The calendar goes quiet
Posts slip, the newsletter skips a month, the launch page ships with placeholder copy. Search rankings and subscriber habits take months to rebuild, longer than the vacancy itself.
Interim content support
Your content seat is empty. Your calendar isn’t.
The req is posted, the interviews are booked and the newsletter is still due Thursday. I cover the open content role from week one, keep everything shipping in your voice, and hand your new hire a running program instead of a backlog.
Taking interim engagements now · remote, US-wide
What it is
What is interim content support?
Interim content support is senior, temporary coverage for a content role that is open or about to be. When a content marketing manager, writer, strategist or communications lead leaves, an experienced writer takes over the editorial calendar, keeps the work shipping in your brand’s voice, and hands a running program to the permanent hire once they are onboarded.
It exists because hiring takes longer than content can wait. The search runs, the offer goes out, the new person gives notice somewhere else, and then they need time to learn the brand. Every one of those weeks has a newsletter, a campaign and a sales team asking for something.
- Who it’s for
- Hiring managers with an open content, copy or comms seat
- Start
- Usually within a week or two of a scoping call
- Pricing
- Flat monthly retainer, scoped to the role’s real output
- Built to end
- With a written playbook and a handoff to your new hire
- Where
- Remote from Metro Detroit, clients across the US
The gap nobody budgets for
An open content role doesn’t pause the work. It just stops it from getting done.
The vacancy isn’t the weeks until you sign a candidate. It runs from their predecessor’s last day to the day the new person can carry the load alone. Three things usually happen in the meantime.
Your team absorbs it
The demand-gen manager writes the blog. The designer writes the ad copy. You write the newsletter at 10 p.m. Everyone does two jobs at half quality, and the people you need to keep start updating their own LinkedIn.
The new hire inherits a hole
Your new hire’s first quarter goes to digging out: a stale calendar, half-finished drafts in five folders, nobody who remembers why. The ramp gets longer because there’s nothing running to ramp into.
Interactive · vacancy gap calculator
How long is your gap, really?
Move the sliders to match your search and your content calendar. The timeline and the count of at-risk work update as you go. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
Your gap
From the predecessor’s last day to a fully ramped replacement.
20Weeks without a full-strength content seat
104Planned pieces with no owner
7Newsletter & email sends at risk
Adjust the sliders to see your gap.
Email me this gap
Copied
The calculator is a planning aid, not a benchmark. It counts every planned piece during the vacancy and half of them during ramp-up. Your real exposure depends on what your team can absorb and what can wait.
Which seat is open?
Pick the role you’re hiring for. Here’s what I take off your plate.
Job titles vary. The work behind them usually doesn’t. Coverage is scoped to what the role actually produced, not the job description you posted.
Interim content marketing manager
The most common open seat, and the one that touches everything. I pick up the calendar, the drafts already in flight and the people waiting on them, then keep the program running at the pace it ran before.
I take on
- Owning the editorial calendar and weekly priorities
- Blog posts, SEO articles and pillar pages
- The newsletter, start to send
- Case studies built from customer interviews
- Briefing design and web for content they need
- A monthly note on what shipped and what’s next
Stays with your team
- Budget and headcount decisions
- Final sign-off on brand and legal
- The hire itself
Interim content writer or copywriter
When the person who turned briefs into words leaves, the briefs keep coming. I take the queue as it stands and keep the turnaround your stakeholders are used to.
I take on
- Website, product and landing page copy
- Paid search, paid social and display ads
- Email campaigns and nurture sequences
- Sales one-pagers, decks and RFP narrative
- Launch copy across every channel
- Metadata and copy built for AI search
Stays with your team
- Campaign strategy and media buying
- Design and production
- Approval chains you already run
Interim content strategist or content director
A senior seat goes empty and the decisions pile up: what to make, who makes it, whether it’s any good. I hold the standard and make the calls in between, so the next director starts with a program instead of a cleanup.
I take on
- Content strategy and quarterly planning
- Briefing and editing freelancers and agencies
- Editorial governance, style and voice guides
- Content audits and topic-cluster planning
- Reviewing AI-assisted drafts before they ship
- A seat in leadership and campaign meetings
Stays with your team
- Org design and the long-term roadmap
- Vendor contracts and spend
- Performance reviews
Interim communications or PR manager
Your executives still need to be heard, the company still has announcements, and employees still need the memo to land the first time. I write in each leader’s voice from day one, starting from interviews and what they’ve already published.
I take on
- Executive bylines, op-eds and LinkedIn posts
- Press releases and media talking points
- Internal newsletters and all-hands memos
- Speeches, remarks and conference abstracts
- Award nominations with a deadline attached
- Statements for the moment nobody wants
Stays with your team
- Media relationships and pitching
- Spokesperson decisions
- Legal and HR review
Interim newsletter or social media editor
Recurring programs break the moment someone skips a week. Subscribers and followers notice before your leadership does. I keep the cadence unbroken so the audience you built is still there when your new editor arrives.
I take on
- Weekly or monthly newsletters, sourced and fact-checked
- Subject lines and preview text worth opening
- Organic social calendars and post copy
- Repurposing long-form into social and email
- Video and podcast scripts for the channel
- Notes on what’s performing, for the next editor
Stays with your team
- Community management and replies
- Paid boosting and ad accounts
- Platform admin access
How it works
Built to hand off from the first day.
Most coverage ends with a goodbye email. This ends with your new hire holding a working program, a written playbook and someone who can answer their questions.
