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Topic: Writing for MediaBistro site
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| Author | Message |
| Lotus665 | Posted – 10/26/2004 4:51:41 PM | show profile Anyone know how to pitch MB's essay department? They tell you how to pitch about everyone but themselves...at least, I haven't found anyting on the website about this. I sent the site an email but no one answered. I also heard a rumor that they don't pay anything whatsoever. Any truth to that? ------ Lotus665 |
| charles1000 | Posted – 10/26/2004 4:54:15 PM | show profile They pay in kind to those who ask. Otherwise you'll get nothing. You might be able to wrangle an AG membership. |
| Lotus665 | Posted – 10/26/2004 8:56:06 PM | show profile OK, but whom do you pitch and how? MB folks, are you lurking? ------ Lotus665 |
| jsk | Posted – 10/26/2004 10:39:17 PM | show profile The last time I sent anything, I sent it directly to Jesse Oxfeld, when he was the EIC here. Just click the ''about us'' link above and find one of the editor's e-mail addresses. I think the deputy editor's is up there now. |
| Lotus665 | Posted – 10/30/2004 12:22:23 PM | show profile On spec or query I prefer to send a query before writing a full item on spec. Did you send one or the other? ------ Lotus665 |
| BeBrave | Posted – 10/30/2004 11:05:27 PM | show profile | email poster I wrote an essay for the site this past summer. I emailed Jesse O. They don't pay. (Although I wasn't smart enough to ask about ''in kind.'') Essays with anyone are typically on spec. In this case I had an essay already written. After an initial back-and-forth I sent him the essay. He liked it, but wanted it refocused. So I did. For a no-payment thing it was a bit of work. If you do write for them, be careful about editing. They went a bit nuts, esp considering it was a first person essay. I was able to fix most of it, though, before it went live. Was happy to do it to get an online clip of that genre...but prob won't do it again. |
| eriksherman | Posted – 10/31/2004 6:17:03 AM | show profile For a site that is supposedly for members of the media, I find it sad and even irritating that they expect writers to donate their services. If they manage to pay the staff and the company hosting the site and the landlord for their office space and the electric company and so on, why should writers provide for nothing that which actually helps draw people to the site, which in turn allows them to charge for advertising? And even the idea of in-kind compensation is something that the writer has to know to ask for? Even while Laurel is quoted by a reporter about this being a money making machine? This sounds more and more like so many other things in writing - the magazines, the seminars, the newsletters, the editing services. Yes, there are some that are more than worth the money (ASJA and Freelance success are that for me), but in all too many cases, there is a common smell. It's the aroma of someone people who had been in the business but had then decided that writers were strictly suckers and ought to be treated that way. ''Oh, yeah, we can get writers to do this - they'll fall for anything.'' I will donate my time to non-profits that I particularly like. I will spend time trying to help other writers if I can. But I'm not giving away time and effort to what is clearly a for-profit business. ------ Author of "Geocaching: Hike and Seek with Your GPS" - hidden at a bookstore near you... |
| jsk | Posted – 10/31/2004 9:51:04 AM | show profile | email poster To BeBrave: yikes. I thought Jesse was being a bit picky with my essay (he didn't like it... thought it didn't go anywhere), considering they don't pay and all, but your experience was ridiculous. What was so broken about the final edit that you needed to fix it before publication? You can e-mail me privately if you want (I turned on the e-mail link). |
| joeinphiladelphia | Posted – 10/31/2004 10:46:56 AM | show profile I agree with you, Erik. If I decided to write a spec essay, I would certainly send it to all the paying markets first before I would consider giving it to mediabistro. And the other person is right about needing to write the whole thing. I've probably sold 50 essays to magazines, but only in a few cases did the editor commission it -- and that was someone who knew my work. |
| manzatia | Posted – 10/31/2004 10:53:00 AM | show profile A fair trade Seems to me a fair in- kind trade would at least be a year's worth of free advertising in their freelance marketplace, to maintain and upkeep such a listing costs a fraction of what they're actually charging individual writers, or a spot in one of their writing bootcamps. |
