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Archive for the ‘Business Issues’ Category

Divide and Conquer

Posted in Business Issues, Internet Issues, Marketing, Social Media on July 11, 2011 | 1 Comment »

I’m not sure whether to file this post under “smart, targeted marketing” or “entropy takes over.”

I’ve recently started a new blog about music and music education, and today I’m going live with a blog on hiking.  I’ve also a started new Facebook page for music, and will soon be splitting my writing page into a writing page (for writers and other publishing pros) and an “adventures in travel” page (for readers and those interested in my actual travel writing).

The reason for this activity? (Beyond procrastinating other projects, of course): It seems that people who thought they were friending me because they liked my work on music are confused when they get a post about 10 best hiking trails, and no one except writers and editors wants to hear about publishing trends.

It’s a problem a lot of “complex creatives”  seem to have, and the advice I’m hearing is “divide and conquer.” So my content is creeping spider like all over the web, and I am dealing with the vagaries of blogging software that seems to think I want the same bio on my music page as my hiking page.

Like many self-employed creatives, I often have way more ideas than I can attend to, and sometimes things spin out of control. This fragmentation has all the hallmarks of a good idea getting away from me…. I just hope I can remember all my passwords.

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Writing and Discounting for Non-Profits

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, Writing, tagged , , , on September 7, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Do electricians, cleaning crews, the phone company, the landlord, and the office furniture suppliers give discounts to non-profits? Usually not. But non-profit organizations (whose staffs also get a normal monthy paycheck) are quick to ask for discounts from freelance writers.

Should we give discounts? And under what circumstances? When does it makes sense? When doesn’t it?

I was asked to write on this topic for Suite101.com, and here’s the article, which looks at the  pros and cons of discounting to non-profits.

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Paperwork

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, tagged on March 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Blech.

It’s THAT time of year again. Well, maybe you’ve already dealt with it, but for me, pulling my tax information together is one of those uber-procrastination issues.

Some of my colleagues use Turbo Tax, and I have a few friends who have recommended it highly, but to tell you the truth, I’d rather clean out a slaughterhouse than try to put my own taxes together. It’s as much an emotional issue as anything — I’d probably need therapy if I had to figure out both a new computer program AND which column what number goes in at the same time. Considering the cost of therapy, an accountant is cheaper in the long run.  I have a very nice competent person who is willing to look at all my various lists and sort them into categories and add everything up and tell me what I owe.  Only downside: He wants my stuff, er — soon.

In nearly 20 years of self-employment, I have figured out a few things to help smooth over a proccess I’m not very good at.

1) Keep good records. Some people use spreadsheet programs like Quicken. I’ve actually drawn up my own Excel program to keep track of income from various income streams. Whatever you do, keep it up to date. I log all checks before depositing them. Cash and barter income has to be accounted for as well, if you have any. (I don’t;  I prefer checks because they are traceable,  but if you’ve got any retail products, you probably have some cash to account for. Keep up with that, because you’ll never remember.)

2) A business checking account and a business credit card separate out business expenses from personal ones.

3) I try to pay for everything with debit card so that I have a receipt record AND a record on my bank account of where all my business expense money went. It’s a back-up system that means I won’t forget any expenses.

4) Keep a log of expenses: What they were, what they were for; how they relate to your business. Ideally, your annual log should have all business related travel expenses, home expenses that have a business application, office and business equipment, repairs, advertising, etc. If you get audited down the road, such a log makes it clear what you were doing, what its purpose was, and how it pertained to your business.  

5) Your accountant is probably pretty busy right now, but after April 15, while things are still fresh, set up a time to talk with him or her, especially if your business has undergone any major changes (such as a new income stream, a new category of expenses, or  you’ve found yourself making significantly more or less than usual).  There may be some things you should be thinking about to get ready for NEXT year.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a bushel-load of papers to go through….

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Show Me the Money: Getting What’s Due

Posted in Business Issues, Copyrights and Contracts, Freelancing on November 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

So, you turned the work in on time.  Or your book or photo or article has been published — and the expected checks and statements haven’t arrived.  

The path from submission to payment can be labyrinthine, but for the purposes of this article (getting paid what’s due), we’re going to skip through all of those gnarly acceptance issues and the corn-maze process of 13 editors reading and critiquing and rewriting your article 14 times. Let’s make some assumptions: Either your piece was  acceptable when you submitted it (and the editor told you so). Or ir wasn’t, but you revised it to the editor’s specifications. 

Now time has passed, you’ve invoiced, and there’s no check.  What you do is going to depend on many factors, including the contract you had with the publisher (For example, did it specify “payment on acceptance”?)

