The Hustler Diaries Part 2: Stay in Your Lane
Porn Star, Las Vegas, NV | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
One thing I’ve learned through being self-employed, especially as a writer, is to stay in your lane. When you wander too far out of your lane, or try to occupy to many lanes, you get lost. Here’s how my role as a now senior contributor to Forbes has evolved over time, and how I recently redefined my lane.
Make it real
When I first started blogging for the Forbes website, each blog had a name. Mine was “Pink Slipped.” I’d been downsized, and I focused on the gig economy. The blog was quite popular because I wrote about what was going with my gig career, as it was happening. That sense of urgency and unexpectedness gave it juice. My blog with that angle was quite popular, and it was cited by Katie Couric and others.
Keep it fresh
Sometime in 2018, the editor of the Lifestyle section of the Forbes site reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to be the editor of a new section that would cover Vices. I refocused my own blog to fit that niche. So my blog focused on the business of vice, including gambling, sex, firearms, cannabis, food, and alcohol. That pushed me out of my comfort zone. But at times it felt like a very, very wide lane.
Do what you know
Today, I’m no longer editing the Vices section, but I still blog on the site. For me, something had become less fresh about trying to cover so many topics. So this week I asked my editor if it would be OK if I covered just one beat: the business of sex. I’ve been covering this beat for many years as a journalist, so this is my comfort zone. Of course, I can write about other things on other platforms, but it felt like it would be clarifying for me to just—well, pick a lane and stay in it, at least in that venue. So keep an eye out for more to come here.
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