{"id":264,"date":"2006-02-13T03:45:26","date_gmt":"2006-02-13T10:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=264"},"modified":"2006-02-13T04:14:43","modified_gmt":"2006-02-13T11:14:43","slug":"you-get-what-you-pay-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/13\/you-get-what-you-pay-for\/","title":{"rendered":"You Get What You Pay For"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to.
\n<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

It’s no secret that travel writing is my dream job. I’ve gone from joining a “travel writer’s network” – a club, really where my fees went into the pocket of the guy that arranged the press trips – to publishing a tiny handful of pieces to some lesser known publications. This is progress and as I move ahead, I’ve been eyeing some bigger fish. All good.<\/p>\n

Related to my aspirations, I’ve been following the posts at BlogHer<\/a> by the travel editors with special interest. Twice now, they’ve posted “travel network” sites. The first was Boots n All, the latest is TangoDiva. Both have forums, the Diva forum looks newish, the one at Boots n All is mighty lively. Both networks give you the “opportunity” to write for them. Boots n All is quite clear that they don’t pay and gives their reasons up front; TangoDiva doesn’t mention compensation at all. They have strict guidelines about submissions, but their payback is that they’ll give you credentials – after they’ve accepted five of your stories. (Credentials, I am learning, are not as critical as tenacity and bravado.)<\/p>\n

I recently sent a story to WorldHum. (World Hum is more a magazine than a network and doesn’t have a forum.) I’d bookmarked the contributors guidelines and wasn’t paying attention when I hit ‘Send’. Rereading them, I discovered that oops, they also don’t pay. World Hum looks to be a decent launching pad for some good new writing, as does Boots n All. I can’t tell with TangoDiva. The women behind it seem really cool, but I’m not (yet) convinced that it’s not a vanity site. (Before you pounce on me, I’m TOTALLY a vanity site, but I’m not pretending to be something else. And the jury is still out, okay? Let the 12 Angry Nerds decide, first.)<\/p>\n

I am not totally against giving work away. I give stuff to Travelblogs <\/a>now and then because it’s run by my ex-neighbor – I’m happy to help out a friend. I do like the idea of being published on World Hum, which has been reviewed as “the new Lonely Planet ” – being in World Hum would totally flatter the old backpack traveler in me. A friend of mine recently submitted a piece to a Lonely Planet anthology – also unpaid – and I think it would be a-okay to be in an “old” Lonely Planet publication, too. (He should get in, it’s a great piece of writing.)<\/p>\n

But.<\/p>\n

If I truly believe that you get what you pay for, then what am I saying about my own work by giving it away? These things aren’t charity causes, it’s not like a piece of writing is going to an auction where all the money goes to fight hunger or AIDS or any other planetary scourge. Also, ponder this business model for other occupations. “You get exposure to any number of potential patients when you perform surgery in our hospital.” Okay, that is totally ridiculous, right? How about, “You’ll have the opportunity to park your plumbing truck in a soon to be gentrified community.” Um, no. It doesn’t even work with my bread and butter writing work. “Your documentation will be read by thousands of frustrated users as they try to perform simple software tasks!” (Heh. That’s funny to me.)<\/p>\n

Blogging has busted writing right open. It’s not that anyone can write, it’s that anyone can be published<\/em>. Words about “me and my adventures” have flooded the market in such quantity that they’re totally devalued. No wonder sites that need content are cashing in on this. The streets are paved with content!<\/p>\n

I recently read somewhere – damn, I wish I could remember where – about a writer who’s suspended his blog because he’s now making his living, get this, WRITING.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to. It’s no secret that travel writing is my dream job. I’ve gone from joining a “travel writer’s network” – a club, really where my fees went into the pocket of the guy that arranged the press trips – to publishing a tiny handful of pieces … <\/p>\n


…read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-working","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}