  • Give the editor a reasonable amount of time to process your invoice, then e-mail a friendly, “Thanks for your note saying my article looked good. I’ve send the invoice, per the contract. Is there anything else you need to me do?”
  • Your preliminary conversations with the editor should have elicited information about the path to payment: Ie, you should know who to send the invoice to, and you should have an idea of how quickly the publisher pays. Start the clock ticking, and keep track of where you are on the timeline. 
  • Unfortunately, the next step is to start being a bit of a pain in the butt. The trick is to get paid without alientaing an editor who you might want to work with again. Often, slow payment isn’t the editor’s fault: she may simply be working for a slow-paying company whose policy is to take advantage of the “float” on unpaid funds. This is not a good thing — and most of us would prefer not to work for such companies. On the other hand, they aren’t deadbeats; they are simply playing a game that is legal under the rules of capitalism. Your role in this game is to be a squeaky wheel.
  • Phone calls are even more unpleasant (for everyone), although the truth is, most often, you won’t get through. These days, everyone screens their calls, either with assistants and receptionists or with caller ID. Still, the appearance of your name on their message list may be enough to get some action. Sometimes you’ll have luck trying to get an editor before 9, after 5, or during lunch — editors often work long hours, and these are the times their phones are less protected by assistants and receptionists. Again, personally, I prefer not to play these games, and I prefer not work for people who clearly screen my calls and never return them. But I don’t make the rules here.
  • Don’t be afraid to let the person you’ve been dealing with know that since you haven’t heard back, you feel like you’re forced to go up the ladder to find out what’s going on. IF she has been sitting on the invoice, this might shake it loose. 

At some point, it might become clear that you aren’t dealing with slow payment: You are dealing with no payment. Yes, Virginia, there are publications that outright stiff writers. This has only happened to me once (slow payment, though is an other thing….) and I did have some recource because the arrangement involved more than one party.

  • Keep a record of any contact with the company, including phone logs and e-mails. If recording a phone call is legal in your state, do it. (Is it legal? Check out http://www.rcfp.org/taping/ )
  • Your first written communications should be polite and firm. Some writers have had success quoting the contract, saying the process of submissions and acceptance, reminding the deadbeat that they have fulfilled all their obligations, and that you hope they will do the right thing and rectify the problem immediately, as you know they are an upstanding company. Hold off on the legal threats, except, possibly, to say that legal action is something you would hate to pursue. (This implies that you WILL if you have to — but no one wants to.)
  • Further communications may get a bit more legal: I have also sometimes reminded slow payers that since they haven’t paid for my piece, they have no right to run it in their magazine. You might also say that since they are in breach of contract, you wish to withdraw your submission (do this if you know the issue has already gone to press — this would put them in a terrible position.)
  • Make sure you are communicating with the right person. In addition to going UP the ladder, you might try going lateral – to accounts payable. 
  • Keep the conversation civil. Your blood may be boiling, and you may have thought of no end of colorful names to call your deadbeat, but that’s not going to get you anywhere.
  • Along the same lines, ALWAYS realize that the person you are dealing with might truly be caught in a Catch 22 that she can’t get out of… Try to give people the benefit of the doubt as long as you can,  because most are NOT out to screw you, and they will help you more if you keep it civil. This means not letting loose with your barrage of legal lingo and threats at first. First, when you find someone who may be able to help you, give them time and a chance to make things right. There will (unfortunately) be plenty of time to escalate the discussion.
  • Remember that most people LIKE to think of themselves as the “good guys.” So approach them that way: Tell them you KNOW that this isn’t the way they normally do business, but something has gone wrong, and you need to ask them to cut through the red tape, do the right thing and GET YOU PAID. You want the person who can help you to be on your side.
  • If that person simply refuses, and you’ve gone as high up the ladder and are certain that there is a real problem, you can remind them of legal recourse. Generally legal recourse either involves breach of contract or the copyright law.  Most non-payment issues are breaches of contract. (This means you soud have a copy of your contract — with everyone’s signatures on it. A lot of writers, in this day of e-mail, simply have copies of unsigned copies of contracts. While these have been held legally enforceable if it is clear that everyone has agreed to the terms, a signed contract is better). Be sure your work is copyrighted, as well: While non-payment is generally not a copyright issue, without paying you, a publication has no right to run your piece or sell your book. This is something to remind them of in your correspondence.  
  • CC’ing a lawyer isn’t a bad idea, even if it’s only your sister-in-law who only does deeds and real estate. I was actually once told by an agent (through whom I was pursuing a deadbeat client) that “the cost of litigation won’t make this worth it.” “I’m sure that’s what they are counting on,” I said. “But I’m lucky: I have lawyers in my family, so I don’t have to worry about the cost.”  
  • Get help from any writers’ groups you belong to. Some provide a grievance committee or (limited) free or low-cost legal advice.
  • Post questions about the non-payment on writers’ boards: You are warning other writers away, and this is also a chance to find out if others are suffering the same problems, or what they did to shake loose the money. 
  • Small claims court is an option (although collecting a judgement can be a problem! A true deadbeat who is contemptuous of his contractual responsibilities under the law may also be contemptuous of a judgement — you may have to hire a collection agency.)  Each state runs small claims differently; you may have to appear in person, the amount you can sue for is limited, and you may not be able to use small claims if your business is incorporated. Nonetheless, many writers have had to go this route.

