And then, I took that final step and starting writing my ideas for new audiences, for popular audiences. I did so by learning to pitch popular articles in my areas of expertise, and to write them, and, when appropriate, to get paid for them.

Second, you have a right to post on public repositories a PDF of your own creation.

read everything you can about how to start making money for the hard work you do.

Start pitching articles in your area of expertise that are “pegged” (tied) to current events. Turn your discerning academic eye outward. Those coffee-shop conversations about what’s wrong with the world? Write them down.

I’m telling this story because I want to encourage you to put yourself in a position to engage publicly with your research. Freelance academics are perfectly aligned with the work of public engagement—but too often we worry that we aren’t. We feel like imposter academics.

First, I made my research publicly available by posting it on my own website and on open-access repositories that are indexed in Google Scholar.

Getting paid also means when your institution asks you to take on extra work, you ask for extra money. When someone not in your institution asks you to do labor in your area of expertise, bill them, politely.

To be a freelance academic is to recognize this bifurcation that we contingent professors face, and then to try to mend it. Yes, I worked for a university as a contingent professor. But I also wrote and researched. I realized that I didn’t have to let any part of me be squelched or allowed to wither.

you have the luxury to have time to write, do you write scholarship with the hope of forwarding your academic career, or do you write something you might find more fun, and hope to publish it another way?