Archives: May 2007

In the ever changing marketplace, investors and business execs are always on the lookout for the latest trends and products. Let’s face it, we’re no longer living the same lifestyle as our parents did growing up. We’re now in a tech-dependent society, paying bills, shopping, and even job hunting online. Niche job boards such as mediabistro.com cater to job seekers in all levels of their career path. And like the researchers who are finding new ways to market the next big product, employers must study and appeal to the latest workforce, the twentysomething worker.

Read more

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion's Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook's Morin Oluwole, and bitly's Tim Devane. Register now.

Not since the days of this guy has there been such wanton disregard for the rules of commerce. For the past couple of months we’ve been running a Freelance Marketplace sale- $30 off the price of a 1-year subscription. That averaged out to the ludicrously small amount of $12 per month (with ludicrous levels increased for AvantGuild members at $10 per month).
After scores of member emails, phone calls, and other various propositions, the mediabistro.com bean counters have seen fit to deem this once temporary offer permanent. So why not thank them by signing up? As for the extra $30 you saved, you can spend it on the favorite movie trilogy of our finance maven, Amy.
Click here to sign up for 1-year of Freelance Marketplace at the ludicrous new low price.

Wendy Knight, award-winning New York Times travel writer, author and mediabistro.com instructor, is leaving our green home away from home, Vermont, for Manhattan. She’s also selling her four-bedroom, 2,890-square-foot stone farmhouse, set on 13 acres, for $694,000:

—–Original Message—–
From: Wendy Knight
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 4:04 PM
To: [REDACTED]
Subject: Selling the Stone House and Moving to Manhattan
Hello Friends:
Apologies for the mass email …
I’m selling my stone farmhouse and moving to Manhattan by September. If you know of anyone interested in a lovely Vermont stone house, please direct them to one of the links below.
http://realestate.nytimes.com/+comshare/vulisting.asp?Lid=2204-DP7052236
http://www.chrisvontrapp.com/FeaturedListingDetails.php?mls=2702660
Many thanks.
Hope all is well.
Wendy
Wendy Knight

What were we paying her, anyway?

In advertising sales, there’s nothing worse than trying to wedge a customer into a website they have no business being in. That’s what we call the old “Dog in the Bathtub.” Why? Because they are tough to get in, you get dirty putting them in, and–once they ARE in–they’re impossible to KEEP in. You just don’t need advertisers like that.
Sure, you can pick up some quick short-term revenue by getting the dancing monkeys mortgage ads on the site for a month, or delivering a few hundred thousand pop-unders for Career Builder. But your readers will hate you and–when the campaign is pulling sub .01% clicks–so will your new advertisers. But what about those companies that are somewhere in the middle? The ones that MAY do well on the site, but you never know?
I like to encourage customers to run test campaigns before they commit to a major ad spend. It may sound counterproductive to not look for the maximum dollar amount for every new customer when you can get it, but I believe in creating long term customers, not one-shot deals. I consistently encourage new advertisers to try test campaigns valued at under $1000, and make sure they receive a variety of different ad types across the site.
This gives us two things: an almost 100% conversion rate among new clients (they will “risk” a small amount to try our site), and valuable market data I can use to optimize subsequent campaigns after the test run. After delivering a campaign with a new advertiser, I like to compile the campaign stats from our ad server, and see what the client-side feedback is. In most cases, the client has the best responses from the portion of the test campaign with the higher CPM, and will initiate a subsequent campaign priced at a higher value than originally budgeted (if the results are good). If the results are not effective, you just saved an advertiser a lot of money–and ensured that their word-of-mouth feedback was “those guys are very fair” rather than, “Mediabistro.com–what a rip off!”
It’s a great way to make friends, and a lot easier than putting the dog in the tub.

Google isn’t just in fierce competition with Microsoft and Yahoo to snap up computer engineers as reported in The Times. They are now one of the most active companies on the mediabistro.com job board. That’s right, Google competes with your firm to attract and hire media industry talent like writers, account executives and ad sales reps, designers, marketers and content producers. How do they do it? . . .

