{"id":4079,"date":"2010-12-08T08:50:04","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T15:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=4079"},"modified":"2010-12-08T13:19:44","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T20:19:44","slug":"open-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/08\/open-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"

I traded some email recently with a magazine editor. I was pitching stories that I’d\u00a0 posted here. The editor wasn’t having any. “You bloggers. You devalue your best work by publishing it for free.”<\/p>\n

I had to think about that for a while.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I don’t even try to place work for the obscenely low rates that a lot of places pay. Those 10-20 dollars a post networks? You go right ahead, have fun. How many of those do you have to write to make a living? I did the math once; unless you’re hammering out the posts, you’re barely pulling in minimum wage. Traffic bonuses, you say? Don’t get me started on the popularity argument.<\/p>\n

When I shifted from being a hobby blogger who just wanted to share my travel stories to wanting to make some money for my work as a writer, I didn’t know where to go, what to do, not at all. Traditional publishing models were laying down to die, their shrinking page count meant that there was little opportunity for new writers.<\/p>\n

“We’d love to have the room for new work,” a different editor told me, “but our advertisers are gone, the book is half the size it was two years ago, and content, we don’t need content, we have a backlog of stories that could last us for years!” The editor had come from a travel writer’s conference; we were having lunch in a divey Mexican place near my house. “I tried to be positive at the conference,” the editor said, “but I’ll be honest with you, I just don’t know how a new writer can break in right now.”<\/p>\n

There’s another piece to the problem, too. It is absolutely possible to publish, get paid, make fair cash as a travel writer. But I think a lot of it depends on what you want to write. Doing guidebook work crushed any desire I might have to do service writing. Don’t mistake me, I see the value in this kind of material. But I don’t want to write it, no more than I want to crank out dozens of short posts for content networks.\u00a0 If your heart lies with the travel essay, the story, your market collapses even further.<\/p>\n

I never considered that I was giving my work away by publishing it here on Nerd’s Eye View. Who was I giving it to? My 400 loyal readers? I had two things in mind for my blog — I still wanted to share my travel stories. And I wanted to have a kind of portfolio of my work. I wanted a gallery space for my art. Nerd’s Eye View has been, for me, the equivalent of an open studio where readers and maybe, if I got lucky, editors could read my work.<\/p>\n

\"Open<\/a><\/p>\n

If you open the doors of your studio and show off your work, a buyer can come in, pick up a piece of art, give you some money, and take it home. I’d like to think that’s possible with writing — that I could sell a piece from this online portfolio, it could be published elsewhere, and maybe, depending on the terms, I could pull it from this site, at least until the rights reverted back to me. I’ve sold two stories this way — digital reprints, as it were, both to excellent venues. In one case, the publisher didn’t pay me as well as if it had gone to them first, in the other, I got paid full price. And for both stories, I didn’t have to pull the originals.<\/p>\n

Without this showcase for my work, I wouldn’t have sold those stories at all. And without opening the doors to my work space, those editors? They’d have no idea who I am. The first one, the one who says I’m giving it away? That editor essentially wants to commission work. That’s okay, I get that, and I love being asked. I understand. But would the editor be asking for work if I wasn’t writing here? It’s speculation, but probably not.<\/p>\n

Earlier this summer I pitched another publication. I missed the target but I got a terrific note back from that editor. “We love your writing! Please send us something else that’s a better fit. And hey, if our direction changes and we can run your story, we’ll be sure to let you know. We’re actually planning something similar for next year, I promise we’ll be in touch if that happens.”<\/p>\n

I’m terrible at pitching, I don’t understand the travel writing market, I’ve got zero desire to pursue service work, I’m not on the networks. But I’ve been invited to write, to submit stories, to travel. Why? Without this blog, I’m invisible.<\/p>\n

The editors, the publications, the interactions… none of this would have happened had I not been “giving away my best work” via Nerd’s Eye View. Of course I’d rather sell stories, of course I would. But given the alternative — pitch my way out of obscurity one essay at a time — I think “giving away my best work for free” has been the right choice.<\/p>\n

Photo: Michael DiBitetto<\/a>‘s printmaking studio in Eugene, Oregon. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I traded some email recently with a magazine editor. I was pitching stories that I’d\u00a0 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 … <\/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":[141,754,33,90],"class_list":["post-4079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-working","tag-blogging","tag-freelance","tag-travel-writing","tag-writing","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\/4079","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=4079"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4081,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions\/4081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}