Don’t let it go! This is your livelihood — and non-payment is stealing.

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Show Me The Money: Proactive Defense

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, tagged , on November 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

So you’ve got a new gig, and you have checked the ad pages (the magazine looks healthy) and the place’s reputation (you haven’t learned of any problems from colleagues). What next?

Sorry to say, icky business stuff.  

None of us likes this part. We want to believe that if we do the work and the work meets the standards and parameters we all agreed on, then we’ll get paid, which will let us move on to the next piece of work.

A housecleaner has it far easier. There is no reason for a housecleaner to want to clean your dirty toilet or vacuum under your bed unless she is paid. Everyone understands this: If you don’t pay, she won’t work. It makes things easy.

But we creative types are different. We want to work, because that’s who we are and what we do. it takes more to stop us from working than the piddly little strategy of not paying us! It takes YEARS of nonpayment and rejection and failure before we cry “Uncle!” And even then — we might swear off writing women’s magazines (or whatever your personal bete noir is) forever, but your basic creative type is as close to falling off the wagon as an alcoholic with that first drink in hand.

I have to admit that I’m not any different, so this post is a little bit of what I actually do — as well as (unfortunately) a bit of “Do what I say, don’t do what I do,” and a bit of “Oh crap, here’s what I SHOULD have done.”

  • Wait for the contract before you start work. A lot of us get gigs, and we get all excited and start working – and THEN the contract comes in with its “All rights forever” and “the author will pay all court costs, even if the Devil himself brings a frivolous lawsuit” clauses. In the day of the Internet, contracts can be delivered instantaneously by click, so there’s no excuse to have to wait. At the very least you should be able to insist on seeing a boilerplate before you begin work.
  • Once you get the contract, READ it. See what it says about payment. Kill fees are bad, but they tend to be standard so there may not be much you can do. What I am most concerned with is the “when” factor: If the contract says “on publication,” that’s a huge cause for concern. (You wouldn’t hire a builder to build you a house and not pay him until you moved in….). If the contract says “on acceptance” you  need to find out what that means to your publisher. On acceptance is supposed to mean that you turn in an article, and the editor reads and accepts it within a reasonable time period. It may not be perfect, but once the editor termined that it’s the article she contracted for, payment goes through. I also think it’s okay for “on acceptance” to mean “after any required revising has been completed” — but there needs to be some sort of a timeline. I don’t want to submit an article on deadline in January and be asked to revise it in July (and not be paid till September). Finally, in the last few years, at some major consumer women’s magazines, “on acceptance” has turned into “when we have finally finished editing, fact-checking, illustrating, and designing the article and have put it physically into the issue it is going to run in.” That is not at all the same thing — and in my book, it’s not acceptable. In this scenario, the fact that you have done the contracted job is irrelevant — if, for reasons beyond your control, the article doesn’t run, you don’t get paid — and you can wait months to find out, during which time the article loses its value because it loses its timeliness. We can be talking more than a year from when you write the article to when you are paid for it. 
  • Make an appointment to speak to the editor to clarify these details or resolve any issues. This not only helps you understand and possibly negotiate the payment schedule — it also puts her on notice that you ARE one of those writers who expects to get paid and who pays attention to business issues (just in case she’s one of those editors who sits on invoices for too long and can’t ever get them over to accounts payable). Ask about invoicing procedures and payment schedules, and whether there are any circumstances under which payment might be delayed.
  • Make sure you know who is accepting your work, and who is paying for it: Here’s a potentially tricky situation: A packaging company contacts you to write an article for one of THEIR clients — and the piece must be approved not only by the assigning editor but ALSO by some unknwon-to-you person who represents the client. Warning: Clients can change their minds, leaving YOU holding the bag.
  • Make sure the contract is enforceable.  Another tricky situation: A packager contacts you to write a book or an article for a third party. Some  or all of the payment will be from this other entity. I have signed two book deals like this, and both were mistakes. (For one thing, these kinds of deals are uusally bad for authors because the author gets less money… but that’s not even the issue here; the issue is being able to get the money that IS due down the road). In one of my cases, the third-party  company was supposed to pay me a certain bonus every time a certain number of books got reprinted by the publisher…. This is aboluteley unenforceable because there is no mechanism in place at a standard publisher to inform outside parties of print runs. In this day and age, when companies merge and are bought and sold and traded like baseball cards, three owners down the line, your puny little contract will be forgotten or ignored or deliberately and knowingly violated (as happened to me). ALWAYS run unusual book packaging or third-party assignments past knowledgeable colleagues, a publishing attorney (some writers groups such as the Authors Guild and ASJA provide some level of legal review as a member benefit), or your agent.  General hint here: Unorthodox publishing contracts usually benefit someone OTHER than the author.
  • Try to make your writer-editor relationships collaborative rather than confrontative. Most business relationships involve both collaborative and confrontative aspects; the editor-writer relationship is typical in this regard. People enjoy working in collaboration, and they treat each other better when they feel that they are on the same side.  Personal conversations inject a human element. Understand that your editor is (probably) neither a cheats nor an ogre; she’s just trying to do a job. Make it pleasant, and remind her that that’s what you’re doing, too. If you have a personal relationship, then you are responding to each other as fellow humans, not e-mail messages.
  • Try to deal with contract and payment issues with someone who actually has the authority to act. Having a phone conversation might clue you in as to whether the editor you are dealing with is senior level or entry level (her title will, as well). This is tricky — you don’t want to insult the editorial assistant who is assigning you a story. But on the other hand, you want to know the process by which your story is accepted and paid for. The more layers of authority you have to go through to get your article approved, the more potential problems there may be when it comes to getting paid. 
  • Don’t be apologetic: Simply state that “This is how I make my living, so these are my paychecks. I’m sure you know that a lot of other magazines are having trouble paying their writers, so I’m trying to avoid problems.” 
  • Get your invoices in on time. 
  • Be alert to any indications that an editor seems resentful or irritated that you are bringing up payment issues This is a professional relationship, and these are valid issues: You do not want to be working for someone who doesn’t understand that.   