Read more

BookExpo America — the largest publishing event in the U.S. — hits New York next week. With more than 2,000 publishers and other exhibitors, and 1,000 appearances by authors, it’s jam packed with panels, keynotes, and lunches.
The schedule — and all that swag — can be overwhelming if you’re not prepared. “The secret to surviving BookExpo is to only take the free merchandise you absolutely want,” says GalleyCat co-editor Ron Hogan. “Otherwise, you’re going to find yourself in a world of back and leg pain very quickly, trying to haul around all the swag they’re giving out.”
There’s one thing you definitely won’t want to pass up: Mergers & Acquisitions author Dana Vachon joins Ron and GalleyCat’s Sarah Weinman to host a party for book publishers on Thursday, May 31.
Click here for more party info.
Rachel Edelman, Events Manager

Almost exactly a year ago (June 1, to be exact), mediabistro.com published my first article on the site. My tagline read, “Noah Davis is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. In his spare time, he’s also a damn good busboy, if he does say so himself.”
Emphasis on the busboy.
At the time, I was struggling to launch a writing career, happy to score any assignment whether it paid or not and make my money waiting tables and clearing glasses. Over the next few months, I continued to write for mb and serve as a guinea pig. In October, I started doing freelance editorial work, first one, then two, then three days a week. Now, a mere 12 months after Penthouse, I’m happily employed as an assistant editor. It’s not the meteoric rise of some, but I’ll take it. I’d like to think that hard work has a place in the “who you know” New York media world.
I miss the nights I’d get off at 4am and wander through the relative quiet of Times Square, but a normal sleep-cycle has its perks as well. The moral: I’m still damn good at carrying plates (if I do say so myself), but I’m glad I no longer have to. And to think, it all started with a silly little “How To Pitch.”

Our forums are a great place to discuss all things media with your fellow mb buddies. Sometimes it can get pretty heated in there. Sometimes it’s a good place to post an embarrassing admission. Most of the time though it’s a great place to ask questions and find information that sometimes extends beyond the mediabistro.com sphere. A few days ago, Erik Sherman, a seasoned freelance writer and mediabistro.com member since 2001, posted on his blog a list of free sites that feature freelance job listings. His list, which includes over thirty (including ours truly) sites, are all free to search jobs. This kind of work should certainly earn Erik the Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence, or at the very least a plug for his blog, Erik Sherman’s WriterBiz.
So, if you freelancers are feeling guilty about eating too much BBQ and getting hammered this past memorial day weekend instead of combing the web for writing gigs, Erik has saved saved your dignity day.

Click here to view Erik’s list of free Freelance job sites.

Let’s face it, the beauty beat can get pretty repetitive. Where does a beauty writer and editor find inspiration? Lori Bergamotto [InStyle] was on vacation in Italy, but we interrupted her to find out. We’re annoying like that, so definitely don’t tell us how to reach you when you go away.

Lori’s partial list, in no particular order:

Traveling, and not just the glam spots. “Omaha, Atlanta, St. Louis, Portland — getting a sense of different types of women in different parts of the country informs my writing like nothing else.”
Italian and British magazines. “Trends in beauty and fashion seem to hit first in Europe.”
Baseball. “I’d rather watch a Yankees game than a Marc Jacobs runway show.”
Romantic poet John Keats. ‘His writing on beauty has influenced my thinking about aesthetics.”

Upcoming courses with Lori Bergamotto:

• Beauty Writing 101 – May 31 (Los Angeles)
• Beauty Writing 101 – June 11 (New York)

• Beauty Writing and Editing – starts June 12 (Online)
  

Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Tracy Grant at an mb party
Tracy Grant is one of my favorite students. He was an active mediabistro.com member in New York, where the spec scripts he wrote in our 12-Week TV Writer class landed him a spot in last year’s Disney Fellowship. Now here in L.A., a couple of months after completing our TV Symposium, he’s landed a staff-writing job on ABC Family’s The Heights.
Over breakfast last week, I asked Tracy what his big three misconceptions were going into a big-time fellowship like Disney’s, and what he’s learned in the interim. Here, in his own words:
1. Misconception: Fellowships put you on the fast track to a staff writing position.
Truth: Fast track is probably a bit much. While it’s certainly better to have one, a writing fellowship only affords you an opportunity to demonstrate your value. Fellowships provide credibility and perhaps some temporary attention around town, but that alone only puts you slightly ahead of the game. It’s what you do once you get there that determines your success. Simply put, just getting accepted isn’t enough.
2. Misconception: Fellowships guarantee you access to network execs and/or showrunners and/or agents.
Truth: Every fellowship program will tell you that staffing isn’t guaranteed, but meetings and mentors aren’t guaranteed either. Network execs, executive producers, and agents have very limited time, and they aren’t always accessible even when they support fellowship programs. So you have to maximize each meeting as if it’s your last, because you never know.
3. Misconception: The Fellowship will be your biggest advocate.
Truth: Fellowships will be your advocate, but not your biggest–you will have to be. Fellowship programs can’t favor one individual over another, and though they may not want to, they’re sometimes forced to send several people out for one opportunity. If you leave them to their own devices, you may get lucky and have someone respond to your script, but you have to do everything possible to affect that outcome in other ways. That means writing and networking as much as possible, putting as much material in front of your mentor/exec as possible, and building that relationship.
View all TV courses.
— Taffy Brodesser-Akner, director of community development