Freelance

Just ahead of its fifth anniversary, Garden & Gun is profiled on CBS This Morning.

In the segment, editor-in-chief Dave DiBenedetto says that the only subjects that are off-limits are “politics, religion and SEC football.” Oh snap.

Craving more info on how to pitch this Southern lifestyle mag? Look no further than mediabistro’s premium How To Pitch piece (subscription required, of course).

“Years ago almost every major newspaper in the country had its own travel section, which was a rich source of sales for full-time travel writers. But in recent years a lot of the big newspapers have gone out of business. There just aren’t as many travel sections available as there used to be.”

The year this was written: 1991.

Things don’t change fast, do they?

Image is from Writer’s Digest, May 1991. Thanks to a friend of MJD for the scan.

If a social media marketer leaves his job and changes his Twitter handle, who gets to keep the followers?

This has been asked before but now what we’re fairly sure is the first lawsuit related to the matter has been filed.

The NYT reports that Oakland writer Noah Kravitz quit his job at Phonedog.com and took his Twitter account with him (with, he says, the company’s blessing). With Phonedog’s permission, he changed his screenname from Phonedog_noah to NoahKravitz but kept the 17,000 followers he’d gained.

Then here’s what happened:

When he left, he said, PhoneDog told him he could keep his Twitter account in exchange for posting occasionally.

The company asked him to “tweet on their behalf from time to time and I said sure, as we were parting on good terms,” Mr. Kravitz said by telephone.

And so he began writing as NoahKravitz, keeping all his followers under that new handle. But eight months after Mr. Kravitz left the company, PhoneDog sued, saying the Twitter list was a customer list, and seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months, for a total of $340,000.

PhoneDog’s claim that social media followers amount to a client list may be hard to uphold in court, a lawyer told The Guardian. “Can a public account, with a ‘followers’ list compiled of public Twitter members actually be considered confidential?”

An IP lawyer in New York, Henry J. Cittone, said that the case is important for the precedent it sets. “This will establish precedent in the online world, as it relates to ownership of social media accounts,” he told the NYT. “We’ve actually been waiting to see such a case as many of our clients are concerned about the ownership of social media accounts vis-á-vis their branding.”

Kravitz, for his part, says this is simply a retaliation lawsuit. He claims he is owed 15 percent of the site’s ad revenue and back pay.

“They’re suing me for over a quarter of a million dollars,” he said. “From where I’m sitting I held up my end of the bargain.”

According to the National Writers Union, Heart & Soul magazine owes 60 writers a collective $200,000, and those writers are not gonna wait around anymore for their checks.

The NWU is meeting with those writers next week to figure out how to get their money; the union successfully recovered $360,000 for 60 freelancers who’d been waiting since 2009 for their checks, so the Heart & Soul writers may get the same treatment (a long, but ultimately satisfying, conclusion).

The NWU’s release about the matter says that Heart & Soul owner and publisher Edwin Avent is in the process of selling the magazine and spending $10 million on launching a new TV network, but hasn’t paid freelance contributors since January 2011.

“In late July, several contributors were told that payments were temporarily delayed because the 16-year-old magazine was changing owners, but that process has dragged out for five months without the deal being finalized,” the NWU said. “The prospective owners, led by journalist George Curry, who’s listed as the magazine’s editorial director,are already running the publication.

“Curry and his partners, Clarence Brown, Patrick Detry, and Pam Taylor, were to ensure that Avent had enough funds to pay his debts to writers, editors and other vendors. But according to recent updates on the deal, the new owners are acquiring the magazine’s title and subscription list, while its debts remain on Avent’s balance sheet.”

Calls to the Heart & Soul office were not answered and emails were not returned at the time of publication of this story.

Former TV reporter Christine Clayburg (a former meteorologist, reporter and program host for WCCO and KMSP in the Twin Cities) now runs a consulting business called Clayburg Communications, where she creates news-style PR videos for clients.

MinnPost’s David Brauer was tipped off by a reader that Clayburg’s website has a section dedicated to the company’s “U-Team”—” seasoned on-camera TV journalists with impeccable credentials interested in your GOOD NEWS. Many are still working in news now. …Maybe you just need an hour to talk to a professional about how to make a story or event news worthy. Or maybe you need the brain power for an entire world of online content with a professional well versed in life on both sides of the camera. We make it possible for you to talk straight to the experts on what makes news for as little cost as possible.”

If working TV journalists were taking money to consult with clients, that’d be a conflict of interest in most newsrooms. “At KSTP, our contract employees (that includes reporters, anchors and many producers) agree to provide services ‘exclusive’ to us. To provide services outside would put them in violation of their agreement with the Station,” assistant news director John Mason told Brauer.

