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It's Not Just For Academics: Writing for Encyclopedias and Reference Texts
By Erika Dreifus
You've probably heard stories about some determined soul who vowed to read the
entire encyclopedia. Maybe you wondered a little bit about that person. Or maybe
you are that person-- frankly, for the purposes of this article, that's
probably preferable!
But have you ever heard about the equally determined souls who write for
encyclopedias? (And how do they find those jobs, anyway?)
Writing for reference books can be an intellectually exciting way to expand your
writing income and career. And you don't always need a doctorate to get the
assignments, although you'll often be asked to document some expertise in a
given field. (My own first encyclopedia articles were written when I was a
beginning graduate student.)
But if you can prove that you have solid research and writing skills-- to write
a profile for a biographical dictionary, say-- encyclopedia writing may offer
you publication credits and bylines, at least a little bit of money, and some
extra knowledge, too. (After my first set of assignments I was convinced I had
become something of an expert on, among other personages, Fructuoso Rivera
(1784[?]-1854), an Uruguayan revolutionary and statesman whom I profiled for
Dictionary of Hispanic Biography.)
The system generally works this way. When you find an appropriate announcement,
you contact the editor (usually by e-mail) to request a list of available
entries and details about what's required (entry lengths, deadlines, terms of
payment, etc.). Sometimes the announcements specify that you should send along a
curriculum vita or resume with your request, or, at the very least,
describe your qualifications for working on the particular project. If you and
the editor agree on a number of articles/entries that you'll be writing, you're
off (quite often, in my experience, to the library!).
So where can you find these crucial announcements? Academic websites offer an
excellent starting point. One that frequently posts calls for reference work
contributors is H(umanities)-Net,
http://www.h-net.org/announce/group.cgi?type=Publications. Recent paying
opportunities listed there have included calls for writers to contribute to
The Encyclopedia of the Caribbean, to be published by Facts on File; The
Encyclopedia of the History of Invention and Technology (also to be
published by Facts on File); and an Encyclopedia of North American Sport
to be published by M.E. Sharpe.
Another site, maintained at the University of Pennsylvania (http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
), lists projects of a more distinctly literary bent, but you'll need to sift
carefully through the more typical calls for (non-paying) conference and journal
papers. One recent post described a forthcoming book titled Women in Science
Fiction and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia (to be published by Greenwood Press)
which listed payment for "thematic essays" at $250 and other entries at
$50-$100. Another Greenwood Press project posted on the UPenn list sought
writers for chapters of Reading in America Today: The Greenwood Encyclopedia
of Contemporary Popular American Literature.
Still another possibility, simple as it may sound, is to conduct a keyword-wise
Internet search. My recent Google query for "encyclopedia" and "call for
contributors" and "2007" (assuming that most work solicited now will be
published in 2007 at the earliest) yielded a number of possibilities, many
posted on specialized discussion boards. Among the titles looking for writers
(and planning to pay them) were Encyclopedia of the Jazz Age,
Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, and Organized Crime: An
International Encyclopedia. Again, however, you'll need to sift through the
search results if you're looking only for paying assignments. (You can also add
"honorarium" or "honoraria" to your keyword search, since these calls for
submission often describe payment in those terms.)
So, why just sit back and read an encyclopedia, when you might write for one,
too?
Erika Dreifus began her freelance career with a number of reference work
articles that appeared in the Dictionary of Hispanic Biography (Gale
Research), Contemporary Authors (Gale Research), the Encyclopedia of
Historians and Historical Writing (Fitzroy Dearborn), and American
National Biography (Oxford UP).She edits the free monthly newsletter, "The
Practicing Writer," and has published several resource guides for writers. Visit
her website at
http://www.practicing-writer.com and check out her blog at
http://practicing-writing.blogspot.com, where she often posts calls for
encyclopedia contributions.
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