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Allan, why are you telling other editors you're doing it for free? I don't put on my resume which ones paid what... I just enter that I've done it.
Even if they assume you did it for free, why admit it? Why are you giving people free reign to explore your finances when it's really none of their business?
I'll write for this magazine if they ask me... I'd be proud to do so. NYC is a great market to write for! No one has to know I did it for little or no money... That's my personal business.
Nancy, I've had conversations with editors at both trade magazines and big glossies who do look at the clips and where they're from, and have been known to click on the websites of listed clips. Four editors, on separate occasions, have said to me, 'if you will write for them for free, why not me?' These editors want to stretch their editorial budgets as far as they can.
But my point about start ups is that traditionally if you had a good idea, you funded it in anticipation of earning your investment back. If you can't afford to fund it, then go out and earn or borrow the money to launch. Why should others pay with their free work for your vision? If the owner doesn't have a major investment in the business then why should others be expected to become a quasi investor who will never see dividends or a share of the sale of the title (or website) later? If the owner can't afford to invest in his/her business, then perhaps this isn't the right time for them to become an owner. There is nothing that says we always have to get what we want. I want a rich spouse, but I doubt that's gonna happen. I also like a Jag, again, probably not going to happen unless I crazily cash in a nest egg.
I am really concerned because I have seen long-time freelancers who with the downturn in the economy got hurt and got desperate and began helping a lot of well-meaning new publishers only to become even more desperate as their own resources dwindled. I know one woman who sold off a prized first edition of a children's book that meant so much to her to meet her rent.
I also know a lot of journalism students who are told this is how you break into the business. I don't believe that. Even the US tax department is investigating the abuse of internships. The tax people are seeing that rather than helping people enter a career, many interns are simply providing free labour and not learning anything.
In a way I don't blame people for trying to launch this way, because if others are foolish enough to work for free, then that's a bonus. But as someone who watches the business of publishing, I haven't seen where non-investor-owned sites and titles have made a success of it. I have to also wonder if this willingness to work for free doesn't contribute to lower fees for our work, or remove the pressure from magazines to raise their fees.
I really don't have a huge problem with writing the occasional "free" article. I have written for some larger publications for more than enough money (but is it ever REALLY enough?) and that allows me to spread out a bit, giving away articles I would normally charge for.
Start-up magazines need advertising to pay their freelancers and to do that they need good content. It's a catch-22.
I've been known to pick up some nice travel perks on a "free" article and, for me, it's more for the travel than the byline.
Travel writers are some of the lowest paid writers (unless it's Conde Nast or National Geographic Traveler) and the perks are really what makes it worth it.
Besides, NYC is a HUGE audience and would look good on a resume. No one knows if it's a paid gig or not, just that an article in an upscale NYC magazine has the potential to reach millions of readers. THAT'S what the destinations care about.
I'll help them get the advertising... I don't mind helping out a new magazine that could, in a year's time, be as big as Time or Cosmo...
While I have mouths to feed as much as the next person, it's all about good will.
Excellent points Allan.
I too have never seen the no-pay model move out of that mode and switch to pay the writers even as I watched more and more ads appear; although I have seen low pay for start-ups move into decent pay when the revenue starts coming in.
As per your question if it's only travel writers who are asked to work for free, I can sadly tell you it's not. I'm a beauty and travel editor/writer (& some fashion as well) and too often the notion that online beauty editors....errrr, curators.....will write for free is because we're "product whores" (yes, that's their term) who will work for a jar of cream or a spa treatment. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do & love the products, but when the shopping bags of products show up at my door, they're not gifts, but rather, obligations. Obligations to test (often at the expense of skin irritation), then make observations & notes and then finally spend hours writing them up if they deserve an editorial review. Additionally, when writing for an online publication you often must be your own editor, fact checker and graphic "dept" unless it's for the mega online mags who do pay.
