(semi-regular ilxor but i've set up a new log-in just in case the future employer happens across this)
i recently mailed the biggest lifestyle magazine website in the UK city i live in to see if they would like some help beefing up their clubbing section, adding proper listings and profiles of venues and clubnights. (there aren't any serious contenders in town for this so far, all current listings sites/sections are innacurate or spam heavy). i've written club previews in the past and know the local clubscene inside and out so that aspect shouldn't be too difficult and i figure collecting listings should be a case of scouring facebook events and inputting details taken from there, and asking promoters to mail in their details.
the editor replied, sounding quite keen and wants to meet up early next week to talk about it. he's said that at the moment it isn't a listings site so it'll involve a lot of work. his main questions are:
a) how much time it'll take each week
b) the associated fee for my time
c) how this can be self-financing
as for time, i was thinking of around 1 or 2 days per week. my idea was to submit one venue and one clubnight review each week (each around 500 words), which i think i write up in one day. then spend the other day inputting listings for the upcoming months, adding new events as they pop up. at a wild guess i imagine the researching and uploading of this would take around 5 hours per day. does this sound reasonable to you guys or should i ask for more or less time?
does 'associated fee' just mean how much i expect to be paid for doing this? if so, i'd just expect the usual freelance rate for writing the previews. i'm not sure about the listings though, does anyone have any suggestions how much i should expect for this aspect?
i've got a few ideas for how the site could make money out of this section. they have a fairly high readership (100k unique readers last month, 2m page views) so i'm going to suggest things like: banner ads, mailshots, advertorial, highlighted listings, selling tickets for events, links to local hotels for people visiting the city. are there any more ideas that i could use? im not sure of the logistics but could they sell on the listings to other local websites/magazines, is this a common thing?
have i missed anything out? i'm really keen to get this position so want to go in well-prepared. should i take printouts with details of these ideas, how much rival sites charge, a timescale, etc or would that be a bit heavy-handed for an initial meeting? if anyone has anything to add please let me know! and if there are any listings editors out there who would prefer to give advice offline please do get in touch by the webmail link. thanks guys
― Tim Sheehan, Friday, 28 May 2010 12:31 (fifteen years ago)