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Cooks Source Firestorm Over Plagiarism

November 5, 2010 by Karen Berger

I’m late to the party… the one where you stand by the side of the road watching a car wreck.

I learned about the Cooks Source plagiarism fiasco a little more than 24 hours ago, when there were a mere 300 or so comments on Cooks Source’s Facebook page, before  NPR, the Guardian (UK), Washington Post and LA Times blogs, and other heavy hitters had yet weighed in. Before the company’s Facebook comments were deleted. Before the Internet went mad.

My tardiness is due simply to disbelief: I’ve spent a good part of my idle time in the last 24 hours wondering if this can all possibly be true. To summarize, a blogger named Monica Gaudio wrote that she found out that an article she’d written on the history of apple pie had been lifted by Cooks Source, a little-known local cooking and recipe magazine (the kind you pick up for free when you spend $100 on a gourmet skillet at a specialty chef’s shop). 

So what’s the big deal? Plagiarism is rampant on the Internet. Just go to Youtube. Go almost anywhere.  Writers can work through their frustration and aggression all day long just by writing DMCA complaints and sending cease and desist letters.  Sure, it stinks, but it’s not like it’s news. 

Plagiarism: As American as a Stolen Article About Apple Pie 

Here’s Monica’s recounting of what happened next. To summarize: Learning of the unauthorized use of her article, Monica asked for modest compensation (an apology and $130 — which works out to roughly 10 cents a word –  to be donated to the Columbia University School of Journalism).  She was met by a response that I thought couldn’t be real. According to Monica, the editor replied, among other things, that ”the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it!”  

The editor also claimed that “the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!” (sic for the whole paragraph)

(And, while we’re on the subject of sic:  Cooks Source has no apostrophe. Not only that, but in her letter, the editor claimed to have edited another magazine, Housitonic Home. I happen to live seven miles from the HOUSATONIC River, and no, “Housitonic” is not some kind of acceptable alternate spelling. So here is an editor writing an error-strewn note to critique the work she allegedly stole, who can’t even title her magazines correctly? Even my spell and grammar checks are picking up these two mistakes.)

A New Cooks Source Recipe: How to Piss Off the Internet

The reply combined arrogance, ignorance, and plagiarism — which meant that in a single paragraph, one heretofore  unknown editor managed to piss off what seems like the entire creative Internet community. In the last 24 hours, the Internet has gone mad.  The last time I looked (last night) there were more than 2500 posts on the magazine’s Facebook page; this morning, the company had shut them down, but the furor goes on with other posts on blogs and websites  popping up every few sections on my Google news feed. By the time I get this posted, it’ll probably land on Google SERPs page 962. The formerly obscure magazine’s name is among Google’s top 20 trending subjects. 

I understand the furor: We’re all fed up with editors who don’t respond, who pay late, who don’t uphold their contracts. The industry is in a tailspin. And we’ve had it up to HERE with plagiarizers. So here comes this small potatoes editor with her two-bit freebie magazine, who hits all the wrong notes, combining condescension with ignorance (always a bad combination) and throwing in disrespect for copyright law and our creative work. She might as well have poured gasoline over her head and lit a match.

And Then the Posse Rode Into Town

It’s all a little like an old movie western, with the vigilantes riding out for justice: The Facebook brigade approached the magazine’s advertisers, some of whom pulled their ads. Posses went out looking for other examples of plagiarism, figuring that if the editor truly believed that “everything on the Internet is public domain,” she probably acted on that belief more than once. Sho ’nuff: Stories from the Food Network,  NPR, Martha Stewart, and Disney were uncovered.

And here’s the thing: If Monica is like the majority of Internet writers, the copyright notice she stuck on her article was as far as she went to protect her work. For full statutory damages, you have to file your work with the U.S. Copyright office.  I’m guessing Monica didn’t — but you can bet that Martha files copyright. And the Mouse. And statutory damages for theft of a registered copyrighted work can add up to tens of thousands of dollars, or more.   