| charles1000 | Posted – 10/31/2004 12:30:42 PM | show profile I think that's one of the things you can negotiate for, if you know to ask. Now you do. I like MB, and have found the site extremely useful, especailly for jobs. But it seems to pose as a money-making business when it's convenient, and as a struggling nonprofit when that suits its ends--when it needs to rationalize or explain not paying writers or its constant call for volunteers (the latter seems to have ebbed, though). What businesses call for volunteers? Again, I don't like to bash MB, because the site, and many of its panels and short classes, are good and useful, and not that expensive. I just wish it would get over its irritating hypocrisy. Instead of advocating for better treatment for writers, it perpetuates the writer-as-victim philosophy--bad pay, late pay or no pay, bad contracts, the idea that writers should be grateful to have their work displayed anywhere--that it should be working to combat. |
| ElizabethSpiers | Posted – 11/2/2004 10:53:21 AM | show profile Anyone who wants to pitch an essay can submit directly to me at elizabeth AT mediabistro DOT com. I'm looking for voice-y opinion pieces as well as the usual first person accounts of media-related experiences. |
| jsk | Posted – 11/2/2004 11:44:30 AM | show profile Elizabeth, Is this the same deal as before? A barter arrangement on acceptance, but only if the writer thinks to ask? |
| babs | Posted – 11/2/2004 11:54:36 AM | show profile Elizabeth, What about pay? Barbara Benham Washington, D.C. |
| ElizabethSpiers | Posted – 11/3/2004 12:12:39 PM | show profile Here's what I told a few people who inquired yesterday: The standard policy right now is that we don't pay for essays, but historically we've compensated people who write for the site on a regular basis w/ avantguild memberships, other freelancer services, or whatever we can scrape together. there seem to be (at this point) enough good writers who will write for free to build a clip file and to get their writing in front of editors (and a wide variety of editors, at that) so there's not a tremendous amount of pressure to do otherwise. That said, the policy is very erratic and where we need to compensate, some people already have avant guild memberships so i'm trying to come up with a better way of doing that. If you have suggestions (besides the obvious $1 a word, which doesn't appear to be tenable*) do let me know. I'm looking for creative solutions. And money isn't entirely out of the question, but it'd probably come out of my own pocket and not my budget, so it'd have to be really fucking good. I don't exactly make Anna Wintour-level money. *MB is profitable, but more on the solid-small-biz level than the media conglomerate level. And it was never a non-profit (which is a descriptor of intent and tax treatment, not profitability. Most non-profits are profitable.) |
| jennsch | Posted – 11/3/2004 12:49:25 PM | show profile ''MB is profitable, but more on the solid-small-biz level than the media conglomerate level.'' As a freelance writer I also run a ''solid-small-biz.'' Unfortunately, the ''I'm no media conglomerate'' argument doesn't really work when I try to use it with my landlord, Con Ed, AT&T, Staples, etc. They keep telling me that media congomerate or not, I have to pay for services rendered. Imagine that. Jenna |
| manzatia | Posted – 11/3/2004 1:01:10 PM | show profile If I'm interpreting you correctly, as a matter of policy MB is willing to exploit writers need for ''exposure'', if they're willing to go along with it. But as matter of personal conscience you're willing fork out cash from your own salary to cover MB's non- existent editoral budget. That's actually quite noble of you but sets a very bad precendent. |
| charles1000 | Posted – 11/3/2004 1:51:23 PM | show profile Not to mention that the ''what the traffic will bear'' argument is hypocritical and disgusting, and perpetuates the writer as victim mentality that, as a media site, you should rise above. |
| ElizabethSpiers | Posted – 11/3/2004 2:59:44 PM | show profile I think it's more a what-the-market-will bear, which is totally agnostic. And even if you want to make the payment-for-services rendered, you're still logically wrong. You are getting payment: exposure in a venue with readers and if we offer in-kind payment (i.e., services) that. If that level of payment is not enough you, well, that is exactly the point at which supply equals demand. That is exactly what the market will bear. I'm sorry if that seems like a cold explanation, but I was a Wall Street person before I was a media person, and to me these things are pretty straightforward economic issues. If what we're supplying isn't sufficient to meet what you're demanding, then obviously, you're not buying. Which is fine. Other people are. I don't walk by a Mercedes dealership and complain that the prices are exploitative; I just don't buy it. But I can tell you from experience doing Gawker, that if you're a freelancer and you're looking for work, exposure is more of an advantage than j-school or anything else I can think of. I never cold called an editor when I was doing Gawker. They contact me because they were already reading my writing. It doesn't pay the rent, but it certainly helps you find things that do. |