Next up: What to do when it all goes south.

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Show Me the Money: Avoiding Problem Payers

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing on November 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »

I tend to believe that prevention is the best cure for a whole raft of problems in life, including hypothermia, jet lag, and deadbeat clients. I’m not going to claim that every deadbeat wears a neon sign, but some of them do give us plenty of warning. It’s our job to heed it.

  • Keep tabs on your regular markets. If you write regularly for a few publications, look for signs about how healthy they are: Check a magazine’s ad pages carefully. Note if the magazine is thinner than usual (That means one thing and one thing only: Its ad revenue has been dropping). The most useful comparisons are annual: ie, compare this December’s issue to last December’s issue. 
  • If it’s a new-to-you market, evaluate it carefully before you pitch (or accept an assignment that finds its way to you). Again, the answer is in the ads, not the editorial: There should be plenty of four-color full-page ads at the beginning and end of the book. Too many part-page B&Ws is a bad sign, especially at the front of the book. You should recognize the names of many of the advertisers: In a general interest magazine, look for the big consumer names that do a lot of print ads. In a niche market, look for the leading manufactureres and players in the particular field. For regional markets, look for the upscale names in your area. The ratio of ad pages to editorial should be at least 50-50 — financially healthy magazines have even higher ad-to-editorial ratios.
  • If the magazine looks suspiciously robust, go ahead and be suspicious: Many struggling newcomer magazines (especially to luxury and high-end niche markets) give away lots of free glossy ads to major name advertisers in order to get the ball rolling and try to appeal to a certain demographic. If you’ve never heard of “Hamptons Millionaire” before, check how long its been around and find out its PAID circulation (Free distribution to doctors’ offices doesn’t count). Read through the gloss — and the hype.  Just because they are trying to appeal to millionaires doesn’t mean THEY have any money to pay writers with. One hint: If the quality of the editorial material is shoddy. It’s hard to pin down, but there’s a fly-by-night aspect to the combination of superficial poorly-edited editorial  with high-gloss ads.
  • Join a group, professional association, or list-serve — and network, network, network. Ask for feedback and experiences from your colleagues. 
  • Then heed what you hear: The American Society of Journalists and Authors has a confidential warning list and an e-bulletin board where members can share information: I am always astonished when fellow members complain about ill treatment from a publication that other members have been warning us about for years. A single complaint may be a fluke, but if you see the same complaints about slow pay or no pay or capricious kill fees or payment on acceptance morphing into payment-on-whenever-we-feel-like-it, then you’ve only yourself to blame for taking the gig.
  • Notice when payment patterns change: If you’ve been happily working for a client for a while, you might overlook the fact that payments are dragging a bit. Don’t keep writing! Most writers are reluctant to play this kind of hardball, but I’ve got no problem saying :”No money no workie.” If you’re already owned $1000 bucks for one story, how is it in your best interest to write another story until you’re paid for the first one?  Is their owing you $2000 bucks somehow better than them owing you $1000 bucks?
  • Be wary of new ventures — they often fail. This is especially true of Internet ventures, because the start-up costs are low enough that virtually anyone can do it. I ask for references from other writers, or work my networking contacts before accepting a gig from a start-up these days. Partial advance payment on signing a contract might be another way to go when dealing with a start-up with no track record. (I haven’t tried this; if you do, and are successful, PLEASE let us know how it goes — it’s probably only a viable strategy if a company comes to YOU, rather than the other way around). 

I will relate one story about avoiding bad markets: I had been hearing for many years how a particular major magazine dealing with outdoors topics had a terrible reputation among writers (although a golden one among award judges and the literati). They delayed payments, paid on publication rather than the promised acceptance, killed stories mercilessly, and generally made writers’ lives miserable and their stories unrecognizeable. I didn’t have any direct experience with this publication (When you usually have enough work from markets that don’t do any of this, you aren’t inclined to pitch them with a huge PIA factor). But the magazine is prestigious — high profile and high gloss — and it was represented at a recent conference I attended. So I sat down for a meeting with an attending editor.