So I’m left to ask: Can this be for real? The utter ignorance about copyright, the laughable grammar, the arrogance, and even worse, putting it all in writing? I’ve been taken in by a few Internet scam stories (you know, those Snopes-type stories where Itzhak Perlman plays a violin concerto with only three strings and so on).  But here, the only explanations I can come up with are colossal stupidity or a hoax.  

We’ve not yet heard from the magazine. If there is another side to this story, we’ve yet to learn what it is. Reporters’ calls have gone unanswered. Is there a possibility we’ve all been hoodwinked? I suppose there is, although for the life of me I can’t imagine what the rationale would be.  And what does this say about the juggernaut power and the mob-like vigilantes roused by an Internet gone mad? It sure seems like the good guys won in this case… but what about next time?

Posted in Copyrights and Contracts, Internet Issues | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

What Stand-Up Paddle Boarding Taught Me About Teaching Piano

September 17, 2010 by Karen Berger

Every once in a while, it’s good for grown-ups to try to do something they just aren’t very good at.  And it’s especially good for people who teach other people how to do other things. 

It’s been a long long time since I learned how to play the piano, and like many people who end up teaching music, piano was something that came fairly easily to me. Not that I wasn’t responsible for plenty of  grave-spinning among the great old classical composers, but I don’t remember having much trouble learning to read music or playing fast and loud (whether appropriate or not).

I am, however gravitationally challenged. Remaining upright on a board that is moving beneath me — say a surfboard, a windsurfer, a skateboard, or a snowboard — seems a feat much more difficult than playing a Beethoven sonata. Last week, on the island of Kaua’i, I was introduced to what is purportedly one of the hottest new water sports going: stand-up paddle-boarding.

Basically, stand-up paddle-boarding is a geeky-looking sport that is something of a cross between surfing and kayaking, with a bit of Venetian gondolier action thrown into the mix. You are issued a wide, supposedly stable, beginner-suitable board. You kneel on it, then scramble to a standing position. Once you adjust your feet and balance, you start paddling, first on one side, then the other. Every once in a while the wake from a motor boat  or a wave passes underfoot, meaning that — if you are me — you end up doing a belly-side-or-back- flop into the water .

It’s a little like learning to play golf  (or, I suppose, piano).  Move this, but don’t move that. Bend here, but not there. Twist  this way, but don’t twist that. Knees bent, paddle forward, thumbs, up, toes here, heels there…. And just as you finally feel like you’re getting going, an instructor shows up with another half dozen helpful hints. You concentrate on what he’s telling you, forget to do something else, and end up doing the backstroke once more.

Don’t get me wrong: It was a lot of fun. And after practicing on Kauai’s placid Hanalei River, I even made it out to not-quite-entirely-so-placid Hanalei Bay where a few gentle ripples underfoot made me feel as though I was riding some giant championship surfer wave on Waikiki Beach. Meanwhile, Puff the mighty dragon (yes, he really is there)  looked on, lounging on his perch by the sea. 

Here are a few things that learning to paddleboard reminded me about teaching piano:

  • Most people can’t take in too much information at once: Better to concentrate on two or three main essential skills, and add refinements as you go.
  • Even when you’re flopping into the ocean, a good teacher will find something nice, or funny, or encouraging to say.  
  • Funny little anecdotes about how your teacher learned something or got over a hump reassure the learner that everyone faces challenges when trying something new – - and can get over them.
  • It really is all about the practice: To paddleboard like my teacher, I’d have to spend a few weeks going up and down and up and down and up and down the river, practicing falling and getting up, turning, and paddling against the wind and over waves.
  • Enthusiasm counts. Taking breaks helps. You don’t have to learn it all at once.
  • Having fun means you’ll try it again tomorrow. Getting better at it means you’ll have more fun doing it.

Just like learning piano.

Posted in Teaching | 2 Comments »

Updates, Suite101 Blog Interviews Karen Berger

August 18, 2010 by Karen Berger

I was interviewed in “The Limelight,” Suite101.com’s blog, by associate editor Lima Al-Azzeh. Mostly, we talk about managing a long-term writing career, networking, and a little bit about long-distance hiking, which has been the subject of many of my books and articles.

