Giving it away

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Marty
Posts: 859
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 3:58 pm
Location: Maine
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Giving it away

Post by Marty »

I don't think this ever made it to the board, I just heard of it a couple of days ago:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/op ... .html?_r=0
Judd
Posts: 295
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 9:45 am
Location: Arkansas

Re: Giving it away

Post by Judd »

Preach it brother.

This is the same bullshit I hear when asked to donate for a charity.

"Oh, it will give your art GREAT EXPOSURE!!!"

Just recently I was asked to submit an article to an on-line glass magazine. The deadline is December. No pay.
December? Really? My busiest time of the year? When I have zero time, my kiln is hotter than the sun, and I'm trying to be Super Daddy to my kids?

Stick it!
Morganica
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Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 6:19 pm
Location: Portland, OR
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Re: Giving it away

Post by Morganica »

Perfect. I am, and will always be, a writer. I made my living at writing, and at editing the writing of others, for years. I got out of the business of writing when people started calling it "content" and began selling it by the pound.

Even so, four or five times a year someone contacts me with a terrific offer to "produce content" for them. The deal: I churn out four or five 200-word pieces per week, and they pay me $15 per. If you don't want to do the math, that's 8 cents per word. $75/week.

To put that in perspective: O'Henry wrote a story, "A Municipal Report," about a writer who is offered 8 cents a word, the going rate...in 1904, when the average US wage was 22 cents per hour. When I stopped writing freelance, around 2001, I was getting between $2.50 and $3.50/word, depending on the subject matter and article length.

A good article--assuming you research it--takes a day or so. Obviously they don't want GOOD articles, so I could get all I need with an hour of googlespew. Even so, I could make more at McDonalds.

So I tell them "no." ;-)
Cynthia Morgan
Marketeer, Webbist, Glassist
http://www.morganica.com/bloggery
http://www.cynthiamorgan.com

"I wrote, therefore I was." (me)
Dolores
Posts: 106
Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2003 9:21 pm
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Re: Giving it away

Post by Dolores »

Judd- Some years ago, I did two tutorials for glass magazines that included hours writing logical instructions as well as hours of staging and editing photos....all for that promised "exposure". Never got one order, student, or new gallery out of that arrangement. To make it even more unpleasant, they started selling one of my tutorials on a CD along with several other artists. Never got anything out of that one either. Please think that "offer" over VERY carefully.
DOLORES
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