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Week one
Absorb
One scoping call, then I read what you’ve published, the style guide and the drafts in flight, and talk to the people who approve things. Anything already due gets triaged first.
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Through the search
Run the desk
The calendar ships on schedule in your voice. Subject-matter experts get interviewed, approvals get chased, and every decision goes into a running log the next person can read.
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Your hire’s first weeks
Hand off
Your new hire gets a written playbook: voice notes, the calendar, what’s working, who to call. Then a walkthrough, and we pair on their first pieces while I taper off.
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After
Step back, or stay on call
Leave clean, or keep me for overflow and specialty work your new hire shouldn’t have to learn on deadline: bylines, award entries, a website rebuild.
What stays covered
The whole content desk, not one slice of it.
Content roles are rarely one job. Interim support draws on the same ten services the practice runs every day, so whatever the last person did, someone here has done it before.
Brand messaging & voice
SEO & AI-search web copy
Executive bylines & PR
Blogs & editorial programs
Email & newsletters
Campaigns, ads & social
Video & audio scripts
White papers & collateral
Award nominations
Content directionYour options
Five ways to handle an open content role.
Every hiring manager picks one of these, even if the pick is “do nothing.” Here’s how they compare.
| Leave it open | Spread it across the team | Staffing-agency temp | Rush the hire | Interim content support | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to start | Never | Right away, in pieces | Depends on the agency’s bench | Weeks to months anyway | Within a week or two of a scoping call |
| Seniority | — | Borrowed from other jobs | Varies by placement | Whoever was available | More than a decade across agency and in-house roles |
| Voice & quality | The brand goes quiet | Five voices, none of them edited | Learns your voice on your time | A mis-hire risk you live with | Voice absorbed in week one from your existing work |
| Real cost | Lost momentum and rankings | Overtime, burnout, attrition | Hourly rate plus agency markup | Possibly a second search | Flat monthly retainer scoped to the role’s output |
| What your new hire inherits | A cold calendar and a backlog | Half-finished drafts in five folders | Whatever got written down | The same gap, later | A running program, a playbook and a walkthrough |
| Load on you | Low now, high later | High | Medium: you onboard twice | High | One point of contact, your approvals |
Optional add-on
Help hiring the person who replaces me.
I’ve been on both sides of the content hiring table. While the desk keeps running, I can help you find someone who’ll keep it running well.
- A job description that attracts writers rather than keyword-matchers
- A short, paid-friendly writing test that shows judgment, not just grammar
- Candidate sample reviews with scored, plain-language notes
- A 30-60-90 day onboarding plan built from the playbook
The hiring decision stays yours. I just make it easier to make.
Who calls
For whoever is holding the req.
Marketing directors & VPs
Your content lead gave notice and the board deck still says “thought leadership.” Keep the program moving while you run a proper search.
Communications leads
Executive content and internal comms don’t wait for headcount. Cover the bylines, the memos and the announcements in the right voices.
Founders & small teams
Your only marketer left, and you’ve been writing the newsletter yourself. Hand it back to a professional while you hire.
Agency account leads
A writer left mid-retainer and the client hasn’t noticed yet. Coverage runs white-label, so the relationship and the credit stay with you.
Not hiring, just short a person? The same model covers parental leave, medical leave and sabbaticals. The handoff simply goes back to the person returning.
Questions hiring managers ask
Interim content support FAQ
What is interim content support?
Interim content support is temporary, senior coverage for a content role that is open or about to be. A content marketing manager, writer, strategist or communications lead leaves, and an experienced freelance writer takes over the editorial calendar and keeps content shipping until the permanent hire is onboarded, then hands the program over with a written playbook.
How quickly can interim content support start?
Most engagements start within a week or two of a scoping call. Week one is spent absorbing your voice, calendar and drafts in flight, with anything already due triaged first.
How is interim content support priced?
It is a flat monthly retainer scoped to the open role’s real output, such as a set number of articles, newsletters and campaign pieces. The quote comes after one scoping call, and the engagement is built to end when your new hire is ready.
How is it different from fractional content direction?
Interim support fills a specific seat for a defined stretch and ends with a handoff to a permanent hire. Fractional content direction is an ongoing senior content seat on retainer for teams that do not plan to hire one full time.
What happens if our search takes longer than planned?
Coverage continues month by month at the same scope until the hire starts. If the search ends early, the handoff simply moves up.
Can it cover parental leave, medical leave or a sabbatical?
Yes. The same model works for any temporary absence. The difference is that the handoff goes back to the returning team member instead of a new hire.
Will you work inside our tools and approval process?
Yes. The work runs inside your existing CMS, project management tool, shared drives and messaging channels, through the approval chain your team already uses.
Can you help us hire the permanent replacement?
Yes, as an optional add-on: writing the job description, designing a writing test, reviewing candidate samples with scored notes and drafting a 30-60-90 day onboarding plan. The hiring decision stays with you.
Do agencies use interim content support?
Yes. When a writer leaves mid-retainer, coverage can run white-label under the agency’s banner so the client relationship and credit stay with the agency.
Do you use AI to write?
AI is a tool inside a human process. Interviews, judgment, voice and the final read are human, and every deliverable is checked against a documented framework of AI writing patterns before it ships.
Related reading: The Great Entry-Level Extinction, an interactive report on the true loaded cost of a full-time hire and the rise of senior freelance talent.
Next step
Post the role. I’ll cover the seat.
Tell me which role is open, what was on its plate and when you hope to have someone in it. You’ll get a scope, a monthly number and a start date after one call.