| floruja | Posted – 11/3/2004 3:09:36 PM | show profile For those who don't have her finance background, let me explain in simpler terms what Elizabeth is saying (which, in fairness to her, is no more or less than she can say as mouthpiece for the business plan Laurel created): Newbie writers are essentially like illegal immigrants, or mine workers in pre-union times, or underage children in third world sweatshops. It's fair to exploit them because they are willing to be exploited. You want the clip but don't want the exploitation? No problem. Someone else will put up with it. You, unlike the utility companies or the landlord, are completely expendable. Don't like it? No problem. There are plenty of other suckers out there who will be more than happy to create the content that creates the page hits that create the numbers MB uses to sell its classifieds and otherwise continue charging forward as, in Laurel's words to The Economist, ''a money-making machine''. You're a log to be thrown on the engine. Don't want to get burned? There's plenty more logs where you came from, so screw off. This is, as Erik Sherman already said, a shameful way for a business to treat the professional community it allegedly exists to serve. |
| jsk | Posted – 11/3/2004 3:25:26 PM | show profile This smacks of ''you need us more than we need you.'' That doesn't seem to be a good way to run a small business, does it? Look, we're not asking for thousands of dollars. Barter arrangements are just fine (hundred bucks off a class, free admission to a seminar, whatever). We just wish there was a payment policy instead of this ''don't ask, don't tell'' arrangement that's there now. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 11/3/2004 3:37:03 PM | show profile With all due respect, Elizabeth, the theory that editors are (more) likely to call you with work after you write for free on this site is, in my own limited personal experience, not necessarily true. My essay on trauma ran here last spring -- yes, because the potential payoff was some increased exposure for my new/first book and no, I was not paid. Nor was I paid to run a concomitant BB discussion on the same topic, a thread that ran for several weeks with many thoughtful messages. Maybe my writing just sucks, but no one has contacted me since then to assign work to me. So you pays your money (or do not receive any) and you takes your chances...Flame me for making that decision. I did it once, but am unlikely to do it again. I doubt anyone with a choice (i.e. experienced writers; see floruja's comments) or without a timely or specific need for (greater) exposure for their ideas or POV will repeatedly do so either. The only writer whose name I've read here and then recently somewhere more exalted, (and you can guess wildly and inaccurately as to cause and effect), who may also have worked for free, is Lizzie Skurnick whose byline has recently appeared in the NYT Book Review. With all due respect to Lizzie, and good for her, did Sam really come trolling the MB site for new writers? I somehow doubt it. ------ Freelance writer Caitlin Kelly, has written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and other publications. You can read samples from her new book at blownawaythebook.com |
| writerly | Posted – 11/3/2004 3:40:46 PM | show profile Good grief, call off the dogs. I think it's great that MB is willing to work with new writers, even if they don't have the $$ to compensate. It's a great way to get clips. I've written for other sites for free, and for the pleasure of it, and for clips, and it was a great stepping stone to get paid assignments. If you don't like the policy, you don't have to write for MB, for free, in-kind payment, or otherwise! There's lots of other outlets out there! |
| charles1000 | Posted – 11/3/2004 3:42:44 PM | show profile The point is, you can get paid assignments from other sites that are doing a lot worse than MB, if you have a good idea. |
| irishloop | Posted – 11/3/2004 3:48:19 PM | show profile penny-wise, pound-foolish Besides being disgustingly exploitative, Mediabistro's approach is also bad business, Elizabeth. After reading your remarks, I doubt I'd ever consider joining AvantGuild, subscribing to Freelance Marketplace, or signing up for a Mediabistro course. I'm sure there are other serious journalists who feel the same way. |
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