is freelance journalism mental suicide?

Do you think your approach to it may be part of why you enjoy it? Do you think you go about it differently than other people?

He does go about it differently than other people! He's really good at it.And the stuff he writes is worth reading! He's a rebel that way.

At least two? Try at least six. I write for three decent-circulation magazines, two newspapers (one pretty regularly, the other very intermittently), and I've got a book deal, and I'm in no position to quit my day job. Fortunately, I love my day job.

Well, I don't do all that many features these days, because of the aforementioned book deal eating most of my time. I do record reviews mostly.

Douglas does rule. That's kinda why I asked him to elaborate.

yeah, i gotcha matthew, i was just being silly.and he's a good person to ask. one of the reasons his stuff is so good is that its obvious that he really likes doing it. i find that rare in the world of crit or even plain old journalism these days.

personally, i would love to do more freelancing, but i don't think anyone wants me too. that can be a problem when it comes to making extra money.

i am fucking dying right now, and any bones would be sorely appreciated as i've gone from a situation where i could live off my writing to a situation where i can't really quickly. cough.

I want a day job where I can actually listen to music as I work, then sit down at a computer during my lunch break and do some writing. This is not possible at the moment. Or possibly ever.

Is freelance mentalism journal suicide?

My view is, yes it is: just consider the demise of Oz magazine.

a) you are wealthy enough that you do not have to have a full-time job with health care (trust fund, inherentence, family owns a gold mine or several key patents, you bought eBay at IPO, which a pal of mine did...) to live a middle-class/lower middle class American lifestyle. (I have no idea if these sorts of rules apply in countries w/ state-sponsored health care, though I'm sure in those nations you do need to eat.)

b)you have a spouse/sig other/partner who has a full-time job w/ health care who can support you while you freelance

c) I'm sure there's a third option but I can't think of it right now. Oh, yeah, I know what it is: you're an academic. But that's a day job. SO i gue

If none of these apply to you, prepare for some very, very lean times if you want to freelance write full-time.

I went with option b) on and off for about six months, six mnoths with a very low paying day-job as an editor as a weekly, then went back to freelancing full time for about a year. It didn't help when my meal ticket/sig other lost her job while I was freelancing. That was horrible. You really don't want that to happen.

And it's not like I was going out drinking, to restaurants, etc. or buying lots of expensive stuff. You do NOT make good money freelancing until you are pretty famous and have a couple of book that a fair number of people want to read (or at least buy) under your belt.

i mean (and I hate to trot out the old crits vs. musician dichotomy, but) I can kinda understand someone saying "honey, I quit my job so my band can go on tour," but "honey, I quit my job so I can spend more time on the laptop submitting reviews to the local weeklies", not so much. but I guess everyone's got their dream job.

which is probably good considering that there are only so many positions out there... even with all the weeklies and decent-sized papers interested in reasonable music coverage and the small legion of music mags... the field ain't that big.

i personally find myself stuck in my day job with no hope of even trying to be a freelancer. (i've got a family to support.) i still write, but it's pretty much for free. i've become fairly resolute with the idea that i suppose this is the road i'm on and i fight diligently to pop and bubbles containing any ideas that i've sold out my dreams for a different career. the reality is that my different career isn't so bad and i'd probably have just as many woes as a full-time freelancer would have.

in the meantime, i've come to enjoy the idea of being an "amateur", a lover. i get to spend all my time breaking the rules and being a completely unreadable schmuck. hobbyist!
m.

that happens to me a lot... despite my amateurish intentions, i still have heavy intentions and end up beating myself up for not being more productive, even after working like a fiend.
m.

But freelancing for a living just seems like a more and more remote possibility, doesn't it? I've seriously always dreamed of being a music writer, having that be my job/career/vocation like since I was 10, but I like food and beer and Playstation-2 games, and I want to be able to continue to afford them, so I'll probably be stuck with a day job for a long, long time (if I'm lucky). I'm pretty much just grateful for the chance to freelance at all, to see my name in print, to make any money for it at all.

But, again, you need to get some clips before anybody will start sending you stuff. I got lucky in that I worked at CMJ for a few years--people put me on their mailing lists as a CMJ staffer (and got used to seeing my byline), and when I switched to freelance work I just contacted them all w/ my change of address.

This is true. I made a contact last night by chance and he offered to put me on a publicity list when I hadn't even thought of asking! It does help to always have some sort of reference source off the top of your head (in this case he knew of my AMG work and also knows Mr. Matos).

Here's a question for some of y'all out there who've been doing this since, say, 1993: What's the best way to pitch to editors who you've never written for before, and what does it mean when said editors don't reply, even to say no or that your writing "doesn't suit our current needs"? (Matos: thanks for replying when I tried to pitch that Blow review - you're the only one who did.)

http://gamegod.com/AMUSEMENT%20RIDES/Silver-streak.jpg

--- nappy-headed Gene Wilder fan

My first national gig was with Alternative Press. I met the editor, Jason Pettigrew, at a Keiji Haino show in NYC. We got along well, and I used to call him up and bother him from time to time to let me write for the mag, plus converse about rock-geek bullshit in general. Anyway, I got some clips from a NJ weekly paper, and sent them his way, and kept bothering him, and one day he called me up and said "Will you interview Godsmack so I don't have to?" (This was to support their debut album.) And I said yes, and that was that.

I'm kinda in a unique situation right now: I lost my day job two months ago, so I'm collecting unemployment at the moment. Yet I've been writing a lot (tons of time on my hands) and I'm surprising myself by how easy paying work is to come by right now. Not sure if I'm just getting lucky or not. Now without the unemployment (which gets docked for every piece I sell) I definitely couldn't afford my catastrophic LES rent, but I'm eeking by at the moment.

