Do You Know Who I Am?

Or: In which a prestigious publisher makes me feel like a jerk, I am mad about it, and as a result, I set a bridge on fire.

Heads up: Inside baseball. Want out? I really liked this piece about reclaiming summer on Miss Expatria.

I recently received an offer to contribute on a regular basis to a site I rather like. I could potentially earn money through ads placed on my site, I would gain access to the publisher’s editorial staff, and I could compete for fabulous prizes. The exact format of all these things was a little unclear. The program is a pilot program with a trial period, phased, at one month I’d get exposure level one, at three months, I’d get exposure level two. There was no mention of pay.

I started to feel like a jerk right away. Anyone who’s read my site knows where I come down on payment in exposure. I’ve tried telling my dentist that I’ll link to him from my website, but the bill comes anyways. In short: Only on very rare occasions will I write for free.

I carefully crafted a response. Is participation in the ad network dependent on contributing to the site, or could I choose only to be in the ad network? How is the ad program structured? How are the competitions structured; are they driven by social media? That’s not an incentive as I hate it when people spam me for social media attention, so I’m not going to do it back to them. And the clincher: Is there compensation?

I emailed a colleague who’s got some ties to the publication to see if said colleague had any knowledge of the program. “Nope, never heard of it.” Then I started to feel even more of a jerk. “They don’t know who I am,” I thought.

I did not think this in some kind of “I’m a big freaking deal,” sort of way. Lots of people have no idea who I am and 99.9 percent of the time, that is completely appropriate. I did not think, “They should know I’m some kind of star.” Not at all. In this funny little world where I write, I’m an insignificant blogger and mostly, I’m okay with that.

But they forgot about their own world. What I thought was this: “They should know that they’ve already paid me good money to be in their publication. I don’t need a byline in their magazine, I HAVE one. I don’t need access to their editors, I can just, you know, email them. I don’t need to compete for prizes, I already won when I cashed that big check with their name on it.”  Then I felt awful. Just awful. Because I’d become that person who says, “Do you know who I am?”

And then, in spite of feeling like a jerk for it, I told them who I am.

I told the program recruiter who I write for now, and about the piece I’d done for their publication. And how given that I have regular paid contributor gigs, I would have a very hard time making their gig a priority. I told the program recruiter that I would love to be in the magazine again and that hey, since they’re recruiting for web projects, here’s an idea I have that needs a home, maybe we could talk about that.

Still feeling like a jerk, I began to get really bummed out — I am still.

I believe this offer came to me by mistake. That’s partly why I checked with that other writer I know. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the magazine is not intentionally recruiting former well paid contributors to work in exchange for exposure, access, prizes, potential ad revenue, anything but cold, hard, cash. I believe that had the recruiter done a little bit more homework, I’d have never seen this offer.

The thing is, where I’m known in travel and on the web I’m known for this blog and less so for the work I’ve done elsewhere. I think that all of the freelance travel writing work I’ve found can be traced directly to my blog. My goal is to write well and be paid for it, not to be famous.I’m good with that, really good with it.

But I’m unhappy to be faced, yet again, with what appears to be a perception by more traditional publications, that as a blogger, I’m just not worth much. The publication paid me over a dollar a word to be included in their print pages and for the pleasure of working to occupy their virtual pages and putting their ads on my site I was offered… Potential. Access. Competition.

For a week, a little more, I’ve been sitting at my keyboard thinking, “God damn you. You’ve turned me into the kind of person who says ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?'” That is NOT okay. It’s probably good for me to face this rude truth that in the publishing industry, an amateur blogger is a self promoter willing to give it away to associate with a fancy brand. That I’m in it for the exposure or the glory, that potential rewards are good enough because who am I to think that as a regular contributor, I deserve to be paid? I’m just a blogger, after all.

My reaction is probably way out of proportion to the proposal at hand which, by the way,  is just not that unusual. These types of offers clearly continue to work, people are out there saying yes, sure, I’ll meet your requirements and editorial guidelines and work through your trial period in exchange for your offerings. There’s always an aspiring travel writer out there who’s willing to take the risk and join a program for what it might turn into. Maybe I’m making a big mistake by flipping such attitude about this; maybe I’m missing my opportunity to Go Big.

But maybe not, The more I think about this, the angrier I become. I’m mad at this prestigious publication for sponsoring an initiative that I believe plays to vanity. I’m mad at myself for the way I reacted to it. And if you’re saying yes to this kind of thing, I’m probably mad at you, too. Oh, I get it, I do, I get why people say yes. But maybe the prevalence of this utter devaluation of our work is our own damn fault.

