Freelancer of the fortnight: John Ozimek, Lincolnshire

Click here to look at John Ozimek's full freelance profile on Journalism.co.uk.

Why did you choose to become a freelancer?
That's two questions really: I freelance - have done for years now - because, in a weird sort of way, not having a regular job and never knowing where the next piece of work is coming from feels that much more secure than being beholden to someone for employment. I have enough work on my books to pick and choose, so if I really don't like what a client wants me to do, I just move on. As for writing: it was always my first love and, after years of distraction elsewhere (consultancy), I finally decided to go back to it at the beginning of 2008.
 
If you trained, where? If not, how did you become a freelancer?
Always been a learn-on-the-job person. Early days involved the usual round of student journalism: then a short stint gofering on Liberal News. A bit of comedy writing, including - I am not ashamed - some of the world's worst puns for Noel Edmunds. Also a few years as a direct copywriter for a couple of publishers. They paid to send me on courses, which taught me strange acronyms like AIDA. 

But otherwise, I just do - and if people like it that's fine and if they are good enough to explain why they don't like it, I learn. As for 'becoming' a freelancer: I think I hint at the answer above. It has always felt easier to work for myself and once I got past the mental block that you need a '9 to 5' job to survive the only question was why wouldn't I?
 
Do you specialise in any particular field and what areas do you write about?
Specialist areas are probably the law and IT, which segues rather neatly into the internet, privacy and censorship.

Over the last year or so I have written extensively about the law in relation to sexual behaviour and, after a few sniggers from friends, have decided it's not a bad area to focus on. It's a subject of interest to most of the adult population: there's an enormous amount going on, from new erotic technology to legislative change. So in taglines I tend to describe myself as a writer on political and sexual liberty.
 
Which publications have you been published in?
The serious IT side means I pop up in places like Direct Response, Data Strategy, Retail Week, the IDM Journal: basically, trade press wanting to know about IT.

I've written serious material on the law and IT for Index on Censorship, FHM, Police Review - and I have a reasonably permanent perch at online newspaper, The Register. But I also drop pieces in to places like the Daily Star and Mail. I have recently started writing a monthly column for xBiz, the US adult trade magazine.
 
Which articles, in which publication, are you the most proud of?
Most recently, one for which I received no fee at all in Liberator, a radical in-house magazine for the Liberal Democrats. Liberator carried an in-depth - 2,000 word - analysis of the government's changes to the law on pornography. I developed some of the ideas in that piece for an up-and-coming article on the law on obscenity in Index on Censorship. Both have contributed heavily to a book I am working on about changing attitudes to sex and liberty under New Labour.
 
What are the best and worst aspects of freelancing?
Best is the joy of having an idea and just going for it: recently, I ended up interviewing one of my film heroes, director John Waters - and the chances of my doing that in a full-time role somewhere are probably nil.

Worst is the inability of many news desks to understand specialist issues - even when they have a real effect on the main news. Recently I've had a couple of stories turned down by news desks - only to see them taken up a day later by the same paper's technical correspondents on the subject.
 
Do you have any interesting anecdotes in relation to your experience as a freelancer?
Printable ones? Maybe not. The problem with writing about a subject is that people make assumptions about your own predilections. Many of those I talk to, interview, write about seem to take a perverse pleasure in testing my embarrassment levels. As one rather enthusiastic saleswoman for a new sex aid put it recently - seizing my hand and smearing it with a liberal dose of lubricant - 'just stick your finger in this!'.

Meanwhile, those who merely read also assume that I am a rather more active participant in the activities written about. After all, how could I possibly go to these places, meet these people, write these things without, well, 'you know'?
 
The truth is, I am mostly quiet, relatively shy - and seriously unshockable. Voyeur and raconteur, rather than participant, so, 'been there, seen it - but rarely done it'.

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