The other week, I mused about giving your young’uns a steady diet of scares, inspired in part by reading an article by artist Greg Ruth. Well, as probably comes as no surprise, Ruth also has some thoughts about the eternal struggle to make a living from one’s creative work and yes, it’s naturally pertinent to illustrators, but I think his points should resonate with writers as well. By the way, if you want to check…
After last week’s post about being a self-sufficient artist who slices, dices –and probably self-publishes– I thought it was a good idea to look at the evergreen topic of creatives not getting paid. Writers being undervalued and being underpaid is an oft-told tale — and not just because there are writers around to write about it. Writer Matt Wallace created a freelance rebuttal guide that covers about just every usual reason given to not pay writers — or…
Mark Evanier has had an ongoing series about writers and rejection some of whose columns apply very well to actors and other creatives. The most recent one, however, goes deeper into the notion of writing for pay and how one might go about it from his experience. Check it out.
I should spend more time talking about and linking to Mark Evanier‘s series on rejection. However, in the meantime, in light of my post on Monday, I figured I’d list Part 7 of his Rejection series which covers low and no pay writing. One standout quote: “Working cheap or for free occasionally leads to getting paid decently but more often, it leads nowhere… or to more offers to work for little or no money.” At…
My head nodded knowingly, along many other part-time scribes, as I read Wil Wheaton’s piece last Fall about turning down Huffington Post’s offer to e-print a popular article of his in exchange for “exposure.” Wil Wheaton touches on what appears to be one of the most infuriating aspects of the modern economy (though I know examples of it have existed for ages): exposure is sufficient payment for creative work. Robert Bevan, from a post on…