I traded some email recently with a magazine editor. I was pitching stories that I’d  posted here. The editor wasn’t having any. “You bloggers. You devalue your best work by publishing it for free.”

I had to think about that for a while.

It’s extremely rare that I publish work for free. I’ve said yes to the odd guest post, scribbled short answers to those compiled “panel of experts” kinds of roundups, and on three or four occasions have given work to National Geographic’s Intelligent Traveler blog — I probably don’t need to explain my reasoning there, nor do I need to explain why, even though I gave them work, I think they should pay for it.… continued…