Update: unfortunately, Suite does not keep complete archives and the interview is gone). Spo I’m repositing my answers to the interviewers questions here:

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What events in your life have lead to you becoming fully self-employed

Long story short: I had worked in various aspects of publishing for about seven or eight years, then got married to a professor who had a sabbatical coming up.  We both had a passion for adventure, so we decided to hike the United States Continental Divide Trail, which runs about 3,000 miles through the Rocky Mountains, from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. I already had a literary agent for a novel (which will be, I’m afraid, forever unpublished). She asked if I’d be interested in writing a book on the Continental Divide experience, and was able to get a book deal for Where the Waters Divide.  At the time, only a handful — maybe a dozen or two — people had ever done the Continental Divide Trail, so after the book came out, there was a bit of publicity, and offers to write more books and magazine articles came in. I never looked back. Self-employment is great.

As a self-employed professional, how do you go about finding and securing jobs for yourself?

My partner and I are both self-employed, and we call it “sowing seeds.”  What we mean by that is that we put ourselves out there: We volunteer, we network, we try new things, we talk about what we do to people we meet, we try to be active in our communities, we respond to reader questions, we teach,  we’re active on line and in organizations and associations, we share leads with other writers and editors, and we show up for other writer’s book-signings and talks (the Karma thing). We don’t know which of these efforts will “pay off” — but we know that some of them will. But more to the point, we just do them, because this is who we are, and it’s what we do…. Sometimes you just don’t know what’s going to happen.

An example: in addition to being a writer, I’m also a musician and music teacher. So one night, at a writer’s conference, it was late, people were hanging out at the hotel, and I started playing the piano and showing other writers a few little basic piano tricks.. A year or two later, the agent of one of the writer’s who heard me play was looking for a writer who could handle technical music topics. That contact led to three book deals for me,  and three more for my partner, with others being discussed. (And in turn, I was able to introduce fellow Suite writers to that agent, and those contacts led to further book contracts for them.) So you never know what’s going to lead to something. But a lot of writers sit at home, scouring the Internet for fast, easy jobs…. In my opinion, that’s not necessarily where you’ll find the good jobs. A lot of them come through being out in the world.

What advice do you have for others with similar goals?’

1) Diversify. Get as many income streams as possible.

2) Go back to the same well as often as possible, because once you get in rhythm with a market, the work is more efficient. Try to be the writer they automatically think of hiring when the next gig comes up.

3) Don’t take rejection personally. I know it’s hard. But there really isn’t anything person about it, even though it often feels that way. It’s just business.  And I think editors are wrong as often as they are right about what they reject. How would you like to be the editor who rejected J.K Rowling?  It’s a numbers game. If your work meets the required standard, if you keep sending stuff out, you will get work. Unfortunately, these days, the numbers are tighter than ever and you have to send a lot of proposals out. But books  are being published. Magazines are being printed. Why shouldn’t YOUR work be in them? 

4) Be sure you have the skills.  If you keep getting rejections that mention your grammar — fix it. Look for honest feedback. Face it, everyone thinks they can be a writer, and self-criticism isn’t everyone’s strong point. Take a class, hire an editor or a coach, talk to an editor you’ve worked with about how she sees your work.  Criticism is helpful: we all need it, and we can all improve. It’s one of the most exciting things about this work: I am not the writer I was ten or twenty years ago, and I will be different next year. I hope.

5) Have the basics in place: A website, business cards, a blog.  (I’m at www.KarenBerger.com)

6) Be sure you understand the markets.  Magazines and websites have personalities and styles, and you have to intuitively grasp these, which can be hard because how you, as an outsider, see the magazine is very often very different from how an editor sees it. One thing I’ve found helpful is to go to conferences where editors speak about their magazine, and talk about what they are looking for.

How important is networking in your career?

