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Writers Need To Stop Competing & Start Collaborating

Emily Sinclair Montague
7 min readSep 14, 2020
closeup of vintage typewriter keys in black and white photo
Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

The concept of professional collaboration in a field as competitive as Writing & Editing likely sounds idealistic at best, but suspend your skepticism for a moment.

In the past few years we’ve seen a major shift in the way writers make their income. Change is happening — the momentum is there and growing stronger every year. Some of that change has been positive, and some has been arguable very negative.

The rise of Ebooks, freelance job boards, and an increased need for marketing copy has resulted in plenty of demand for writers. What the value of that demand is has been hotly debated. The ease and relative lack of barriers to online writing has resulted in a huge influx of people trying to establish writing careers. Whether those careers are at all viable is a matter of divisive opinion.

The industry’s upheaval has been a source of commentary and handwringing across the board, but very few people are talking about the deeper impact of the new writing landscape — the ethical impact that makes or breaks thousands of careers. Commentators have largely been focused on the short-term questions, rather than the long-term implications of the changes we’re seeing.

These are questions which examine the deeper pillars of writing as a viable industry. What do market changes mean for…

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Emily Sinclair Montague
Emily Sinclair Montague

Written by Emily Sinclair Montague

Author & Full-Time Writer. Embracing life’s chaos one word at a time. Get in touch at emsinclair@wordsofafeather.net (or don’t, but I love the attention)!

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