Advice for Bloggers Turned Writers
In a literal sense, I'm a professional food and wine writer; I earn money from my articles. In a figurative sense, it's a bit more vague; it's not my day job, and I've only been doing it for a few years.
But I'd like to offer some advice to fellow bloggers who have begun to write for pay. These are of course guidelines, but worth keeping in mind.
Don't Write For Free
It's a Catch-22. You need clips to get clients, but you need clients to get clips. Lots of writers solve the problem by writing for free, or pennies. We've all done it.
Stop. As soon as you can. A year ago, a potential client told me their fee for articles, and I balked. The publisher told me that they had writers willing to write for a lot less than a reasonable rate. (My retort—to the editor who pushed for a higher fee for me—was "Are those the writers they want?") This is the fight you will face. Every time you work for free or close to it, you propagate a system that you will come to hate. For the record, my first assignment was paid work that I got in part from writing samples from this site and a food writing class I took.
I do have some clients who don't pay me what I'm worth, but I have other motivations in those cases.
Don't Write On Spec
Let's say I asked you to do a day of labor-intensive yardwork for me, but told you that I'd only pay you if you met some criteria that I wouldn't reveal. Would you do it? Probably not. (If so, send me an email.)
But lots of writers send in pieces on spec, which means they write the entire article, send it into the publication, and hope that the publication will buy it. In the world of fiction and poetry, maybe this makes sense, but in the nonfiction realm, this is a waste of everyone's time. Editors don't get to steer your story in the direction they need, and writers waste time by writing a piece that might not get bought. Pitch an idea, get an assignment (ideally a contract), and communicate with the editor to get a clear idea of what s/he wants.
I refuse to write on spec. Every time I meet a Wine X editor at a tasting, I ask if they still only take articles on spec. Every time they say yes, I say, "Too bad. I have so many good ideas that I think would work for you. Oh, well." (It's the publisher's call, but I figure if I keep telling editors, the message will bubble back.) I've heard of publications that will ask different writers to submit a piece on spec for the same subject. Then the editor chooses the best, and all the other writers get shafted. I don't want to support that system.
Treat Your Client with Respect
You want good money and a real agreement? Be a professional.
I have a succinct description for my job as a writer: Making my editor's life easier. They have to edit my work and several other pieces. They have to coordinate the production of a periodical with paying subscribers and advertisers, keeping to a tight deadline. They're overworked and underpaid. Editing isn't just red ink on your draft.
Edit your piece, check for typos, and read it out loud from a printed page before you send it. If an editor gives you a date, turn in your work on that date. If they give you a word count, hit as close to the mark as possible.
If an editor wants the impossible, say so. When I sold my first piece to The Wine News, they asked me to turn it around in a week or so. I couldn't do it, but we negotiated for a date that allowed me to deliver a quality product and allowed them to print it in a relevant issue. Two months ago, a magazine wrote me to ask if I could write a piece about dessert wines. The assignment overlapped my trip to France, and the editor and I tried to figure out an arrangement that would work. No can do. I lost the assignment, and maybe a new client, but I will not lie about it if I can't deliver a good product on the given date.
Protect Your Rights
MS-NBC pays well on a per-word basis. I've had fun with my assignments for them, and the staff seems like a good group.
But I don't do any work for them beyond the small blurbs. Why not? Because MS-NBC buys all rights to your work. I can't reprint it, and if they want to reuse it in other realms, they don't have to pay me any more than they did for the initial work.
My work is an asset. I want to retain the ability to republish it in my much-anticipated memoirs, and I want to get paid extra if a magazine wants to put my content onto the web along with the magazine.
That's not always possible, but I negotiate for whatever I can get. On another note, check out Neil Gaiman's advice to get a literary will.
Writers? Editors? What advice would you give?
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