It’s crucial. Networking with other writers helps in so many ways from technical assistance when your computer freaks out to editor and agent contacts.. I highly recommend joining professional writers associations. Direct contacts from the groups I’m in have resulted in enough work to pay my dues for the rest of my professional life.

People hire people they know and trust. Most of my book contracts have come through personal contacts. I’ve also broken into a lot of major magazines as a result of meeting editors at conferences. Or I’ve met writers at conferences or on press trips who have passed me on to an editor. I’ve just landed a nice little blogging gig courtesy of a fellow writer who I know from a writer’s group.

Always remember: Networking is reciprocal thing. If someone on a board I’m on posts that an editor is looking for a story on, say, Poland, I’ll immediately think of a writer I know who lives in Poland and pass along the contact. I’m just wired that way.  And people have done that for me.

But — and here’s the caveat — the other important thing to understand about networking  is that it’s all about long-term relationships.  So before I send anyone to an editor or an agent, I’m going to have to be sure that it’s a recommendation I can live with…. because I have had editors come back to me and say “You know that writer you sent me for the article on Outer Mongolia…. we weren’t all that thrilled with what she did for us.” So now, I’m careful to make sure anyone I send on seems like someone I’d want to work with, and I make sure the writing quality is what the agent or editor seems to be looking for. Because I want agents and editors to take my recommendations seriously, and i don’t want to waste their time. And vice versa: I have to assume that people are checking me out in exactly the same way when I ask for help. It can be delicate.

What is it about hiking that appeals to you and can you tell us more about the “so-called ‘Triple Crown’”?

As long as I can remember, I’ve been passionate about four things: the outdoors, travel and other cultures, music, and writing. Hiking is a wonderful way to experience the world. It slow everything down, makes it much more intense, much more “of the moment.” Traveling on foot puts you right there at ground level: you’re very vulnerable: A hole in your boot or a broken cook stove or an injury, even a minor one, can stop you dead in your tracks, and it can be hard to get help when you are out of cell-phone range. You sometimes depend on “the kindness of strangers,” and that often gives you an entree into introduces you to everyday local people you otherwise wouldn’t meet. Benton Mackaye, the founder of the Appalachian Trail, put it best: He wrote that the point of hiking the Appalachian Trail is to “walk, to see, and to see what you see.”

The “Triple Crown” is an informal name given to the three north-south long-distance hiking trails in the U.S.A.: The Appalachian Trail, which runs about 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine; the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs just short of  2,7000 mile  from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington, and the Continental Divide, which runs through the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada.  Each is different, but they are all extremely challenging both physically and mentally. Together, they take hikers through some of the most iconic landscapes in America, including Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Colorado Rockies, and the Cascades. About 100 people have been recognized as having hiked all three of these trails.

What further goals do you have for your career?

This year, I have four major goals: 1) To finish a novel I’ve barely started. 2) To start my own monetizing website on travel, probably in cooperation with other travel writers. 3) to experiment with publishing some e-books and 4) To do some serious practice for piano performance.  I also have a couple of book ideas bouncing around with my agent; we’ll see what happens with those.

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I’ve also set up a Facebook business page for my writing, focusing on travel, ecotourism, the outdoors, backpacking, and adventure. I’m posting links to new articles there — both by me, and by other writers and public relations sources — as well as little tips and things I’m learning along the way.  I promise:  No more than a few posts a week, max. Please visit Karen Berger Writer, and click on “like,” and you’ll get the updates.

Posted in Marketing, Travel Writing | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Complete Idiot’s Guide to Teaching Music on Your Own

July 19, 2010 by Karen Berger

I’m late with this announcement. I’m late with everything. This has been a crazy busy year: David and I each wrote two books, taught about 25 students a piece, a, while he taught up to seven college classes, and I went abroad at least half a dozen times.

But I’m pleased to announce that The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Teaching Music on Your Own is out.

Whatever your instrument: if you are teaching independently, there’s probably something in this book to help ease the way. I relied not only on my experience, but canvassed hundreds of other music teachers, and included their input, as well.