Brauer asked Clayburg if this was really what was happening. She ultimately said that the U-Team didn’t include any anchors or prominent reporters, only freelancers, and “to be honest, we don’t do it very often,” she said.

“When I asked again if she currently employed anyone working in a Minnesota newsroom today,” Brauer writes, “she said, ‘Not at this time.’”

But Clayburg also said that the TV world is different now. “Stations are cutting back [on full-timers] more and more; someone who sells cars is doing weather on the weekends.”

That’s undeniably true. But is selling cars and doing weather the same thing as working as a media consultant at the same time as working in media? Considering the state of the news media, this may not even be a question anymore. Pretty soon this type of thing may become a necessity, with employers obliged to simply look the other way.

Some freelancers get all the luck. Or maybe it’s not chance that explains why that guy has a cover story in GQ and you’re scrambling for a 150-word blurb in Maniwaki Monthly.*

Well, now you’re in luck, because Mediabistro spoke to top freelance writers and asked them what it is that makes editors call them up. Here’s a few tips, but you’ll need to read the whole article for more:

“Pay attention to formatting.” Daniel Duane, contributing editor for Men’s Journal, contributor to Bon Appétit and New York Times Magazine, and author of several books, bought any magazine that he was interested in writing for. “I think there were a couple of years where I probably subscribed to 15-20 magazines at any time,” he said. “It’s not like I read every word of every one, but every single one that came, I read the table of contents, looked at the format of the stories and thought about the format. You want to be able to develop that feel….You will have communicated something neat, which is ‘I get it.’ That alone is a big success, just to show that you’re really paying attention.”

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, you can register for as little as $55, and start reading those articles, receive discounts on mediabistro.com seminars and workshops, and receive all sorts of other bonuses.

*Not a real magazine, as far as we know.

After three years of crowdfunding freelance journalists’ pitches to cover everything from corruption to crime to the environment, Spot.Us has been acquired.

American Public Media has acquired the site and will integrate it with its Public Insight Network, according to a release. Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.

“Spot.Us and PIN both believe in the power of the independent voice in journalism – from both journalists and sources, making the acquisition an ideal move,” said Joaquin Alvarado, senior vice president of digital innovation at APM, in a statement. “PIN believes in the important work of Spot.Us and we will explore opportunities to continue to drive the effectiveness and relevancy of the site even further in the future.”

Spot.us founder David Cohn was less reserved in the email he sent out to site users, saying: “It’s going to be freak’n awesome!”

Cohn also assured users that the format of the site won’t change. You’ll still be able to pay freelancers for their great pitches the same way the site’s always worked.
Congratulations to Spot.us.

Photo agency Getty has sent a new contract to its editorial contributors that specifies a flat 35 percent royalty for all sales, reports PDN.

Under the current arrangement, photographers could get as much as 50 percent revenue per image sale. But photographers who don’t sign the new contract will be terminated, PDN says.

Getty’s plan is to lower the prices it asks for photos, in order to better compete with low-priced competitors. But when PDN asked about this, a spokesperson said: “[W]e are developing new ways for customers to use more of our content and as a result, new ways to pay contributors must be created in these situations.”

But, Getty says, there are a few upsides: Getty is “‘making changes and improvements around how we share and license our content, which will benefit our photographers,’ by providing more exposure and more potential for sales of their images,” the spokesperson told PDN. Hmm.

Okay, we know what you’re thinking….yard? But say you’re one of those non-New-York-dwelling people (we know you exist)…then you totally are slobbering over this spherical “Archipod,” designed to be an oasis of creativity just steps from your front door.

Even answering the boss’s 5am email wouldn’t be so bad if you had one of these things to retreat to, we think.

There are plenty more pictures at Archipod’s site but just to tantalize you a little:

We posted last month about investing advice site The Motley Fool’s soon-to-launch blog network, which blog network president Roger Friedman told us at the time would include “handsome” compensation.

We’ve now got the details thanks to a memo from Friedman to the blog network.

In it, Friedman says that 200 people have already signed up to post, and he expects to get another 300 by Jan. 2, when the network officially launches.

He also breaks down the pay structure.

“Thoughtful, well-written” posts that make mention of publicly traded companies and their stock tickers will earn $50 each.

Those writers who have consistently high traffic “(if your 10 most recent entries average 2,500 sessions)” and who are viewed as “top-notch” by Fool staff will be paid $100 per entry.

This won’t pay the mortgage except for the absolute most prolific writers, but color us impressed—we’re looking forward to seeing how this experiment works out.

The full memo after the jump….

Read more