![]() Sticking with it for free proves your worth as a writer, as well as demonstrating to yourself whether this is really something you want to take seriously or just dabble in as a hobby. ![]() I now, as mentioned last week, have built up an enviable DVD and Blu-ray collection, as well as regularly attending film screenings and press conferences where I have seen big names – like Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr and Steven Spielberg – in the flesh. My writing compensates me in other ways too. My web based writing has also opened doors to work on publications like the renowned Video Watchdog, the Curzon Magazine and Rue Morgue as well as pieces for a book last year and the booklet notes for an upcoming Blu-ray release by Arrow Films. When the editor heard of some of the other publications I wrote for he agreed without hesitation – the added bonus being that he does pay. I recently contacted a web based magazine which I’d read, to ask if I could contribute some work. However the payoff comes in different ways. Most sites make this quite clear before they take you on, so new writers know exactly what they are letting themselves in for. Most of these are run in their spare time by people who love film and who, other than perhaps a little revenue from advertising if their site is successful, make no money from it. Also I really have no one to blame for the situation, at least where websites are concerned. If I was to say I’m not writing any more until I’m paid, there would be countless others willing to do it for free. But this is where the problem lies.įor every person who writes for a website or magazine there are probably a hundred (or more) wanting to take their place. ![]() My father, ever the businessman, once suggested that I stop writing for publications which didn’t give me some kind of momentary reimbursement. Indeed I counted up recently that if I’d been paid even £10 (which is hardly astronomical) for everything I’d written within the last three years I’d have earned around £5,000. ![]() I have friends who regularly ask how much I get for the work I do, as I seem to spend most of my spare time writing pieces for some publication or website. The occasional magazine that I contribute to pays, though £50 for the odd article here and there is never going to be enough to allow me to give up my day job and write full-time. The majority of my writing is done for free. Though the editor of the section explained to me that the fee wasn’t very much, I was bowled over with the equivalent of half the monthly pay of my regular job, for a 2,500 word article – so I guess it’s all relative.įollowing this my writing has increased though, sadly, the pay has not. The most I ever received was the princely sum of £500 for an interview I did (fifteen years ago) with the actress Ingrid Pitt and her daughter Steffanie, for the Relative Values section of The Sunday Times Magazine. Since then my writing has expanded beyond the remits of a local newspaper and, occasionally, so has the monetary renumeration. With the money I bought a boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia in hardback, which I treasure to this day. Camp America, the organisation I went with, paid me some money (I can’t recollect now how much) for an article I had published in a local Northern Ireland newspaper on my experiences at the camp. I was nineteen and had just spent three months working on a summer camp in America. I still remember the first piece of writing I was paid for.
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