I would have thought that “Searching for Spadino”, a story I wrote in 2003, was my career highlight. But I guess the real highlight was correcting the record sixteen years later in Columbia Journalism Review.
Listen… Can you hear a faint murmur in the distance? It may be the sound of my far-flung friends scoffing at the idea that I could possibly get a real job. But indeed, that has happened. About three months ago, I started a late (last?) career as a writer at a “Big Data” tech company. For practical purposes, this marks my retirement from motorcycle journalism.
IIRC, the first time I ever got paid for writing about motorcycles was in 1994. I was still working in the advertising industry back then but by 2002 motorcycles had become a de facto full-time job—especially if you count the time I devoted to Riding Man. I returned from Europe to the US in early 2004. Except for about eight ill-fated months on salary at Motorcyclist, I've essentially been a freelancer for 20 years.
By my estimate: several dozen feature stories in print magazines (U.S., Canada, U.K., Belgium, France, Sweden, Norway, Australia;) over 250 Backmarker columns on RoadRacerX.com and about the same number on Motorcycle-USA.com; 100 print columns in Classic Bike, and over the last five years, 130 stories on Common Tread.
Taken in the broadest sense (including book sales and movie option fees) writing about motorcycles has accounted for about 75% of my income since 2002. I'm reasonably proud of what I managed to put up as a body of work. I tend to rank the early stuff like the Naked Frenchman story higher than the later stuff, but there've been a few quite good ones—if I do say so myself—in the Common Tread period. I'd consider publishing a second “Best of Backmarker” anthology but the first one only sells a few copies a month, so it's not worth the work it would take to sort/select/re-edit.
When people find out that I used to be an ad agency creative director, they often say, “Oh, like ‘Mad Men’.” I tell them that era had ended before I arrived; I just missed it though there were still a few old white guys around, pining for the old days.
I arrived at Motorcyclist at the end of motorcycle journalism’s heyday, too. I might've made a decent living ten years earlier, but I got there just in time for the web to kill print. Lest you think I’m being overly dramatic: in the mid-’oughts the most I ever earned from a single magazine feature was $2,500 for a story in the UK magazine Bike. Nowadays, I’d make half that for a story in the New York Times. Bike would pay $500, tops.
So I’m trading motorcycle journalism in for a real job.
I tell myself that the last time I had a real full-time job (in the mid-to-late-’90s, at the ad agency portrayed in Riding Man) I also did more quality riding than at any time before or since, because I could afford it. In the anticipation of a predictable income, I’m already entertaining ideas like buying or building some kind of go-kart-track practice bike or finally living out my observed trials fantasy.
If those things happen, I suppose you might read about them on Common Tread or at least on this blog. But I’ll be freelancing as a hobby, not a career. To mark that downshift, I’d like to thank some of the many editors who trusted my story instincts, improved my work, and occasionally saved me from myself: Chris and Laurel, at Road Racer X; Bart at Motorcycle-USA.com; Hugo at Classic Bike and Bike in the U.K.; the late, lamented Bruce Reeve at Cycle Canada; more recently Justin at the Times, Ravi at CJR (he may only have edited one story but it was a doozy,) and—special mention—Lance at Common Tread.
If you’ve been a regular reader and especially if you’ve been buying my books, thank you, too.
Writers write for all kinds of misguided reasons; some seek fame (hah!) or if they’re even more delusional, fortune. Once a writer’s been disabused of those notions, this is what’s left: We write in the hope that some day, we’ll be read. If you’ve been reading lo these 20 years…
Cheers,
Mark