Writing on the Edge: The Ups and Downs of a Freelance Career

by Robert Daley

Writing On The Edge is a trip through various worlds I came to know in depth from the inside: pro football, grand prix racing, French wine, bullfighting, The New York Times, opera, treasure diving, NY police headquarters, Hollywood, and, of course, France. These worlds are portrayed as I knew them, together with some of their major players with whom I became involved. So it's a memoir certainly, but it's also a primer for freelance writers: how to make a living at a tough trade-how I did it anyway. I had many successes and became what counts as a rich writer (meaning not very rich.) But there were many downs too- rejections, humiliations, and even lawsuits-but fewer of these as I learned to protect myself. A freelance writer is unemployed each time he finishes a contract. Where will next assignment come from? There is a certain amount of fear in any freelance life, and in this book too. My career brought big fees and fancy places, but not always. Not nearly.

474 pages, Paperback

First published February 9, 2014

About the author

Robert Daley is the author of seventeen novels and eleven non-fiction books. Born and brought up in New York, he graduated from Fordham University, did his military service in the Air Force and began writing stories, articles and books immediately afterward. He was a New York Times foreign correspondents for six years based in France but covering stories from Russia to Ireland to Tunisia, fifteen or more countries in all. Much later he served as an NYPD deputy commissioner, which explains why many of his books have played out against a police background. His work has been translated into fourteen languages, and six of his books have been filmed. He is married with three daughters. He and his French born wife divide their time between a house in Connecticut and an apartment in Nice. France.