I used to be a lot more circumspect about novices doing it for free. But I don’t feel that way anymore. It feels increasingly like exploitation by organizations who don’t seem to think very much of “those bloggers.”

Untitled

This offer reminded me of my status in the world in which I aspire to be a part. I’m quite sure it wasn’t meant to be taken as an insult but it dragged me down, hard. It’s unlikely the publication cares what I think, I’m no butterfly in China. I’m just an independent blogger with some opinions and a passing facility with words.

The response to my questions took a few days but was short and to the point. I was grateful to them for not trying to sell it to me. “You’re probably not going to get what you’re looking for from this program.”

I’ll say.

Photo: Butterfly by mk* via Flickr (Creative Commons).

 

14 thoughts on “Do You Know Who I Am?”

  1. Pam, I have no idea why you feel bad about assuming that a publication you’ve written for should know who you are. Yes, some people who cop that attitude can be a dick, but there are also legitimate reason why someone should know who you are.

    Also…

    Traditional media people will never see value in “bloggers”, which is why I’ve never submitted an article or photo for publication and probably never will. I get more value in growing my own business.

    I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve met another travel writer and the first words out of their mouth is “Who do you write for?” When I tell them I write for myself, they look like they found out I had cancer.

    When your value is determine by the prestige of the publications you’ve written for, there is no value in having your own publication, regardless how successful it is.

    Reply
  2. It seems like they were not targeting you personally for the offer, but got a list of emails – maybe from TBEX, where the general consensus seemed to be that there were a lot of newcomers there? – and blasted away (as evidenced by the person’s instant awareness that you were not a good fit for the program). But in any case, that it became an opportunity for you to be reminded of exactly who you are, what you’re worth, and what you aspire to do seems like a silver lining.

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  3. These things are designed to make people feel like jerks. That you know what you want, know you’re worth it and walk away when a publication won’t deliver is a lesson for those of us who are less well known.

    It’s hard to say no thanks to a Name publication, especially if you like it.

    Whatever the case, I hear you. I often feel like a jerk, too, for asking to be paid for what I do.

    Reply
  4. I was approached too and it is depressing. I’ve never appeared in their print edition, but that’s besides the point. You’re right when you say that most don’t value the work of travel bloggers and that’s true, but it’s true because as a community we don’t make them respect us. When one person agrees to devote time and energy to working for free, it undermines everyone else. Bloggers in other segments get paid good cash money for online writing and I don’t see why we can’t. *stomp*

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  5. Now I am insulted because I was NOT approached by this Big Name Publishing Company! Do they not know who I am? Eeeesh.

    Seriously, this reminds me of when I got a Tweet directed to me: “You should check out XXXX” And I Tweeted back, “Um, I blog for your XXXX website and write for XXXX custom print publication.”

    No excuse at ALL for the offer you were sent, but so often in big (even small) companies the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.

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    • So, I get that there’s a divide between one side and the other, but I also think that there’s an overall attitude that’s expressed by the publication towards new media that’s… sad.

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  6. Much more generally speaking, I hate feeling as though I’m being taken advantage of and being taken for granted. That pitch made you feel both. I think you should be outraged. You are somebody, and they should know who you are.

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  7. I understand why you were disappointed but I don’t at all understand why you are mad at yourself. The situation, as you note, is that traditional publishers — most of them — and the pple who work there still look at bloggers as a being substandard to writers.
    When I get these kinds of emails, which happens alot, I respond by saying that the blog is a sideline and that I am a full-time writer/journalist for publications such as Blah Blah Blah Blah. If it seems from their initial email I add that I am a writer who blogs, not a blogger.
    And I don’t feel bad about it, I don’t feel like I’m being a jerk. I don’t think I’m “better than” full-time bloggers who are full-time promoters and would jump at a chance to write for “exposure”. But we do have different goals and I’ve worked my butt off as a freelancer and I would like to be differentiated from said bloggers in the minds of traditional publishers like the one you’re writing about.
    As an accomplished freelance travel writer you have a right to expect to be recognized (not a star, just recognize) as such. More and more in freelancing I feel that if you don’t ask for what you want loud and clear — sometimes demand it — you won’t get it.

    Reply
    • I was mad at myself for moving into that “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM” mindset. I see too many self-important bloggers — “I’m an expert in…” and I think, yeah, I’m not an expert in anything, though there are some things, like writing, that I’ve been doing for a good long time… We have something of an entitied reputation and I work at not being That Person. And here I was, feeling pushed right into being exactly the person I did not want to be.

      I agree that we need to stake a claim. And I did. And I did not enjoy having to do so, it made me angry.

      Reply

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