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Topic: where's the counterpoint?
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| Author | Message |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/13/2004 9:57:11 AM | show profile Wasn't there supposed to be an essay AGAINST writing for free last week? What happened to that? Maybe no one wanted to do it for, you know, free? I'm just wondering, I was very curious to see the counterpoint. Maybe it struck too close to home for TPTB? |
| Alexandrialeigh | Posted – 12/13/2004 10:01:13 AM | show profile Snort Thanks for the laugh, what_the...I was kind of expecting the ''counterpoint'' to never appear. Maybe the counterpoint is actually the non-existence of the counterpoint? As in, no one who won't work for free will write for free to defend why they don't write for free? Come to think of it, I can't imagine who WOULD write for free about not writing for free... ------ Confessions of a Nobody www.confessionsofanobody.blogspot.com |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/13/2004 10:11:09 AM | show profile yes, it was a conundrum. but i remember the divine Miss E promising this article, and I was anticipating the delicious irony of it all. but you're right-the non-existence of the thing is the response. perfect! |
| ElizabethSpiers | Posted – 12/13/2004 11:27:25 AM | show profile It's coming Not as soon as I would have liked to have run it, but it's coming. |
| Alexandrialeigh | Posted – 12/13/2004 12:16:08 PM | show profile Question for Miss E Are you paying for it? ------ Confessions of a Nobody www.confessionsofanobody.blogspot.com |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/13/2004 12:53:50 PM | show profile excellent question, delighted! and if not, how on earth did you swing it, Miss E? |
| ElizabethSpiers | Posted – 12/13/2004 2:18:28 PM | show profile Nope. Not paying for it. And for what it's worth, I had multiple volunteers. |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/13/2004 2:49:32 PM | show profile i for one am curious to see how the writer gets around the teensy inconsistency problem inherent in an anti-writing for free article that has been written for free. should be interesting. i'm hopeful we will see a virtuoso display of logic! |
| Alexandrialeigh | Posted – 12/13/2004 2:52:54 PM | show profile And I hope... That it's not just an ''exposure is payment enough'' piece. Harrumph! |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/13/2004 2:55:19 PM | show profile yes, please ah, exposure. maybe the writer will emphasize that sometimes evil (writing for free) must be done in order to spread the greater good (explaining why you shouldn't write for free) |
| Alexandrialeigh | Posted – 12/13/2004 3:00:22 PM | show profile Ah, that would be a great point. Wait -- just had a thought here -- by continually posting this way, are we actually, in effect, writing *for free* (the horror) on this topic? For the greater good? Liz -- here's your essay, right here! A banter between two sarcastic wits. ------ Confessions of a Nobody www.confessionsofanobody.blogspot.com |
| ElizabethSpiers | Posted – 12/13/2004 3:15:23 PM | show profile re: how I swung it No effort on my part. Some of them just wanted to get their arguments off their chest and I guess they figured, why spend the time writing a 700 word email to me when they could turn it into an essay and have their opinions more widely read? At any rate, everyone had their own reasons for doing it, as do all of my current writers. And they're probably not the reasons you'd expect. None of the essay writers you've seen here in the last few weeks, for example, are people who are desperate for freelance work. Most of them were swamped already when they volunteered to do the stories. (One writer gleefully interrupted a story for the <i>New York Times</i> and a book revision due the next day to bang out an essay at the last minute.) They tell me they do it because they like what they're writing and it gets them read in a way that doesn't often happen elsewhere. I could write 100 little front of the book essays for Vanity Fair, and they might land on 200,000 coffee tables, but they wouldn't get emailed around and talked about the way William Georgiades's ''Adventures in Journalism'' pieces do--not to mention the fact that the average VF reader doesn't pay much attention to bylines--and there's some value in that. So the incentive to write for free or to refuse to write for free really depends on why you're writing. Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing either one *exclusively* if you want to make a living at it. (But i will say that if your primary goal is to get paid and get paid decently, opinion writing about media--with one or two Michael Wolff-like exceptions--is probably one of the least lucrative career paths you could possibly take. The demand is limited, the turnover rate high and the pay not very good. If you enjoy it, it's completely worth it. But if you're not especially interested in media and want to make money, better to do $5 a word service pieces for mass market pubs or specialized reporting for journals and trade mags.) p.s. forgive my acronym illiteracy, but TPTB = ? |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/13/2004 3:53:18 PM | show profile tptb i don't want to post too much for free anymore lest someone make a book out of it and get rich without giving me one thin dime (good point, delighted!) but i wanted to clear up the acronym confusion. TPTB= The powers that be. From Angel. Often used on Angel message boards to refer to said powers within the show's reality, not that I would know anything about all that. At