The book covers business issues (getting started, pricing, marketing, studio policies, late fees), student relations (everything from practice skills to working with different age levels), teaching resources, and problem solving.

Posted in Music, Teaching | Leave a Comment »

How to Make a Living Creatively: Workshop in Boston

March 5, 2010 by Karen Berger

Passing along the following press release:

Award-winning filmmakers and creative professionals, The Jermanok Brothers, are excited to present their three-hour workshop for all actors, writers, directors, singers, comedians, musicians and artists in Boston. Called The Real Scoop: How to Make a Living Creatively, the workshop is a bottom line, pragmatic approach to everything one needs to know to make a living creatively. This insider experience could save one many, many years. And put you on the road to building a genuine creative career….with a serious dose of motivation.

Two three-hour seminars will take place on March 20th at Harvard. The first from 10-1 is for all actors, comedians, musicians, artists, and other performers. The second from 2-5 is best suited for writers, directors, producers, and filmmakers. Using their real-life experiences, The Jermanok Brothers will cover how to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack, whether leaving your hometown is necessary, the art of schmoozing, why learning the business side of your craft is important, how to pay the rent while pursuing your dream, and using your life history as a networking strength.

Jim Jermanok draws from his current experience as an active filmmaker, and from his prior professional background as an agent for a decade at America’s biggest talent agency, International Creative Management. While at ICM for eight years, he represented and nurtured the careers of Alan Arkin, Helen Hayes, Burt Lancaster, Shirley MacLaine, Arthur Miller, Dudley Moore, Harry Reasoner, Andy Rooney, and Henry Winkler, among others. Jim will be joined by his brother, Steve, who spent the past 20 years self-employed as a working screenwriter, journalist, and author. He’s written more than 1000 articles, from art to adventure, working as a columnist at National Geographic Adventure, contributing editor at Budget Travel Magazine, and guest editor on the annual travel and art issues for Boston Globe Magazine. Together, The Jermanok Brothers wrote & produced the acclaimed romantic comedy, “Passionada” (Seymour Cassel, Jason Isaacs, Theresa Russell, Emmy Rossum) which was released in over 100 cities nationwide by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

For more:  www.howtomakealivingcreatively.com

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Beethoven’s Fur Elise and Viral Marketing

October 9, 2009 by Karen Berger

Funnily enough, or perhaps it’s inevitable, of all the articles (156 at this writing) I’ve published on Suite 101, the one that is getting the most number of hits on the day of its launch isn’t about hiking or music, where I have lots of readers, but, funnily enough, marketing. Viral marketing, to be precise.

Well, yes, as a 20-plus year veteran of self-employment, I know a thing or two about marketing. But for this article, I relied not on my experience, but on the example of an unlikely mentor:  one Ludwig van Beethoven who may be responsible for the longest-running viral marketing campaign in history (unless, I guess, you count the Bible.  But let’s not go there…).

Beethoven is the composer of Fur Elise, a piece of music that every piano teacher views with equal parts dread and, well, dread.  For some reason, this student swan song, appeals to children who aren’t quite old enough to play it.  It occurred to me that this was the epitome of viral marketing. What is it about this piece of music? What did Beethoven know that would  keep this song chugging for 200 years? ‘Cause believe me, it isn’t piano teachers. Most of us would heave a sigh of relief if we never heard it again. And don’t even start me on those bastardized  ‘easy’ versions.

Anyway, it was fun to work on an article that drew two totally different subjects together.  My sister would point out that using Beethoven to write about viral marketing makes me a nerd, but I think it’s kind of cool. She’d say that makes me a nerd, too.

So what DOES Beethoven know about viral marketing? Whatever it is, it’s also helping to make my little article chug to the top of my stats page… even the BBC has linked to it (my sister would not find that cool, either.)

Read it here: Viral Marketing Lessons from Beethoven. And feel free to add your own theories.

Posted in Marketing, Music | Tagged , | 4 Comments »

I Came, I Shopped, I Got the… What’s it Called?

September 17, 2009 by Karen Berger

Some people collect stamps. I collect musical instruments I can’t play, the more exotic the better.