The first thing I said was, “Well, I wanted to meet you because we work in the same interest area, but I have to tell you that I haven’t pitched your magazine because I’ve heard that you guys are difficult to work with and don’t have such a great reputation for paying writers. So I’m glad to have the chance to ask you about that myself.” 

The editor was visibly taken aback. (Shocked! Simply shocked!)  Not because the information was wrong: She easily admitted (and this is a direct quote), ”If you want to get paid promply, this may not be the best market for you.” 

To her, the shocking thing was that we writers talked about this stuff. She wanted to know where I had gotten my info. (No can do: Confidential lists and relationships. But I did tell her I’d heard this info from many different sources over a period of many years.) She honestly seemed surprised that slow pay would be an issue that would concern writers. 

I find it difficult to believe that this was the first time the magazine had been called on the carpet for its payment laxities. But I also know that we writers tend to moan and gripe among ourselves — and then accept contracts and treatment we KNOW we shouldn’t have any truck with, without addressing the issues with the people who are hiring us.

Which makes it our own damn fault when the magazine does to us what they do to everyone else. 

As it turned out, this editor didn’t seem to think that anything about the magazine’s payment poilcies was going to be changing anytime soon. And I never did follow through with a pitch. I doubt I ever will. But I am still reading complaints about them from my colleagues.

Caveat sciptor!

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Show Me The Money: Intro

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing on November 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

“Short on Cash? The 10 Bills You MUST PAY NOW — and Three You Can Let Slide”

I’m sure you’ve read some variant of the above article in the last couple of months. In this economy, a lot of folks are strapped for cash, so prioritizing bills makes sense if you can’t pay them all all at once. People figure: What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t pay the mortgage? You get booted out of your house; that’s very bad. What’s the worst that happens if you miss a payment on the sofa set? The repo people show up a couple of months down the road; that’s not as bad. Keep the house, risk the couch. Kind of a no brainer, right?

Well, guess what, fellow freelancers: The publishing companies we write for are struggling, too, and if they can’t pay all their bills all at once, they have a similar hierarchy. Turn off the electricity or piss off a freelancer? It’s a no brainer for them, too — and guess who’s sitting right at the bottom of the list? That’s right: We are. 

The absolute worst worst worst worst worst part of freelancing is dunning for payment. It is worse than rejections, worse than not having your e-mails read or responded to, worse than not ever finding your books in the stores, worse than coming up with the perfect query to your dream market only to learn that they assigned the exact same idea last week to someone else, worse than giving a book signing where no one shows up, worse than an Amazon rank of 1,254,687, worse than the editor who came to your house and invited you for dinner suddenly not answering any of your e-mails — ever. 

I am terrible at the business stuff. If I had wanted to be a business person, I’d have gotten an MBA and I’d have probably made a heck of a lot more money (until lay offs, that is). I’m sick of reading terrible contracts, and sicker at having to negotiate them, sick of having to say, “No, I won’t write this time-sensitive article to your exact specifications, then wait to be paid for 6 months until you get around to using it” or “No, I will not sell you all rights to a story it cost me $2000 to research for $500.” I’m sick of turning articles in on time only to face the yawning silence of an empty e-mail box.  But most of all, I’m sick of dunning. My job is to turn in the assigned article on time. The publisher’s job is to pay for it. End of argument…  Or it should be.

So how to shake lose the cash? By employing a three-pronged strategy of

  1. Avoiding problem payers in the first place
  2. Being proactively defensive with the gigs you take on
  3. Going after what you’re owed. 

This is a long article, so I’m dividing it into sections: Next up: Avoiding Problem Payers.

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Silver Linings in Stormy Clouds

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, tagged , on November 22, 2008 | 2 Comments »

I’ve been getting a lot of hits on some of my recent posts focusing on the economy:

http://createworklive.com/2008/11/17/magazine-death-pool-i-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/

http://createworklive.com/2008/11/15/carnage-in-the-publishing-world/

The volume and interest in these topics have gotten me thinking more about what’s going on and how to make the best of it.

Here’s how I see it: It’s going to be tough to get new gigs in the next year or so. It’s going to be tough to hang onto old gigs. There WILL be work — just not as much of it. We’ve got some recent history to tell us what may lie ahead: Some successful travel writers I know saw their incomes drop 50 percent from 2001 to 2002 (recession plus 9-11 meant no one was traveling, plus there was that Internet bust) — and 50 percent AGAIN in 2003. If you know anything about typical writers’ incomes, well, let’s just say that there’s not a lot of room for this type of progression. Other creative types saw their incomes drop, too. 