all. ------ yawn |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 12/13/2004 3:55:37 PM | show profile ''But if you're not especially interested in media and want to make money, better to do $5 a word service pieces for mass market pubs or specialized reporting for journals and trade mags.)'' Surely you jest. I know of two outlets occasionally paying $3/wd+. Who's paying $5/word? Feel free to run an item on them... ------ 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 |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/13/2004 4:09:07 PM | show profile ''opinion writing about media--with one or two Michael Wolff-like exceptions--is probably one of the least lucrative career paths you could possibly take.'' just to play devil's advocate, i suppose it could be argued that writing for free is even less lucrative. but i'm not that good at math. |
| Alexandrialeigh | Posted – 12/13/2004 5:11:48 PM | show profile Teehee Ah, thank god for sarcasm on Mondays. ------ Confessions of a Nobody www.confessionsofanobody.blogspot.com |
| Lotus665 | Posted – 12/13/2004 6:49:23 PM | show profile I've Created a Monster? This is weird. I was the original poster who innocently asked if MB paid for those essays...and look where it's led!!!! You'll all enjoy hearing that I was one of the volunteers to write about why NOT to write for free, because I had assumed that I'd be paid ''in kind,'' as TPTB said they often do (e.g. with a free listing on Freelance Marketplace, or something). If I'd been offered the assignment for not even that, I would have retracted. I actually have written for free, for do-good organizations I volunteer for anyway that have a total media budget in three figures. I think ''pro bono'' work is a separate issue, though. Other than that, if the outlet publishing someone's work HAS money, they should part with a little of it in exchange for professionally produced ''content.'' Hmm...I think I just self-published a mini version of the retort essay I had wanted to write for MB...for free on a bulletin board...My head is exploding.... ------ Lotus665 |
| jmm | Posted – 12/15/2004 9:48:46 PM | show profile What about an Av membership. You weren't offered that? |
| eriksherman | Posted – 12/16/2004 7:18:14 AM | show profile Has it been a case of not getting what you don't pay for? <s> Caitlin, Reader's Digest has been known to pay from $4 to $5 a word (though it's trying to push payment down to $3 a word given its poor finances), and according to a story the other day in the NYT, Technology Review is going to pay upwards of $5 a word to attract writers from the NYT and the Economist. ------ Author of "Geocaching: Hike and Seek with Your GPS" - hidden at a bookstore near you... |
| Lotus665 | Posted – 12/16/2004 12:22:42 PM | show profile jmm, I wasn't offered a chance to do that essay, I just was one of the volunteers. I still await seeing this famous retort essay, as the original poster inquired. ------ Lotus665 |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/16/2004 12:39:57 PM | show profile well, i guess when you aren't paying people there isn't as much incentive for them to get things done on time, right? poor editors who don't pay! it must be so difficult for them! |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/21/2004 12:27:34 PM | show profile still waiting.... ------ yawn |
| roxannekkb | Posted – 12/21/2004 3:14:13 PM | show profile Maybe it's just my perception, since I am rabidly opposed to writing for free--to markets like MB which are in business to make money--but Elizabeth's responses always seem kind of snooty. Like we must be a bunch of morons to even think that we should be paid for writing. You know, that writing for MB is a privilege and that we should thank our lucky stars that they'll even consent to publish our work. Her attitude towards those who see writing as a career, ie, with a paycheck strikes me as rather condescending in all of her posts. Like her response to the question about the article which gave a counter argument to writing for free--well, if there were multitudes volunteering, then where's the article? Why the delay? There didn't seem to be a problem getting the one up about the glories of writing without pay, so what's the problem now? Anyway, there's absolutely nothing that MB can say which will ever sway me to believe that I should donate my writing and not expect to be paid. I add that I am talking about money making ventures, and not charities or tiny non-profits. MB is not either, and in fact, Laurel has been bragging about how the fortunes at MB are growing. There is no reason why essays should not be paid for, even if just a token. And writers certainly shouldn't have to take it upon themselves to barter, ask for something in return. MB attitude's needs a clean-up. Perhaps that can be a new year's resolution, to treat writers as valuable members of this community. ------ www.nabeepchen.com |
| what_the? | Posted – 12/21/2004 3:57:54 PM | show profile amen, sister! |
| eriksherman | Posted – 12/21/2004 4:14:08 PM | show profile >> Like her response to the question about the article which gave a counter argument to writing for free--well, if there were multitudes volunteering, then where's the article? Why the delay? There didn't seem to be a problem getting the one up about the glories of writing without pay, so what's the problem now? << One reason to pay people is that you can actually demand for work to appear. <s> And I've had the same sense as you - I guess it's snark for snark's sake... ------ Author of "Geocaching: Hike and Seek with Your GPS" - hidden at a bookstore near you... |
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