In real life, I don’t like shopping. I can go months telling myself I don’t need a new pair of shoes, just to avoid the agony of trying to find a pair of size 11s that don’t hurt my feet. (And then, thank God, it’s flip flop season, and I can put off worrying about it). I detest trying on clothes. And I would starve if David didn’t do the grocery shopping.

But put me in different country, and I become a credit-card crazed shopaholic. Who knew I NEEDED that French witch (not watch; witch); the Italian oil-and-vinegar dispenser, the wooden replica of a Swahili dhow, a hand-carved coffee-table (get THAT home from Africa), or the endless assortment of colorful fabrics that mostly sit folded in a drawer somewhere. In Tahiti, black pearls seriously threatened my retirement savings. 

Not to mention musical instruments: I have drums from Uganda, Belize, and South Africa, along with instruments I can’t play, or, really,  even spell.

On a recent trip to Egypt, I brought home a small Nubian string instrument string that the vendor told me was called something like a ”‘sensemill”? That’s what it sounded like (after I repeated it several times).  To remember it, I equated it with “sensemilla” in my mind, and figured I’d look it up when I got home, but thus far, Google has been uncharacteristically unhelpful in either confirming (doubtful) or correcting the spelling. Maybe Google needs something closer to start with.

I had a similar problem when bringing home a Greek — what was it? That’s the question I was asked when I put the long thin package through the scanners at the Athens airport.

“A sort of bouzouki” I replied, which is true, in that the instrument resembled a bouzouki, except it was thinner and smaller and had three courses of strings, not four.

“Impossible,” the security guard said, and asked to see the instrument. Several other guards clustered around my package, ignoring all the other suitcases and packages rolling through the X-ray machines, and the conversation went approximately like this.

Security Guard: “This is not a bouzouki. It is a jurass.”

Me :  “A jurass?”

Security guard: “No, a JUR-ass” 

Me: “Okay, a JUR-ass.” 

Security Guard: “NO, a JOUR-ass.”

Me:  ”JOUR-ass.”

Security guard: “How do you say Jurass like in Jurassic Park ?”

Me (brightening):  “Ah!…. Jurass….”

Security guard: “No!!  Jurass….”

Me:  ”Can I bring it home even if I can’t say what it is?”

According to Wikipedia, the little instrument I bought was a Greek baglama, which doesn’t sound ONE BIT like Jurass-ic Park to me.

Although more Googling did finally yield an answer: the word I was looking for is tzouras, which appears to be a synonym for baglama.

Now, if only playing it were that easy….

For more on buying souvenirs in a whole bunch of places:

Souvenir Shopping in Arizona and New Mexico

The Lausanne Christmas Market, Switzerland

Montreux Christmas Market in Switzerland

Souvenir Shopping in Switzerland 

Lake Geneva Christmas Markets, Switzerland

Souvenir Shopping in Peru, Machu Picchu

Buying Tahitian Black Pearls, French Polynesia

Souvenir Shopping in Nepal

Souvenir Shopping in East Africa

Souvenir Shopping in Egypt

How to Bargain in an Egyptian Marketplace

 
Like I said — a lot of shopping.

Posted in Music, Travel Writing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Writing and Discounting for Non-Profits

September 7, 2009 by Karen Berger

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.

Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, Writing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

Creative Careers: The Invisible Barrier to Entry

August 25, 2009 by Karen Berger

It’s the end of summer, and I am scheduling my last few piano students into their slots for the fall. Invariably, over the summer, there has been some attrition. There always is, especially when kids turn about 14. Sometimes, the kid can be encouraged to continue, but too often the parent has lost the stomach for the continued battle about practicing and raises the white flag.  When a child doesn’t have much musical aptitude and hasn’t learned to feel joy in playing music after several years, 14 may be a good time to quit, but as a teacher, it always hurts to see musically sensitive kids quit for no better reason than “piano is hard.”