But slowly, we recovered. I got a nice book deal in early 2003 that helped fill the gaping space that had once been taken up by a lucrative Internet contract. Magazine assignments dribbled back in. The Internet started looking like it might someday become a viable market again (although without ever really becoming something you’d want to hang your career on).

One of the most debilitating things I can do in a recession is get all ambitious about how I’m going to search for the markets that must still be out there and FIND THEM DAMNIT and write the best query letters the world has ever seen and sail through the recession without a ripple.  

That’s nonproductive. It’s fantasy. Facts are: There’s less work, there are lots of good writers, and there’s more competition than ever from all those ex-editors.  So spending a disproportionate amount of time writing the world’s best query letters tends to be not only a waste of time, but dispiriting and discouraging.

All of us are in different situations: What I am going to do with these next few months won’t work for everyone. If you’ve got to get cash in the door NOW to pay your mortgage, if you’re already overextended, if you have huge anticipated expenses like a kid’s college tuition coming soon down the road, then your strategies may need to be different — taking a day job, contract work, switching fields for a while, hitting the pavement to find new markets, expanding out your current topics and markets to related areas. (Some of these strategies make sense for ALL of us…)

I can’t possibly speak for everyone, but I can share some of what I’m up to, because I think these strategies would work for a lot of people in a variety of situations: those who are have been living slightly below their means and have some savings (the key to freelance success, in my book), those who have some other kind of steady work (like teaching, or a regular client),  those who have a supportive (not to mention secure) spouse, those who are young and unencumbered and are just starting out with few debts and low expenses, those who have already budgeted to work only part time in order to care for kids….

Here’s my silver lining: Take this time as a gift. Sure, keep pitching. Keep feeding and watering your career (suggestions on that on the “Surviving the Recession” post). Keep working for whatever pay is out there.

But when that doesn’t come through, take advantage of your new-found freedom. Here’s what I’m going to be doing in the next year or so:

  • Keep this blog going and get moving on the companion book project. Approach the agent who repped my last book to chat about it. No, this may NOT be the time to sell a book — but it might be time to lay the groundwork, think through what I can do to support the book, and build a platform for it.
  • Start that damn novel. You know, the one that’s going to crack the New York Times bestseller list. The one that’s been in my mind for a WHOLE year!
  • Experiment with pay-per-click Internet models to see whether they can support my travel writing with solid clips and story placements that ultimately earn a fair, ongoing royalty.
  • Learn more about blogging, advertising on blogs, and monetizing Internet ventures.
  • Start the travel website I’ve been planning for several months — hopefully by finding and working with a partner who can handle the business development/advertising/Internet aspect of it.  (They would be the “publisher,” I would be the “editor.”)
  • Practice more piano and finally put together some of the performance sets I’ve been wanting to do.
  • Completely master my stupid little digital camera so that I feel worthy of upgrading to an SLR.  
  • Keep going to the gym I just started going to.
  • Network outside my usual pathways. Who knows?

New Year’s resolutions are just around the corner. I turn 50 next May. This list looks like fun.

When the economy is strong and work is flowing in the door, we often lose sight of the big picture because we’re so busy meeting our deadlines and planning our gigs and doing the actual WORK. Which is great. But we don’t tend to set aside the time we NEED to retrench, regroup, re-evaluate, and replenish our creative energies…

I may have to eat dinner out a lot less, or delay the purchase of the new keyboard I wanted to buy this year. I won’t be upgrading a few pieces of office equipment, or buying the new dining room chairs we really DO need if we want our guests to enjoy dining with us. But this gift of time will more than make up for it: It is, perhaps, the best thing that could have happened!

Best thing of all: ALL of my goals are within reach, and none are expensive: They just cost time, which, in a recession, we have plenty of.

So Carpe Diem, folks. And have fun.

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Surviving the Recession

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing on November 20, 2008 | 3 Comments »

The economic gurus seem to have a time-warped idea of what constitutes a recession: By the time they get around to declaring that we’re really and truly in one, it seems that they’ve missed the boat. Sort of like the weatherman who finally tells you it’s going to rain when your umbrella is already inside-out and you’re soaked to the skin.  But while the talking heads are debating whether this “downturn” is the real thing or not, those of us who actually need regular paychecks to pay bills know that it’s shaping up to be a long dry season.

So, what do we do?

First of all, now is not the time to throw hissy fits about your clients, students, editors, bosses, or anyone else who sends you a check. If an editor is tinkering too much with your copy, smile and say “thank you.” If they ask for another revision, be delighted to oblige. If your students are acting like the crew in “Welcome Back, Kotter,” resist the urge to lecture them that if they don’t shape up you won’t teach them anymore. I’s need to be dotted, T’s need to be crossed, and if you type as badly as I do, you need to be a little more careful about your spell-checking and proofreading. 

But beyond offering patience and perfection, what is there to do?