Web

(i got lucky: one and done.)

i've been a freelancer full-time for four or so years now, for a bunch of music mags and also writing reviews for national papers. i also do some work for radio 6, and write record company bios when i can and want to.

i don't earn much. hell, i live a pretty frugal life, but i'm lucky - my rent is controlled and cheap, i get sent records all the time, have never been the kind to spend much on much anyway (was brought up on shoestring-type budgets and was clothed by thriftstores/charity shops long before it was fashionable!). my girlfriend, who also works in the industry, is similarly low-paid, and therefore understanding.

i have adjusted to the fact that i will probably never own property, or a *nice* car (but fuck it, a long as my shitbox runs and the stereo works, who cares?), and that if i were to start reproducing, i'd need to start thinking very very carefully about how to finance the little tyke.

but ultimately, i'm okay. i'm of the first generation of my family to go to university, so its not like a come from a line of what might be called 'achievers' - most of my relatives worked hard their whole lives for what might similarly be described as meagre rewards. so no one hassles me about how i'm not earning huge wads of cash; they're just glad i can live off what i do, and *enjoy* it.

it's funny; i was on an assignment when this thread popped up, staying in a tres swank hotel in san francisco; and i started thinking, about how most of my aunts and uncles and cousins and all (or even the kids i went to school with) would never get to come here or see all i've seen. while this is not in any way an advocation of the low pay journalists receive, a great deal of the incentive to do this job comes from the perks, from actually loving what you do and what it involves. my *life* revolves around my family, friends, my wonderful girlfriend, and this job which involves me listening to music, going to gigs, travelling the world and meeting people whose work i admire, and then writing about it too - and i love writing. so for me, its not mental suicide - if you live frugally, its do-able, and what's more the 'scenery' is pretty damned wonderful. its tenuous at times, and it takes a while to get started - i was part-time for the first year until i was lucky enough to get a semi-regular freelance gig at The Times' saturday supplement - and there's always the fear that the work could dry up tomorrow, but you could get sacked from any job you do.

i interviewed preston w long a few weeks ago, and he was saying how mule never got signed in the feeding frenzy of grunge, but how he didn't mind, because the fame and money would've gone by now, and all he wanted from being a musician was enough money to support the habit of making music. he then acknowledged how romantic this sounded, but that it was also the truth. the same goes for me, to an extent.

If there's anyone here who's within commuting distance of central London (or even visiting the city from overseas next week and feels inclined), the subject of the discussion part of this month's meeting of the London Freelance Branch of the National Union of Journalists will be music journalism. The speakers will be Pat Gilbert, former editor of Mojo magazine, now a freelance writer, and the author of the recently published Clash biography Passion Is A Fashion, and Kevin Cummins, the freelance photographer whose work appeared in the NME throughout the 80s and 90s and whose photos of, among others, Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths and the Happy Mondays helped make icons of those bands.

Between them they've had decades of experience working for titles published by the two biggest UK magazine companies, EMAP and IPC, and will be talking about matters practical and political, from explaining what a commissioning editor looks for in a new writer to advice on how to organise a collective response to an all rights contract. There will be a question and answer session following their talk. All freelance journalists are welcome, you don't have to be an NUJ member, though if you're UK-based and aren't, expect to be given a fairly hard sell!

The meeting takes place at 7pm next Monday, February 14 (don't worry, it'll be over by 9 so you'll still have time to fulfill your Valentine's Day duties) at the Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London WC1 - directly opposite Euston station. If anyone wants to know more about the branch, please visit www.londonfreelance.org.

http://www.arthurmag.com/2010/04/13/copyright-grab-by-mojokerrangq-publisher-contested-by-200-plus-music-journ-and-photog-freelancers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20arthur

In my branch of academia we've had some situations arise like this recently. Well-established popular journals in which it was desirable to be published were bought by new publishers who set awful new terms. In two of the cases I'm thinking of, all editors resigned and established a new journal not with that publisher---these days it is relatively easy to start a new journal, infrastructure-wise; editors are the hot commodity. Immediately the old journals lost most of their prestige and the (bad) publisher is left with a lousy purchase. It is a pain but it's a way to fight bad business. Is something like this possible for the freelancers involved? Or is it a situation where the money from writing for these magazines is unlikely to be matched by a new magazine?

Also, I didn't know about this, and certainly won't be subscribing to any of the magazines involved. So it's good to publicize this---it enables a response that capitalists understand (in this case, a decline in readership).

Don't know about music journalism, but I was a freelance journalist (health and social services) for 10 years, and in the past 2-3 years I don't know any freelancer who's getting much work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/19/bauer-freelance-contracts-row

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Brands#2

Apart from the sexist inference present in the assumption a woman would not be interested in a "rock" magazine such as Kerrang, is it not true that women are more likely to read magazines than men these days anyway?

I am a journalism graduate and I weep for my future

idk if we have a better thread for this sort of thing, but:

http://natethayer.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-freelance-journalist-2013/

I used to have to pay my rent by selling the bulk of my promo CDs at the end of the month (this wouldn't pay the whole rent). Not sure how anyone manages in the download age and without word rates having increased.

Farewell, MSN original content.

fuuuuuuuuuuuck, one of our very own ilmers is working on a mandatory daily stop for me over there

When I was about to embark on Music Journalism as a living I researched this board and read all the negative threads on here.

I didn't heed their advice. If anyone out there is considering this venture please heed those threads advice.

To answer the title of this thread. YES

There are outliers but you are statistically not one of them.

The answer is: not if you have another job and/or date a lover with means.

Christgau's gotta be running out of options at this point.