At the same time, I’ve taken a week off to get my workload in order for the fall: Writing and piano, both. I’ve got some gigs coming up in piano,  some travel scheduled, a book coming out, and I’m writing up a frenzy as the ecotourism writer for Suite101. So at the same time that I’m thinking about why kids don’t succeed at piano, I’m thinking about why writers do, and don’t, succeed in this brave new world of Internet writing.

Turns out that grown-up writers and teenage piano students have a lot in common.

The Internet has radically changed writing careers. It has undoubtedly destroyed some.  Growing like some exotic weed, it has out-competed the traditional denizens of journalism: the print media. Magazines and newspapers are folding, editors are losing jobs, and writers with long careers are being displaced by “citizen journalists” and young upstarts on the Internet who don’t mind working for a few dollars an article.

The barriers to entry have come down. Or at least we think they have. And the barbarians are at the gate with their bad grammar and cliches. 

It has never been exactly easy to make a living as an independent creative.  At the same time,  the barriers to entry in writing and some other fields, such as acting, have always been deceptively low, which may be why so many people who can’t write and can’t act think they have a shot at these supposedly glamorous careers.  Unlike photography (where you need, or at least, used to need, lots of expensive equipment),  or music (where you need an instrument and the ability to play it), anyone can try to declare himself or herself an actor or a writer. 

Yet barriers did, and do, exist. Skill has always mattered, and so have contacts. To succeed, you needed to get good skills in front of people who could hire you. Bad writers and bad actors didn’t so much out-compete good ones for jobs as they muddied up the waters and made it harder for professionals to find their way to editors and managers.  

These barriers to entry have never stopped anyone from throwing a hat into the ring, but they had a lot to do with who got passed through to the next level. Oh, and they gave us someone to blame if we didn’t make it.

Today, technology has opened the field: Writers can connect directly with readers on the Internet; with the rise of digital camera, photographers no longer need to invest $30,000 in equipment to be able to take consistent professional shots; musicians can put out their own demo CDs with equipment that costs under $1000; and actors can get their shorts up on Youtube.

So, have the barriers to entry really fallen?  

I doubt it. True, in my current Interent writing gig, the barriers to entry are seemingly low. There is an application process, but in truth, it doesn’t seem very rigorous to someone who cut her teeth in national print magazines and major newspapers.

However, to succeed at this gig is a very different story.  The financial model is, on the surface, distressingly different than the old model of “write a story, get a check.”  Instead, income dribbles in over months and years, and it seems to take forever for those first pennies to turn into dollars; for them to turn into enough dollars takes even longer, inconceivably longer if you happen to have been one of those writers who used to make a couple of bucks a word writing national magazine service stories.  Succeeding in this new world — making enough money on the stories to justify the time spent writing them — is  possible, although not easy. I’ve done the math six ways from Sunday, and I’ve measured the information people share about their earnings against mine, and no matter how I figure it, it’s worth the work. But it’s a long-term game. Just like learning piano, which has so far taken me about 40 years. 

And maybe it was learning piano — the discipline, the patience, the ability to understand this long-term process of continual effort and ultimate reward — that has given me the outlook necessary to succeed in writing.  I think that what a lot of people — adults and kids, both –  really want when they say they want to write, or play music, has nothing to do with the actual work itself : the practice, the day-in-day-out engagement with subject matter, technique, and skill. They want a magic pill that will do all that for them, so they can get to the real fun — the rewards of having written a book, the applause at the end of a show, and hopefully, a really big paycheck.

And THAT is the new barrier to entry in the arts. Only it’s not so new.

In the old days, we could blame those old barriers: how hard it was to get an editor’s attention, how expensive camera equipment was, how impossible it was to get a recording deal or an audition. The Internet has blown all that away — and it turns out that  it was nothing more than a big smokescreen that concealed the real barrier to entry, which is something we should have known all along.  

