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Topic: Do you write for any alumni publications?
| Author | Message |
| JC | Posted – 4/16/2008 3:45:47 PM | show profile Do you write for alumni pubs? Do you like it? Another writer mentioned that she did and that was interesting and paid well. I'm trying to find out more about this. Anything you want to share about your own experience with alumni publications? And how can a non-alum get sample copies? Thanks, -JC |
| Righter | Posted – 4/16/2008 6:43:25 PM | show profile I've write for my alumni publication. They're great to work with and pay well. I don't know if I could be much help. I got a copy because I was an alumnus, and I'm considering pitching another university whose alum mag comes in my mail because the person who lived here before me was an alum and never got his mail forwarded. Aside from calling the alumni offices and asking for a sample copy, you can also check the magazines' webpages. Many of them have archives online. |
| maphop | Posted – 4/16/2008 9:36:03 PM | show profile You should call the editor for the alumni magazine you're interested in and request a copy. I'd say that alumni magazine pay fairly. Not great, not awful. They're tough to pitch only in the fact that pretty much every story has to be pegged to the school directly or to an alumni; that can make for a lot of work in terms of researching your story pitches beforehand. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 4/16/2008 9:51:09 PM | show profile If you come across an opportunity to interview someone particularly unique/impressive, ask them what university they went to. Work backwards from there and ask that school's mag if they'd like to buy an interview. I did one like this. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 4/16/2008 11:05:41 PM | show profile JC, you have given me a real head-smacking V-8 moment. I've never done this kind of work, but I'm in a good position to do so, just because of my background, clips, and contacts. What a great idea! I'm guessing that obtaining copies of alumni publications would only require getting a name and phone number off the university's Web site, perhaps for the alumni relations office, then calling and asking. You might even want to drop by the local schools and ask in person. Depending on the school, the publication might be put together by its communications staff, but chances are the alumni office/house will at least have copies on hand, even if they aren't the ones who publish it. That's how I plan to start. |
| JC | Posted – 4/17/2008 7:40:01 AM | show profile Thanks for the ideas. I guess I was wondering how specific to the school most alumni mags were. I get two from the universities I attended but, sadly, never read either one other than a quick once over before recyling. I wondered if most were specific to the schools/graduates and it sounds like they probably are. Love the idea of asking someone during an interview which school they attended. Will keep that in mind. Off to research alumni offices! |
| snappiness | Posted – 4/17/2008 8:55:41 AM | show profile "pays well" I never know what to think when someone posts something vague like "pays well." I figure one person's "well" can be another person's poverty level. I consider "well" to be getting close to $2/word. What do alumni mags pay? |
| maphop | Posted – 4/17/2008 9:31:19 AM | show profile Typically $1/Word or Less I'm not sure where the buzz about alumni magazines paying well got started but in my experience it is typically $1/word or less and with alumni organizations getting less donor money these days, I have actually seen alumni magazines offering less lately than they were two or three years ago. I find they pay less almost any major consumer magazine and less than many trade publications. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 4/17/2008 11:10:18 AM | show profile Factor in the PITA effect and if alumni mags are less demanding, that $1/wd doubles quickly if you spend half the time on it as for some consumer mag. One of my favorite clients pays $1/wd; fun, fast, easy, no rewrites; the per-hour rate remains high. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 4/17/2008 11:21:56 AM | show profile I did find one univ. mag sucked when it came to reprints. I had one call to ask what it would cost to reprint my article or if I could redo/taylor it - an article done for a rather major daily on one of their alumni. When I proposed what I thought was a modest sum, they said they didn't have much of a budget -- and then just put a link to the original story up on their alumni website. Sigh. |
| snappiness | Posted – 4/17/2008 11:31:28 AM | show profile Caitlin raises a good point about the profit margin on an easy-to-do story. But lately I find myself doing less of those, and I think it has to do with the "persona" post from today. I find that I have somewhat of a "brand" that I can't dilute. Editors who may see my name on some lazy story in their alumni magazine are going to question my work. I think about that sometimes when I take custom publishing work that's really easy. I guess I just can't be lazy anymore when it comes to stories, they all have to be good. And I have to worry just a little bit about where my name appears. And unfortunately editors at no-name publications aren't usually willing to take my name off the story b/se it gives it some credibility. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 4/17/2008 2:26:46 PM | show profile "I guess I just can't be lazy anymore when it comes to stories, they all have to be good. And I have to worry just a little bit about where my name appears." Hmmmm, I guess if you're talking about Google-ability, sure, that makes sense. But when sending clips, perhaps you could exercise some control over which stories people see if you have a Web site with PDFs and links. If you have plenty of clips, maybe an editor won't feel compelled to look further. I wouldn't, just because of time constraints. A few good clips would be all I'd need. |
| snappiness | Posted – 4/17/2008 2:45:45 PM | show profile I just don't want to take the chance that my editor may also happen to be an American Express cardholder who receives "Amex Today!" or is a Indiana University alum who gets their newsletter, and sees my name there on some quickie piece. That would raise some eyebrows. I know the risk is low, but all the same, I don't think the low pay is worth the risk. |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 4/17/2008 6:36:31 PM | show profile Editors know full well that writers do what they have to do to make a buck. Christopher Hitchens, for example, shows up in custom pubs doing quick hits from time to time. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 4/18/2008 10:30:09 AM | show profile Snap, are you a staffer or a full-time freelancer? If you're a full-time freelancer, I don't see what difference it would make to someone who has hired you for something else. If you work on staff and you write for the competition, that's one thing, but even if you wrote on the side for another kind of publication in another market that has nothing to do with your day job, unless you signed something for your current employer saying you wouldn't write for someone else, well, your business is none of theirs, far as I'm concerned. In fact, I've always worked with editors who freelanced themselves on the side, and who got a bang out of reading my other stuff. So, I'm with InsomniacNOT. Just my opinion. Go with your gut. It never lies. |
