I am pleased to see that my frequent whinges about the abysmally low word rate paid to freelance journalists have made not a jot of difference. In fact, I would have been worried if they had. It would have meant that either someone in management was actually reading a magazine article or that they felt sufficiently guilt ridden to up the rate. Happily though, the status quo remains intact and freelancers can look forward to earning precisely the same amount of money for their work in the future as they have for the past fifteen years. I withdraw my past comments on the matter and accept that it is very bad form for a newcomer like myself to start comparing the newspaper and magazine industry with the real commercial world.
I guess the low remuneration is all part of the attractive struggling artist image. It would be all too easy to support an expensive drug habit or become an alcoholic if the word rate had, at least, kept pace with inflation. But where’s the fun in that? Where’s the suffering? What’s the point of being able to afford to live in an upmarket northern suburbs cluster complex when all you have are accountants and lawyers for neighbours? How are you supposed to stand out from the crowd?
The first act of Puccini’s opera La Boheme is the standard template for the struggling artist. Live in a leaky apartment, break the furniture up for firewood, eat one good meal a week and don’t pay the landlord. Oh yes, and only date girls who are dying of consumption.
The only problem with this romantic backdrop is that it’s fine when you’re still young enough to put a brave face on such bohemian misery. It ceases to be as much fun when you suddenly discover you’re older, less attractive to consumptive seamstresses, still being paid what you were fifteen years ago (while all your friends have moved on to the supertax bracket) and have no pension fund to keep you in your old age. It’s not even as if you can change jobs that easily. Once you’ve become accustomed to the undisciplined life of freelance scribbling with its long, drunken lunches, the prospect of pitching up to an office at the same time each morning and filling in a leave form holds very little attraction. So, unless you’re really determined to find another career, you’re stuck with it.
Which means that you need to start making plans for your future and coming up with a survival strategy if you want to avoid becoming an embittered old hack. First rule is never to write for a publication you wouldn’t want to read yourself. If you don’t want to read it then you can assume that nobody you know wants to either. What’s the point of sweating out 800 words at a low rate if nobody you know is going to read them? If you can’t have the money you can at least have the fame, so restrict yourself to high circulation publications. The spin off is well worth it. You get more invitations to travel freebies and you get to attend good parties because the PR industry assume you have more clout. You are also more likely to be invited to MC events if you write for a large circulation publication than if you happen to be the property editor for Homeless Talk. And, at upwards of R15,000 for an evening, MCing is the only way we freelancers can still afford life’s little vices. With any luck I should be able to give up writing completely next year.