet sites that it scraped as training.

How do you beat this conundrum? Find clients with money for whom paying you a few thousand dollars instead of a few hundred is not only worth it to them, but no big deal. Talk to your successful friends at tech startups — mine have been glad to help hook me up. It makes them look good to recommend a better writer than their other friend’s company has been finding on Upwork.

At the fairly-paid level it’s all word of mouth. Craft your LinkedIn to make you look accomplished and not desperate (Don’t click “Open to Work,” which hiring managers read as “just got fired again, not that good.” They want instead to steal the people who already have good jobs from other companies.) LinkedIn is where good hiring managers check you out instead of Googling.

The scary part is that you’ll need to say No to those nickel-and-dime jobs, even if you have to scrape by financially for a bit. My successful friends told me flat out, “Get away from that gig. Put that time into chasing something better. In three months you’ll have made more money.” They were right. I let the experienced friends tell me what to charge up front. Yikes, it was a lot! Amazingly, clients said yes, because that friend had referred me as the best to someone willing to pay for the best. You can often charge 50% or even 100% up front for work that isn’t a single deliverable piece. They’re paying for your time, which they need to use or lose in the time frame specified into the Statement of Work that they signed.

That’s my final lesson: Always create a very specific Statement of Work and have them sign it. Even then, use your instincts: Are they going to pay you for your time this coming month whether they use it or not? Or are they going to start making excuses to get out of paying because they’re behind schedule on their end? The worst clients will try to convince you that although you did the work in the statement, you didn’t actually finish it or it was unacceptable quality. Stop listening right there! Walk away. Cut off communications. They’re like abusive loved ones. They’re never going to give you another dollar, so don’t give them another minute of your thought. Stick with the winners. They love referring talented get-it-done people like you to each other.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was a software engineer who became a writer for Wired magazine in 1997. I wrote for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Salon and many other publications back when that was a sustainable career. These days I am a messaging and content strategy consultant to tech startups. I help teams of bright engineers understand how to communicate who they are and what they have to offer to their target markets. Their target markets, who are mostly other engineers.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I was brought up in a working-class community where a brainy book-reading kid like me was expected to become an inventor or professor like the characters on TV. Instead, I found that I’m an outgoing people person who enjoys helping the real innovators in tech communicate with one another and with larger audiences. I look for those I think are doing something valuable for society. It’s my way of helping make things better without inventing it myself.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

No matter what you do, everyone in tech will look you up on LinkedIn without telling you. You probably won’t get work from people searching there, where most searchers are looking for the cheapest. That’s not you. Instead, create a profile that someone will look at after you are mentioned to them. Oooh, what an accomplished professional you are! You even have at least recommendation from someone with an impressive sounding title and/or company, who says they will gladly hire you again anytime.