Going into business for yourself as a writer or anything else is tricky. You have to figure out what you’re good at, find someone to pay you to do it, and then keep your sanity while trying to meet those deadlines. In this issue of Words, Robert Carmack writes about juggling his many different jobs, including those of food stylist, cookbook author, and gastronomic tour leader.

Thinking Caps or Too Many Hats?
by Robert Carmack

It’s one day to Christmas. I just finished styling my last television commercial for the year, and I have a cast of thousands coming for dinner tonight. Have I finished everything else before I start cooking?

Greeting cards out to clients, yep. E-mails caught up, sort of. Briefs arranged for new year shoots, yes. A book project of food reminiscences by Europeans visiting Southeast Asia between 1850 to 1942 just landed on my desk. (Too esoteric!) My Globetrotting Gourmet Newsletter must be finished next week, plus overdue follow-up letters from a food tour to Asia that I hosted last month. Anything else? Yikes! An article for IACP. Seems the hungry hordes will have to wait.

Like a lot of food professionals, I have more than one “job.” As a food stylist, I marvel how American stylists master a single subject such as eggs, and then go on to specialize in this work. How different from Australia, where I glide from an editorial magazine job directly to a Domino’s Pizza television commercial, then onto stills packaging. But I’m also a cookbook author, and I lead culinary tours through Asia. No boredom or redundancy here. Alas, this job juggling can lead to wearing too many hats. Here are a few rules I’ve developed over the years to help keep it all in check:

Rule #1: Don’t get too greedy. As an American expat long based in Sydney, my work takes me regularly throughout Asia and to the U.S. Scheduling becomes a balancing act, with the constant potential pitfall of over-scheduling—and the risk of a photographer or production company complaining that I am “distracted” by other jobs. You have to learn when to say no to some pressing jobs. Which leads to…

Rule #2: Be familiar with your “competition.” Not everyone is an expert in everything. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, so learn who else is on the playing field, and where their reputation soars. That way, you can refer your client to another professional when you are unavailable. Don’t worry about losing a client, because there really is no such thing as “competition” when you are good.

Rule #3: Learn to say no to jobs that you simply don’t want to do or that you will not excel in. You will not improve your reputation by doing a job half-heartedly or badly. For example, I avoid catering, because the logic goes that if a stylist can cater, then why can’t the caterer style?

In all honesty, two months ago I did accept my first catering job in some 15 years as a special favor for an ad agency. This event was the rare exception: I did it because I could guarantee the quality of my staff, and to cement my reputation with both the agency’s creative team and a prestigious food client. Otherwise, I would have run away in a second—like I did this week when a frantic creative rang me to make an “edible remote control” by tomorrow! (I gave her the name of another stylist.)

Rule #4: Be open to opportunity. That might sound at odds with my warning about wearing too many hats, but it is important. I had a journalism degree, but James Beard gave me my first job because I knew how to type. At first I only did typing for him, and then I began editing and recipe testing. I then traipsed off to France for a year of intensive culinary training with Anne Willan, CCP’s editorial team at La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine, then in Paris, and eventually ended up at Time-Life Books. My first magazine styling gigs in Australia led to writing articles, as stylists here regularly fall into food editing jobs.

Rule #5: Know your subject and travel, travel, travel. You have to experience authentic cuisine in order to represent it accurately as either a writer or a stylist. I travel regularly to Asia, meeting local chefs and acquiring a wealth of recipes. Eventually, a book publisher approached me to write Thai Home Cooking, and then Vietnamese Home Cooking. These books, plus another called Fondue, led to requests for advice on where to travel and what to eat within the region. My partner and I then came up with the idea for Globetrotting Gourmet FoodTOURS, marketing it initially through our Web site and quarterly newsletter. Each tour allows us a chance to further explore—and share—the region’s diverse cuisines and cultures. Alas, it also makes me less available to clamoring clients. Again, it becomes a juggling act. I do what I can, and give the rest a good referral.

Sydney, Australia-based food stylist and cookbook author Robert Carmack guides small groups of food lovers through Asia (see www.asianfoodtours.com) and publishes a quarterly food and travel newsletter (www.globetrottinggourmet.com).