Advice Columnist Career
Advice Columnist Career
The Real Poop
Dear Shmoopy: My Best Friend Says I Give Great Advice and That I Should Become an Advice Columnist. Should I? – Richard Fader, Ft. Lee, NJ
If you're someone who loves to give advice, knows a lot about something, and who is almost always right, why shouldn't you be paid for your expertise?
If you could bottle air and sell it, wouldn't you?
If you could bottle water and make a fortune, wouldn't you try that?
If you could write pithy responses to people who have enough free time on their hands that they'd actually sit down and write a letter to a total stranger telling the intimate details of their life, wouldn't you give it a shot?
Sure, these desperate souls could seek advice from an actual professional with a degree...but then they would have to shell out big bucks. Your $52,000 salary gets paid by their small newspaper subscription fee.
Plus, they'd miss out on flaunting their published letter to friends and family.
Dear Shmoopy: How Do You Become an Advice Columnist Anyway? – Jean Green, Boston, MA
First and foremost, an advice columnist is a writer—and a wildly entertaining scribe at that. You could be a consummate pro on a subject; the smartest person in the world with the best advice, but if you can't string sentences together in a way that will engage your audience, you're kaputsky.
You'll need to create a persona—a gimmick.
Nobody wants to read or heed advice from a Plain Jane or a Joe Shmoe. You'll need to be smart and sassy, like E. Jean Carroll from Ask E. Jean in Elle magazine (you know she picked the name for the alliteration).
Dear Shmoopy: Who Were the First Advice Columnists Anyway? – Sarah Heartburn, Tuscon, AZ
The two women who created the career in the 1950s and whose names are still synonymous with doling out advice are Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren.
Well, those are their pen names. In real life, the Friedman sisters—Esther Pauline and Pauline Esther (we aren't making this up)—were twins who were inseparable until they let their competitive spirit get out of hand and split them apart.
Esther Pauline, called "Eppie," got a job taking over for the existing "Ann Landers" columnist in The Chicago Sun-Times. Three months later, Pauline Esther, called "Popo," adopted the pen name Abigail Van Buren and began writing her own advice column, known as "Dear Abby," for The San Francisco Chronicle.
"Popo," better known as Dear Abby, was a much beloved advice columnist who was famous for telling it like it is. (Source)
The sisters stopped talking to each other and instead turned their voices to the thousands of people who wrote to their nationally syndicated columns for sassy, no-nonsense advice.
Even though both sisters have died, "Dear Abby" is still running, thanks to Popo's daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who picked up the baton, er...pen, for her mom.
Neither Eppie nor Popo had a psychology degree, as they weren't "experts" with paper-bearing credentials. They were simply writers that gave their two cents (and sometimes a third cent for good measure) to those who wrote them for advice.
Their model holds true even today. Simply put—if you want to be an advice columnist, go be one. The minute you purport to have the answers to life's burning, bothersome questions, you'll be getting more letters from strangers than you know what to do with.
Dear Shmoopy: Will Becoming An Advice Columnist Make Me Rich Like Sean "Diddy" Combs? – Jackson Potchka, Mission Viejo, CA
Let's be real—when you're starting out, you probably won't make a dime. Here's some free advice: To get your foot in the door, you should work at it for many years. Start an advice column in your high school or college paper, host an advice show on your school's radio station, or publish your own blog. Develop a big following and who knows, you could end up in a newspaper like The Washington Post, a paid blog like The Huffington Post, or a big, fancy magazine like Elle.
Columnists at big newspapers and magazines make six figure salaries, easily.
Though we guarantee you won't be raking it in like that at first, if your advice is good enough, the letters and dollar signs will both start pouring in.
Dear Shmoopy: What Do I Write About? – Stanton Carlsworth, Normal, IL
You'll need to hone in on what you write best about—relationships are always popular, but there are other areas of confusion to consider.
You could give advice about teen issues, technology, or cars.
You could even have an "Ask a Physicist" column (not to be confused with Ask a Psychic).
If you can think of something, chances are it's befuddling to someone else out there (especially on the Internet).
Dear Shmoopy: What If I Don't Have a Blog? – Spyro Gyro, Rolla, MO
Then you should probably get one.