Hey, How'd You Motor From Freelancing to a Car Column, Josh Max?

This auto columnist went from zero to 60 in four years

By Josh Max - July 22, 2008

I didn't initially plan on having a writing career, despite coming from a literary family. But after eight years as a songwriter/musician/singer and traveling all over the Western world, I felt I had something to share in life experience, so I bought a Mac and read all those books at Barnes 'n' Noble on how to break into professional writing. I published a few CD reviews in a free New Jersey newspaper, then got a couple of first-person pieces in The New York Times, one about being hired to do an Elvis impersonation at a Korean wedding, the other about trying to get my elderly dad to give up driving. So I knew I could do this.

I liked writing in the first person, but I'm also knowledgeable about cars, and made auto reviews my specialty. I introduced myself, clips included, to some top people at different major print media, and sent postcards to them whenever I was on vacation and around the holidays. My name is really short, and I just kept it in front of them: Josh Max, Josh Max, Josh Max.

None of these cards read anything but "Hello," though. If I was at the beach, I'd draw a cartoon of myself on the sand waving, for example. I didn't ask for anything except via email, when I had what I thought was a good story. Finally, an editor at Newsweek told me to come in for a meeting to talk about some car and bike articles. When I got there, she said, "It was the postcard that did it." But I also had some solid publishing behind me, so I wasn't just some flake bothering them. I also have a very understanding wife who believed in me and supported me until I broke through. I just wanted a column of my own, and a writing career, more than anything in this world.

After four years of freelancing for the Times, Newsweek, Forbes.com and other media outlets, I became a full-time columnist at the Daily News -- PC, phone, press pass, business cards - the works. I test-drive and review a different new car each week -- everything from Kias and Toyotas to Model T's, Bentleys and Ferraris -- and do about 10 motorcycles a year. I've had about 400 test cars in the last seven years. Here, I'll answer some key questions about how I keep my column humming along.

How do you get assignments like test-driving the Goodyear Blimp over Manhattan?
The blimp story was something I approached Goodyear about on a whim. They don't offer rides to the public, but they were receptive to my pitch, so I leaned on 'em over the course of a few months. The timing wasn't right -- it was the middle of winter when I first contacted them -- and then I didn't hear back for quite a while. But I kept sending hello emails. When the ride finally happened, it happened quickly: "Are you available on Sunday?" So I drove out with my camera to an airfield on Long Island at 8 a.m., and soon I was in the air. I had only wanted a ride, and they ended up letting me drive the thing.

How do you come up with five articles a week?
I start the soup Monday, after meeting a 12 noon deadline for all stories that will run the following Tuesday, eight days later. Then I pick the car that's going on the cover of "Your Drive", and brainstorm the other four stories based on leads. The leads come from press releases, but everyone helps -- colleagues, family, friends and strangers. People write to me, saying, "You should check out my friend's car -- it runs on vegetable oil!", or "I got a ticket for doing something that's legal."

I also am a member of I.M.P.A. -- the International Motor Press Association -- and get releases from people in the auto industry who peruse IMPA's mailing list. I actually get very few direct pitches from the auto manufacturers themselves, which surprises me. I usually have to go and check their Web sites to see what's coming up. I also look for short stories I can expand with an interview, more information or a different take. I drive 300 or so miles a week, all over the city, the surrounding states and in other parts of the country, and generate leads based on things that happen to me. Since I also shoot some of the photos for my section, sometimes the story will be photo-based, and I'll write the article around it. Other times, the story is the story and I'll shoot to illustrate it. I would say out of the five weekly articles, two to three are ones I think up, and the others are from leads.

After deciding what the articles will be for the following week, I let the design people and the publisher know, and start roughing them out. As the week goes on, each story gets more and more into focus, I add more seasoning, more color, more flavor, fact-check it and by Friday, all five are more or less cooked. Then I leave them to boil over the weekend without opening the lid. Monday at 8 a.m. they get the final go-over, and by noon, they're served to the copy desk. Repeat.

I'm still a working musician, too; my wife Julie and I just finished recording "The Maxes Sing Al Hoffman", a big-band CD of the music of my great Uncle Al, a hit New York-based songwriter of the '30s, '40s, and '50s, and got a publishing deal out of it, which is great. I'm also in the middle of writing a memoir, "Confessions of an Ex-Seeker" about living in an Indian ashram for five months and other adventures that brought me to where I am today. I'm really good at multitasking -- I have to be. And every now and then I leave the house on a motorcycle and don't come back all day.

It's been an unbelievable learning experience. Working for a newspaper at the volume I do, you really learn to get to the point quickly and to chop what doesn't serve the story. You also let go of thinking your words are gold -- the story is the star, you just get out of the way and tell it.

How do you reconcile writing about cars in an era of increasing awareness of global warming?
I don't reconcile it or justify what I do; I am perfectly aware that these machines are helping to blacken the skies all over the world, though burning coal is an equal culprit (so I read). That said, you're going to see some enormous changes in the auto industry in the next few years, and to whoever manufactures a cheap, solid car that doesn't pollute and runs on water, air, sunlight or peanut butter is going to make billions of dollars. That's going to happen very soon, and I am going to tell people to go and buy the good ones and skip the lousy ones. My section also usually contains at least one and as many as three tests of alternative or hybrid vehicles each week. In just the past two months, I've reviewed vehicles that run on ethanol, hydrogen and air. I also, for a variety of reasons, turned vegan six months ago.

What advice would you give a writer who wants a column?
When I was first starting out, there was a free alternative weekly I thought I would be great for my first person stories, and the editor was receptive. But every single story I sent him was rejected for one reason or another. He liked the stories; he just didn't love them. After seven attempts, he finally sent me a note saying, "Maybe you should try elsewhere." It was nice of him. Most guys would just stop emailing you back. I sent him a thank you and went on my way.

Then one night I had an amazing New York adventure that lasted from 2 a.m. until noon the next day. I went home, wrote 3,000 words and sent it to him. He put it on the cover of the paper the following week with an illustration, and ended up buying, over two years, all the articles he'd previously rejected. He'd forgotten he had already read and rejected them.

Rejection sucks, no question about it, but the proper response is the same as it is during the days when I was living between far-and-few paychecks: "Get to work." My late father, whose gravestone reads "50 years on the writer's rockpile", said, "You have to eat, sleep, s--t and write, and that's it." Everything else comes second.

Point your cannon and keep firing until your ball goes through the wall. Be as obsessed with being a great writer as you are with sex or money or music or whatever it is that runs your life day and night. Refuse to be interrupted. Give editors unbelievable stuff they can't get anywhere else, give it to them on time and be easy to work with, and you'll find work.

How can we get your job?
Kill me.

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Josh Max writes the "Your Drive" column for the Daily News.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

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