  • Send a holiday update to ALL your recent editors, clients, buyers, managers, PR and media contacts, and colleagues. Tell them the positive news of what you’ve been up to, hope they are well… This serves two purposes: Bouncebacks may help you clear out your in-box of people who have moved on (Try finding out where they landed through Linkedin, Facebook, other social networking sites, or professional organizations).  And it reminds them that you’re still out there.
  • If you’re a writer or anyone else who works in the media, don’t stop pitching! Target your pitches to timely issues — including the economic downturn. 
  • If you are an artist (or anyone else who has tangible products for sale: Photos, paintings, crafts, CD’s, books), holiday season is your big sales season. Consider dropping prices or offering special purchases or discounts for multiple purchases.
  • Consider taking a part-time or seasonal job. If you work in books, try a bookstore. If you work in art, try a gallery. This might put a bit of cash in your pocket, allow you to develop a chance contact or two, and give you a bit of an education about what’s important in selling the kind of work you do to the public.  
  • Sign up to teach a class.
  • Redo your budget and cut back on expenses: Maybe this is a good year for hand-made Christmas presents or “coupons” for services you can offer. Having control of your budget and how it matches your income stream will give you peace of mind so you can work.
  • A gift to any client or network pal who has been especially helpful this year will be appreciated and remembered.

If your financial situation can handle the downturn — say, you’ve got some savings and you expect enough incoming payments to meet your bills -  but you’re going nuts because there just isn’t a lot of work coming in, this is a good time to retrench, rethink, and rejuvenate.

  • Start that huge “project of the heart” that you’ve been putting off because there’s been no time to sink your teeth into it. Now might be a great time to write a novel.
  • Take a class. In anything. Broaden your current skill base — or try something completely new that you’ve always wondered about.
  • Write a list of all the work-oriented client-building and marketing tasks you KNOW you shoud do –and you WOULD do if only you had time. Well, guess what: You HAVE time now!
  • Do a goals and objectives plan for the next year. Which new markets would you like to break into? How might you go about it?
  • Don’t stop going to conferences to meet peers, and, especially, potential clients. Try to network across subject lines and fields: In others words, if you’re a writer, don’t just network with writers; Join a broader based communications group where you can network with editors, PR people, and media people.
  • Get experimental: Remember that CD or story you wanted to write that you haven’t gotten around to because it’s so weird no one will buy it? No one’s buying anything, anyway, so take a chance.
  • Practice your performing art — or build your inventory if your art is concrete (paintings, crafts, photos).
  • If your art requires collaboration (drama, music, film) find some new collaborators and get together to jam or brainstorm.
  • Get fit. Seriously: Most of us let this slide when we’re busy. Take advantage of the downturn to invest time in your health.  

Finally, look to the Web.

  • If you’re a musician: Get your Facebook page current, get your songs up on a music site, put your videos on U-tube.
  • Writers: Update your websites and clips, start working your blog a little harder by networking with other bloggers and learning about traffic generation and maybe even ad revenue.
  • Visual Artsts: Get photos of your newest work (or your photos) up on a site.
  • Update all your “how to buy my stuff” information.
  • Experiment with new Internet business models, such as sites that pay per click: They may not (and, I think, probably won’t) turn out to be sustainable long-term sources of income, but they will keep you writing and give you a sense for how they work, which might help you monetize your Internet efforts in the future. 
  • USE these sites for your own purposes. For instance, if you’ve always wanted to write about jazz trumpet but have never written anything about music, go to one of the Internet Content sites (http://hubpages.com; www.demandstudios.com, www.suite101.com)  that, once you’re approved as a writer, let you write on virtually any topic you want. Go ahead and put up some articles on jazz trumpet. You might not be paid much (That’s an understatement),  but you can use these sites to build your portfolio so that when the market for jazz trumpet critics explodes, you’re ready with clips and experience. (Please note: I am not recommending any of these sites as major or even viable long term markets. But they might be a way to build your credentials and readership, especially if you are just starting out or want to build credentials in a different field.)
  • Check out all the social networking sites that just seem like one big time-suck. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but you’ve got some time to spend, so use it to figure out what works.

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Carnage in the Publishing World

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, Writing, tagged , on November 15, 2008 | 9 Comments »

What do editors do when they get laid off? (Or, if you prefer, leave to “pursue other options.”)

They freelance.

Bad news for freelancers: There’s going to be more competition than ever. Heads are rolling in the publishing industry even more than they normally do this time of year. (Holidays = layoffs, didn’t you know?) The carnage seems to be coming early this year, and it’s across the board, judging from recent posts on Media Bistro as well as several writer’s organization newsboards I read regularly. (Sorry I can’t cite specific stats to specific sites due to confidentiality policies. So take the numbers I’ve compiled below with a grain of salt, but heed the overall trend, which is glaringly obvious no matter whose numbers you use. Bottom line: It’s ugly out there, and it’s getting worse.) 