What it takes to succeed in the arts is the same as it always has been: the desire and drive to get up and do it today and tomorrow and the next day. To do it well, to manage the work smartly, to keep doing it even when it doesn’t pay off, to set a course and stay with it, to learn the ropes and techniques, to believe that it will happen even when you strike a plateau and can’t find a way up from it. You have to make smart business decisions, yes; as there ever have been, there are plenty of companies and individuals who would love to underpay you for your work. You have to find business models that make sense to you, but then you have to stick with them. You have to do the work. And even more, you have to love the work.

And, as my piano students, and some of my fellow writers are finding, that may be the biggest barrier to entry of all.

And if we don’t succeed? Maybe this time, we have only ourselves to blame.

Posted in Freelancing, Musing on Creativity | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

Irony in the Teaching Trenches

June 7, 2009 by Karen Berger

I’ve had the giggles this week, especially while teaching.

It all started with the electrifying  performances at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (www.cliburn.tv). The poise of these young performers is almost unbelievable, and their death-defying acts of pianism are inspiring, amazing, exciting, and rejuvenating.

I can’t tell you how many times in the last few days I’ve heard a performance of a piece of music I used to play. Often, I’ve been moved to rifle through my music cabinets, then go back to the piano to play something I haven’t looked at since high school.  Lots of train wrecks have been happening on my old Steinway, but I’ve had lots of fun, too, as well as the occasional moment of something that sounds pretty darn good.

Inspired by 20-year old phenom Tsujii Naboyuki, the blind Japenese pianist who was one of the tying gold medalists, I even attempted to play Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu, a piece that’s been in my repertoire since age 11, with a blindfold on.  The result wasn’t pretty, but it was enlightening, and I’d encourage anyone who has an old warhorse sitting around to try the experiment for themselves.

While surfing around the Cliburn website, I came upon the information and application for the amateur arm of the Van Cliburn competition. Now, make no mistake, this may be an amateur competition, as in “not a concert pianist,” but the playing here is at a very high level, mostly by people who could have gotten (or did get into) fine conservatories as students, but ultimately elected to pursue a saner way of making a living. 

The requirements for the competition include that you be over 35 (in other words, it’s not a back door to a debut concert career). That’s fair. No ringers allowed.

You can’t make your living (or most of your living) as a concert pianist (in other words, it’s not a career bumper) Okay, that’s fair, too.

And you can’t make your living (or most of your living) teaching music.  Which seems reasonable, right? Unfair advantage and all that?

Or does it?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of EVER entering this, or any other piano competition, so I’ve got no dog in this fight.  However, as I’ve spent my week going about my teaching, this “no teachers” restriction has had me bursting out in uncontrolled giggles, usually in the middle of a lesson.

I guess it gives me an unfair advantage when I spend my workdays :

Reminding Student A that the finger in his mouth is the same finger that  is supposed to go on middle C.

Telling Student B that no matter how many time he plays that “B”  it is always going to sound wrong, and it will continue to sound wrong until he looks at the music and figures out that he is supposed to be playing a different note. 

Trying to figure out how to get Little Student C to stretch her tiny hands so that she can get to that top A in “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

Explaining to Student D’s parents that coming to a piano lesson once a week does not constitute “practice” and that unless the child actually touches the piano a few times a week, he has a  better chance of flying into space than he does of getting through Book I of the “How to Play Piano” series.    

Don’t get me wrong: I like my students. Right now, I’ve got a great studio of kids, and I happen to be truly fond of every one of them: They are cute and funny, and fun to teach, and most of them actually practice once in a while. And while it’s true that I AM teaching a few more advanced students some Chopin nocturnes and some of the easier Beethoven and Mozart sonatas and such, the vast majority of my time is spent on finger number one, finger number two, and pleas to COUNT COUNT COUNT, and TRY TRY TRY to remember what “every good boy deserves.”

So it tickles my funny bone to think that this job disqualifies me from standing on a stage, just me and the black beast, to wrestle in public with my Chopin G minor Ballade or my Beethoven “Les Adieux.” 

Student E wiggles her tooth for me and announces that it might come out during this very lesson, and I tell her my cardinal rule: “No blood on the piano.”  

And the giggling starts again.

Posted in Music, Performing, Teaching | Tagged , | 7 Comments »

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