| snappiness | Posted – 4/18/2008 12:05:45 PM | show profile I'm a freelancer, and have no problem writing for other outlets. I was thinking more of "diluting my brand," if that makes sense. Another post mentioned the profit margin can be good on just knocking out a quick and dirty story at $1 a word. But I've done those before, and they look lazy in print. I don't really want my "I pay her top dollar 'cause she's fabulous" editors seeing that kind of work from me. Now, if I were to knock it out of the ballpark and do a great job, like for the custom publishing work I do take, then I have no problem with anyone seeing it. I have to make a living. But those custom publishing jobs I take pay more than $1 word. Bottom line, taking a cheap job because I can turn it around quickly below my usual standards doesn't work for me. Hope that makes sense. |
| candylilacs | Posted – 4/18/2008 12:16:16 PM | show profile Well, I think anything you do should be decent, especially if it has your name attached. Secondly, my alumni mag and another near me (go state schools!) pay about $2 a word. However, their needs are mostly 200 to 400-word short profiles (the larger profiles are usually done in-house.) c. ------ http://www.mswritesguide.blogspot.com |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 4/18/2008 12:53:14 PM | show profile For me quick usually means a one intvu piece with minimal research. It doesn't mean lowering the writing quality. It's the research/reporting that goes in a quick turnaround. Honestly, I can't imagine any reasonable editor would care. If so they would never run Q and As What I have known them to get upset about -- and rightly so in my opinion -- is writers with their names attached to prominent advertorial. If you can afford to turn down pieces that pay a lucrative hourly rate for "brand dilution" worries that most likely have no basis in reality, go ahead. But like everything else, I think you have to use judgment based on the particulars of each situation. A Q and A in a big alumni mag. isn't going to dilute the brand. A National Enquirer cover story, on the other hand... |
| snappiness | Posted – 4/18/2008 1:54:26 PM | show profile "For me quick usually means a one intvu piece with minimal research. It doesn't mean lowering the writing quality. It's the research/reporting that goes in a quick turnaround." Yeah, I'm sure the real issue here is that I've done work in the past that I've cut corners on, trying to minimize the time to maximize the profit, and I wasn't proud of the final result. Maybe I was just cutting the wrong corners. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 4/18/2008 2:02:40 PM | show profile This makes the assumption that every editor will see every story you write, even if for smaller publications with (much) less prestige. If you're good, you're good and who cares who you write for? Major league ballplayers hit singles, doubles, triples and home runs -- their skills remain high nonetheless. The NYT pays barely $1/wd for much of its freelance newspaper copy (more for magazines) and I doubt anyone would look down on someone who's writing for the Times while producing, de facto, for a poorly paying market. This notion of brand/persona seems a little corporate to me. You're good and people discover that and want to use you. Or not. |
| Team America | Posted – 4/20/2008 10:11:31 AM | show profile Propaganda I've thought about doing this, but when I actually sit down and read these things they make my skin crawl. The propaganda level is high and so far money or not I just don't want to be associated with them. Passing no judgment on others, but suggest you really read these mags before pitching. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 4/20/2008 2:16:57 PM | show profile really, I think the idea of a persona or publicly projected image becomes more of an issue at the higher levels -- when people are noticing you lunching at Michael's, when you're a top gun brought in to do a big piece for THe New Yorker or Texas Monthly, or when you're a hotshot novelist and that sort of thing. |
| what's the rumpus? | Posted – 4/20/2008 7:30:06 PM | show profile "I've thought about doing this, but when I actually sit down and read these things they make my skin crawl. " You might want to broaden your horizon, Team. Yes, a majority of alumni pubs are institutional mouthpieces, but there is a niche that is not. The Ivy mags, Cal (Berkeley), Stanford, U Chicago, Hopkins, and a few liberal arts schools like Middlebury all publish excellent magazines that are largely editorially independent. Tom Wolfe and Michael Pollan were recently published in the Cal magazine. Bill McKibben writes for Middlebury. Jacque Steinberg and Jake Tapper are frequent contributors to Dartmouth. And these pubs haven't shied away from tackling difficult subjects--Duke took an honest look at the lacrosse controversy there; Hopkins published a long piece on the perils and controversey of human research subjects after someone died in a clinical trial at JHU; and a few years back Dartmouth had a cover profile of a profoundly troubled alum and former star athlete who killed himself and his children on the heels of a custudy battle with his estranged wife. Far from propaganda, it seems to me. My advice is to find the pubs that run good work. They stand out from the rest of the pack. |
| jsk | Posted – 4/21/2008 12:12:43 PM | show profile It seems to me that the bigger (or more wealthy) the school, the more "respectable" the alumni pub is, whether you define "respectable" as "having good stories and high journalistic standards," "paying cash money" or both. The alumni magazine from my college (an NYC-area engineering and science school) is an OK pub, but the alumni association likely doesn't have a ton of money. How do I know? Because I submitted a query about a fellow alumnus who's doing something unique. The editor asked me if I would write the article for free. As you'd expect, I refused. I don't need the clip that badly. I think asking interviewees where they went to college is a good idea. One two-second question may open up a whole new market for you. |
| Team America | Posted – 4/21/2008 6:51:53 PM | show profile You might be right Rumpus. I've only read my own alumags and despite coming from elite schools these publications are not in the category you describe. |