Also, if you're an online beauty/fashion editor/writer some of the brands treat you with less respect than the print editors/writers. I can remember going to an "Editor's Day" at a dermatologist's office where I was invited to review the doctor's new skin treatment for an online article and realized that the print editors got car service to & from while I had to pay for my own taxi or take the subway. (Note: I didn't write up this doctor & found another who offered the same skin treatmenr, & also treated me with more respect). I have even been to media events where the Media Bag or Gift Bag for the print editors was twice the size as the one for the online editors. Can you imagine such blatent rudeness? I've never experienced anything like this in the travel world and have to say that all the travel media events I"ve been to, and all the press trips I've been on, all editors/writers were treated equally by the vendor.
Sorry to go so off-topic here, but you brought up a question Allan and thought I"d answer it.
Gotta love it, don't you; an "upscale" magazine with no money to pay writers for content?
What a freaking joke...Have to wonder if it wasn't a troll post, but we all know better.
Moving from the specifics of this magazine to a disturbing trend. I have launched several new papers in my career. To do that my partners and I had to invest our money - sometimes borrowed money - in our business. That's always been the way with businesses. If you want to open a restaurant, a clothing store, a car rental agency, a B&B, you had to put your money at risk.
However, it seems since the arrival of on-line "publishing" it's become the norm to expect others to invest their time and talent in your business. These legal strangers seem to take on more risk than the owners. That doesn't seem a practical economic model. I don't even think it works best for the 'owners' because without your own assets at risk you don't have the same commitment and work ethic. I wrote my first book about entrepreneurship and wrote about how if you were in start-up stage and you weren't in a relationship not to expect to date because you won't have the time, energy or money to do it, everything goes to the business.
And people like Huffington who made several fortunes off others (there was that successful divorce, the money made from running the Post and then the sale of the Post) have made it a harder playing field for those people who want to launch a business relying on good-will contributions of others. When I look around the landscape of start ups which promised to pay when they could afford to, I can't think of any which ever managed to achieve that goal. I stand to be corrected, but thinking of the last 35 on-line start ups I watched over the last five years, none have moved to a pay model.
The publishing world is littered with great ideas that didn't survive because of a lack of launch and operational funds. When a writer contributes to a non-paying model they hurt themselves, they risk their reputation because suddenly your clips are based on deceased titles and in a macro sense they hurt their colleagues because there is impetus for any new on-line or print start up to factor in the need for an editorial budget. As I write that, I wonder if it's just travel writers who are asked to work for free? Are food and fashion and political and investigative reporters and writers asked to write for free? Or is it our reputation as people who like to take free holidays the impetus for this?
As I say this is not directed at any specific titles, this is merely an opportunity to discuss a larger trend which has developed over the last five-seven years. The US economy is in trouble for many reasons, but perhaps what would strengthen it would be to go back to some old-fashioned business standards and models.
I always remember the words of a long-time friend, who is also a very successful newspaper publisher. When I told him I was switching from newspaper management to freelancing he said, "Remember, there's no money in spec."
Shari, so Downtown NYC is a print magazine? If so, then am I correct in assuming you're paying for the paper, the printer, the office rent, the person that drives the truck to distribute the mag to stores, or are they all working for free? I have to say how offensive it is when a print magazine has "no budget" to pay anything to the talented and educated people that create the content that your readers will read and will make your potential advertisers want to buy space. I'm not insensitive to low budget start-ups that can't afford to pay a decent rate, but geez, you can't squeeze out even a measly 100 bucks as a token of thanks for someone's work until some revenue comes in?
The online world is different. Thieves like Arianna Huffington and Tyra Banks should, in my opinion, be arrested for larceny for not paying writers while they play with millions. However, there are some online sites that truly don't have any money whatsoever, and I give them a pass for asking for a freebie until they get some ad/sponsorship revenue.
But if you're a print magazine, there's got to be some money somewhere.
Susan Frost, I hear ya' and have been on that boat too with the "guarantee" issue. And not a bad suggestion to take the "free" out of freelance. What shall the new word be? Have you noticed that editors are now referred to as curators? Seems to have only taken about 15 minutes for that change to happen.
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