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Monday, April 19, 2004
Blogging for Food
Nick Packwood over at Ghost of a Flea has been approached by "a major media organization" (as have I) to allow it to reprint selected bits from his blog. He has declined pro tem. We have been asked to keep the name of the organiztion under our hats so you'll have to guess which one.
In his post Nick observes:
First, writers should be paid for their work. Second, it may be I was the first of twenty-five bloggers to ask for money from a business attempting to sell papers with my writing.Needless to say I agree. While many of us are happy to be contributing items to Shotgun in its early days in time token payment, even if it is simply a free subscription to the print edition, will be required. But most of us know how scarce cash is at a startup.
The "major media organization" has no such excuse. Now, unlike Nick, I agreed to let it run items from my blog. Like any good crack dealer, the first pipe is free....but then you have to pay. My own bet is that virtually every major media outlet will have a blog or three within the next year. Which will mean bloggers like Nick will be in demand. For the "major media organization" to simply offer free publication is not going to cut it.
Posted by Jay Currie on April 19, 2004 in Weblogs | Permalink
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Although it is entirely a writers choice about whether or not they write for free, I wanted to point out something from my experience.
The first 2 years that I was writing, I got paid nadda. However, in that time I was doing a regular bit in the local rag of a canwest owned paper.
I also did a couple of articles for the Financial Post which I never got paid for either.
The exposure however for my writing however was quite good. Around the time that I had accumulated a portfolio of about 100 articles to showcase potential editors, I started being offered good rates for putting my silly thoughts on paper and tapping the "send" button.
I ended up getting one of the top-rates in Canada - when I made the effort to write and go through the effort of pimping my stuff to various editors.
Whats even more remarkable is that I had no intention of actually writing as profession. It was something I just kind of fell into accidently.
I found that very few journalists or editors were writing intelligently about Aboriginal issues - and I would take a few minutes to point out some of the problems with what they were saying. Since there wasn't any other Indians in Canada really making that kind of effort, I kinda got stuck with the job. By then, I was getting regular requests from the Winnipeg Free Press and the Province.
I basically gave up on the whole idea after the Post made a disgusting display of my view on the matter of the First Nations Governance Act. It was quite a horrid thing to be so absolutley misrepresented.
-- Anyways, my point was this. While writing for that media organization is perhaps not of an immediate financial benefit, if it really is a big media beastie, the exposure to your writing to a large audience (one where you might even find a following for your stuff) might actually be worth something.
I've been told by some of my friends in the biz that it almost never ends up feeling like a real-job. And to that, I can absolutley agree. Every time I opened my mailbox and found a cheque for blathering on, I got a neat little thrill - and felt a little pang of guilt.... as in "You people are actually PAYING me to do this?"
My friends who have been doing it for a while say that this feeling sticks with them for the first 10 years or so.
Posted by: Meaghan Walker-Williams | 2004-04-20 7:19:32 AM
This is mostly speaking from the blogger's perspective.
First off, maybe Nick was being a bit too general, but I don't think that anyone "should be" paid for writing, especially when it comes for free.
One of the important facts that experienced writers like Jay and Nick may miss is that an opportunity to go into print is an enormous incentive for a greenhorn to hone and tune his art. Despite all the supposed "democratization" of the media with the Internet, print does still command a certain degree of respect.
As for the paper's perspective, an opportunity for a young writer to move into print may be a chance for a newspaper to find some hidden talent, especially considering the decay of the print newspaper market amongst the new generation.
In the past, a potentially decent writer would probably send stacks of letters and columns to local and university papers before making it up to the big leagues. Nowadays, I think a good number of such young writers would probably go straight online. This probably hurts everyone in the long run: the Power Law suggests that most such writers will be lost in the ocean anyways, which means they won't be as impelled to really sharpen their skills. And the talent pool available to the print media shrinks.
I think the idea by [some for-profit media] is a good one, but they're not thinking about it deep enough. Established writers like Jay Currie and Nick Packwood shouldn't be insulted by being asked to give away for free what they can sell to a newspaper any day. But I'm sure relative unknowns that have certain insights would be happy to see some sort of "big league" recognition.
Oh, and to clarify my conflict of interest, yes, I was approached, and yes, I agreed to give it away for free... ...which really makes me wonder if the Canadian blogging talent pool can really be this shallow (no offense to anyone else approached). At least I'm trying to write coherently now. Of course, whether I'll actually make it anywhere is still anyone's guess.
Posted by: Kelvin | 2004-04-20 9:07:13 AM
Now that I think about it, the idea of carrying a placard around my neck reading "Will Blog For Food" is not a good idea. :)
I side with the "If the *only* (NB 'only')way I can get exposure is to write for free, that's what I will probably have to do." school. As someone who wrote for the student press and was paid in slices of pizza on press night, this sort of thing is something I can am content to do for the time being. The "time being" hopefully not being too long.
Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to do something useful. Look at the Company of the Cross, the only-got-room-and-board volunteer band that put of the predecessor to Alberta Report.
Posted by: Rick Hiebert | 2004-04-20 9:30:41 AM
Gosh I wish I really was an established writer...In many ways the free then paid model for freelance is a good one. However, blogging - like much else on the internet - is different. If you have been blogging for more than a year you are an "established" blogger. More to the point, you have developed some of the rather specific skills which make for good blogging.
I think Nick's point is that it is a bit cheeky for the "big media" to ask bloggers to allow their material to be reprinted for free. While the exposure would be nice, a small cheque would be nicer.
Posted by: Jay Currie | 2004-04-20 10:57:07 AM
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