Adapt or Wait Tables: A Freelancer's Guide to Keeping Your Cool When No One Would Blame You for Losing Your Mind

by Carol Wolper

Inability to adapt is the new illiteracy and freelancing is becoming America’s new normal. What 2008 taught America was not just that derivatives are dangerous and the housing market doesn’t rise forever. It also taught us that survival requires juggling and pivoting, two skills that any freelancer is forced to acquire if they want to keep paying their rent. Adapt or Die is a mix of information, tricks and advice for all the freelancers out there, and the ones who will be stepping onto that playing field as they graduate from college. Written by two freelance writers who have spent the past two decades covering Hollywood and the world of pop culture and fashion, their tips for survival are laced with gossip and references to the famous as well as what they call the "secret celebrities" whose paths they have crossed. Consider this an entertaining how-to manual for anyone with ambition and no road map.

76 pages, Paperback

First published September 2, 2013

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, funny, and honest guide to living a freelancer’s life for the only person who truly matters: YOURSELF. Indispensable!

[Alyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book does a shocking amount of victim blaming and misogyny for having been written by a woman. I understand she speaks to experience, but she does not seem to have any interest in inviting change or criticizing the status quo. Half of her stories are about how women get poorly treated in Hollywood, and then says that women who rise to the top want to keep other women down and that’s just how it is. I really did think that this would be a guide to being a better freelancer, but instead it was a collection of stories, most of them unfunny and about a cynical view of society and the industry. There was no advice about how to manage time, build connections, or submit freelance works for consideration. None of that, only personal anecdotes and hypothetical stories that taught me very little except that the author is jaded and had no business writing a book like this. Additionally, this edition was poorly edited and riddled with typos and format issues. I am disappointed that I spent good money on it at the drama book shop.

[tiff rasberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting perspective to survival

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this in the Drama Bookshop in New York and was disappointed by the specificity to the apparently bizarre world of the Hollywood screenwriter flavor of freelancing with occasional nods to magazine writers. Unfortunately this is neither my area of interest or geography, and this the many vague first-hand, second-hand, or hypothetical stories read as bitter and disconnected instead of funny and audacious, as the quotes on the back claim. I only wish the narrow relevance had been made more clear in the marketing, because I never would have bought it had I known it's intended audience.

[Eleanore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks, Carol. It's a start.

[Holger Haase · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and fun read with little or nothing about freelancing life that hasn't been said elsewhere. Still, the author deserved my €3.99 for the title alone that I will now endlessly rip.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and fun read, but it really didn't offer anything new.