Conde Nast is cutting back on both print and Internet staff positions, letting go of dozens of staffers in its Internet division, which includes such well-entrenched and well-trafficked sites as Epicurious.com. Forbestraveler.com was reported to be closing up shop (although you wouldn’t know it to visit the site: Chances are they can keep rotating content and collect ad revenue well into the future. A big “darnit” from me, since it was one of my new markets this year and I liked the editors there). (11-17/08: Update on Forbestraveler.com: There are conflicting reports about its demise. There have been layoffs, assignments in process have been canceled, writers have received notes from editors saying the on-magazine has ceased publication (I’ve seen copies), and I myself received a note from an editor that they are not accepting queries. However, the official line is that Forbestraveler.com is still up and running, if curtailed for the time being. So let’s put a hold on that death knell and hope they make it through….Until and unless they do, though, it’s probably not a promising market.)

And on with the list: Active Interest Media, which publishes Yoga Journal and Backpacker, is letting go 10 percent of its workforce. Time Inc. has cut at least 15 editorial positions at Entertainment Weekly.  Even old stalwarts like National Geographic and The Economist Group are affected; both cut out a dozen staff.  And a raft of newspapers have cut back, eliminated, or are consolidating their travel sections.  

Most disturbing to me are the cutbacks at –and sometimes, the downright failure of — major Internet sites. You’d have to be living with a bucket over your head not to know that print is suffering, but a lot of us writers have been looking to the Internet for new opportunities, new markets, new ways to connect with readers, new income streams, and more control of our work. If well-funded well-visited sites chockfull of advertising are sinking, who IS making money on the Internet?  To paraphrase an oldie but goodie, and with apologies to Frank Sinatra, “If you can’t make it here, you can’t make it anywhere.” (And haven’t we been through this before? Remember the first sound of the Internet bubble popping? To me it sounded a lot like the sound of paper being shredded, as thousands of dollars of stock options turned into packing material and fire starter.)

Meanwhile (speaking of shredded paper): Pink slips are falling like confetti, and editors newly liberated into the freelance life are trying to figure out who and what and how to pitch in an ever tightening market. 

From a freelancer’s POV, we’ve got a bright side/dark side thing going when editors join our ranks:

Dark side for freelancers: Not only are these editors more competition, but they arrive with a head start. These are people who have current contacts into all the markets WE want to write for, and current info about editorial needs and plans.  And many of them are highly skilled, with good access to sources and an inbred understanding of not only the publication they recently worked for, but also its competition. 

Bright side for freelancers: These newly minted freelancers (at least, some of them) will learn how hard it is to wait months (yes, months) to be paid for work they did well outside the realm of short-term memory. They will learn how frustrating it is to be assigned 1000 words on subject X, write it, then have another, more senior editor — someone with whom they’ve never even communicated – decide that really, she wants 500 words on subject Y. They will learn that a buck a word really doesn’t cover the time it takes to do seven interviews, two rewrites, and a tweak or two on a 500 word piece. And they will learn that no, you can’t expect a writer to shell out $2000 or $3000 or $4000 and a few days of time to go examine a new luxury hotel, forbid them from accepting any comped airfares, rooms, meals, or cups of coffee – and then ask them to sell all rights to the resulting story for $500. (If you’re a travel writer, you know what I’m talking about. If you aren’t, no, I am not making this up. And if you are an editor who forbids writers from taking press trips but you don’t pay expenses, let alone pay a fee that covers the cost of the trip: Yeah, I get the thing about supposed objectivity (more on THAT in another post) –But how exactly do YOU justify asking your writers to pay for the privilege of working for you?) 

Okay. Everybody breathe. I’m off my soap box. For now.

An even brighter side about editors taking a ride around the pond in the leaky little boat we call freelancing:  Most editors-turned-writers will jump ship and turn back into editors as soon as the luxury cruise ship called “Staff Job” sails back into their home port. Once aboard, they’ll be pampered with 401(k) plans and health insurance and sick leave, until their voyage on the dinghy known as “The Freelancer” becomes just a dim memory of misguided and thankfully finished adventure. And that will leave us freelancers where we were before –  bobbing in their wake, watching them sail away, and hoping that perhaps a few of them will remember what they’ve learned about the care and feeding of freelancers, while they gorge at the all-you-can-eat midnight-buffet. 

At least, we can always hope.

And by the way, no, I don’t wish I was on that staff job cruise ship. My little freelance dinghy suits me just fine. I know how to work it, and it hasn’t sunk yet.

Meantime – and on a serious note — I wish these editors the best. And I KNOW their jobs aren’t easy. I was a magazine editor for two years and a book editor for five — so yes, I know what life is like on the other side.  (Selfishly: I know I NEED editors — not only to buy my stories, but to help me make them better. The copyeditors who have worked on my 12 books are my personal heroes.) We freelancers know that one of the great benefits to our work is that it’s unlikely that we lose ALL our markets (our paychecks) at the same time. That’s not true for ANY employee, except for tenured professors and people in the civil service. Job security is a thing of the past and personally, I can’t think of anything more terrifying than being employed and solvent one day and out of work the next. This is a difficult time of year in a difficult economy. Cross fingers it soon passes. For all of us.

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