Freelance Hivemind: We Are Not Amused

Anyway I don't really have any expertise here but might as well chip in just to keep the thread alive. Do be on the lookout for features editors giving you the knockback on unsolicited copy and then nicking your ideas!

Maybe best to mail them (or talk to them if poss) and them send a CV with some of your previous stuff (music stuff and anything non-music you did for college paper or whatever) if they show interest?

"Accumulate well-placed acquaintances. Turn nothing down.
-- Pete W (petershepherdwatt...), July 26th, 2006."

I am really worried about this yes. So it does happen!

One time, I told a print broker "I'm sorry, I'm buried under other deadlines." Never heard from her again.

What about the days where you want to work but can't think of an idea and end up scouring the news sites?

Your subconscious is steeping new ideas while you scour. Alternately, call it a day after a few unproductive hours and do something concrete, like laundry.

maybe you need to cut down on the starch?

Any advice with the Guardian? Is living here going to hamper me beyond having to make calls to Britain for the odd quote?

Just some of the pieces I've written are more like what the Guardian would print than the Irish papers, I fear.

;p

Maybe it's best to stick to Irish papers since they can be relied upon to not be very up to date on new and interesting things.

Is there any decent resource that gives info about who does what job in the papers, all in one place?

I've been just calling the newspapers and asking, which is fine, but it would be easier to just have a website or something.

just sending in the odd article here and there means you could end up being overlooked. pitching up with a stream of quality ideas and trying to cultivate some kind of relationship with commissioning editors is by far the best idea.

i know it's a truism, but don't give up or be disheartened. the best resource a freelance feature-writer can have is IDEAS.

x-post: er, two-step approach to success here involves 1) ringing up the paper in question and saying: "hello, what's the name and direct line of your features editor?" and 2) ringing them. rocket science, eh? o yeh: don't just rely on e-mail. always make a follow-up call.

perhaps a combination of the two approaches is best.

i'm going to try and keep in contact with the two eds who replied, particularly the one who asked for other examples of my work, and see how that goes.

need to zoom to work now. will look back in here later. but yes, all yr approaches here seem sound.

panic!

Well done, by the way.

I basically said in my email "yes I'm keen to make those changes and can do it for tomorrow at midday" then made my suggestions for what my idea of those changes was, he was quite general, so I said what I specifically planned to include and asked if this was what he wanted.

No reply, it was about an hour and a half ago, so I guess just keep going with my interpretation of what he asked for? Presuming he might not be rooted to the office seat on a Bank Holiday Monday.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/

Next step: Ro does an invoice to GNL (and no you don't get extra £££s for the front page stuff). Should get btwn £225-£300.

I'm getting my first proper artwork for proper CD released soon. So far it's going pretty well but deadline is imminent and still loads of things to sort out. And I'm too scared to ask them how much they're going to pay me (or I'm going to have to pay them if it all goes tits up). Hoping it will lead to more tho.

/voice of bitter experience

At what point do you go "fuck it" and jettison an article? I spoke to my editor about it a month ago, had been working in my day job a lot, he said he thought it was a good idea and to give it a go, fairly non commital but he was interested.

Down the line I'm not sure it's actually going to work, but I really want to do it and deliver on the idea I had. Am I stupid for thinking it might look bad to just hit him with my other ideas now, which I do think are better. I just bit off a bit more than I could chew with idea 1, and now find myself unable to say what the piece is really about. I probably could finish a 1000 word draft of it but my gut feeling is that it's not really good enough.