Getting Ink

3 Reasons Not to Write for Free

This week, I was offered a regular writing gig for a website owned by a major FTSE brand. It all seemed very interesting until the company told me that, ‘for the time being at least’, the work would be unpaid. But, hey, I’d get a link for my troubles.

Personally, then, I don’t consider they were offering me work. They were inviting me to make writing into my hobby. I have hobbies, thanks – and none of them involve sitting at a computer, writing stuff. That’s what I do for a living, in fact.

Writing for free is a tricky issue when you’re starting out, though. There’s a view in some media circles that people should serve their time, learn the ropes, get their foot in the door by doing an internship or similar. An internship where you learn the ropes of a job for a short time is a very different proposition to writing for free, though.

For starters, an intern is identified as someone new – you’re there to learn how to do stuff. Writing for free means doing exactly the same job as the people being paid – you’re just cheaper. Sure, it’s a personal choice, but I would always advise a new writer against writing for free for three reasons:

First, in agreeing to write for free, you’re telling an editor or client that you’re desperate. That you think what you do has little or no value.

Second, when exactly do you think that editor is going to start paying you? Do you think after a month or two they will be so amazed by your talent that they say, ‘Hey, Jane, you know that article I was getting for free? This month I’d like to pay you £500 for it. Have a great day!’ Never gonna happen.

Third, when you write for free for a company or publication that usually pays people, you’re making it that much harder for me, and people like me, to earn a living. You are under-cutting your colleagues and becoming part of a movement that is pushing down rates for writers.

You might not think it’s important now, but put yourself five years in the future – do you want to be earning a living as a writer? Well, stop doing it for free now, then.

If you genuinely cannot get commissions and clips from paying magazines, then there are many online start-ups and community-led publications that don’t pay anyone for their time. If you choose to write for free for those titles, surely that’s a better option?  

The Green Ink Brigade

Someone I’ve never met and never spoken to popped up on my radar last week.

Turns out, they hate me.

I don’t mean they don’t want to be friends, or they don't really like the way I can't listen to music without singing along. No. They hate me enough to take time away from their spouse, children, career and hobbies to spew their hatred onto the Internet, complete with some alarmingly creative nicknames and intense speculation about my mental health.

Another day recently, I got an email from someone else I’d never met. This person was convinced a Tweet I wrote to a friend a year or so back was a personal insult directed at them. This was apparently one of many messages I’ve directed their way. They demanded that I leave them alone and stop being rude about them.

Erm, okay.

While backing away with my hands in the air, I got to thinking about these people. On magazines we’d call them ‘the green ink brigade’ - a nickname that came about because their letters were almost always hand-written in some wacky ink or other. Online, you’re more likely to spot them by their lack of attention to punctuation and a fondness for exclamation marks.

Over the years, I've been contacted by green inkers who tell me I should die, it's no wonder my husband left me, I'm mentally ill and in need of an immediate section, my editors know what I'm really like, everyone in my home town hates me but just hasn't told me and, also, I'm a bad driver. Although that last bit was probably fair comment.

My all-time favourite online green inker was Ben, who took time out of his day to tell me I was the most evil and vindictive mother he'd ever known. Do read it, if you haven't before, it's possibly the funniest thing I've ever been sent by email.

I’ve got a journalist friend who loves to provoke Internet crazies – adding salacious details to stories that she knows will drive them into a frenzy of righteous indignation. She then sits back and laughs as strangers declare that she is an abomination of womanhood.

Unfortunately for me, I can rile them without even trying. I’m a single Mum. I’ve got quite a dry sense of humour. I like to rant about PR and journalism. I earn a major part of my living from blogging. I earn most of the rest of my living by writing articles in newspapers and magazines.

In short, I'm very visible, so it's easy for the green inkers to find me. I sometimes think I might as well just walk around with a target stapled to the back of my t-shirt.

In my early career, I used to try and converse with the green inkers. Then I realised that nobody who takes time out of their day to tell you that they hope you die in a car crash is going to read anything you say and think, “Wow, I had them all wrong”. If that were THAT rational, they'd have just unfollowed you, or stopped reading, let's face it.

These days I only reply to rude messages if they’re not personally abusive or threatening. As a rule, I keep it factual and thank people for their feedback. Then I set up a rule to delete any future messages from them unread, and I forget about it.

It hasn’t always been so easy. In my early days of blogging, in particular, I could be upset for days by a horrible remark, particularly one about my daughter, or something that implied someone knew me personally. It’s hard to ignore your inner five-year-old who is busy keening: “But why don’t they like meeeeee?”

What I’ve learned – and what I hope will help you next time you’re subject to online attacks – is that it’s almost never personal. Because they don’t know you. Having such a violent, irrational reaction to something they’ve read online is everything to do with something lacking in their lives, and nothing to do with your personality, writing or talent.

I have seen time and time again that the single identifying characteristic of the online green inker is that they cannot understand or articulate the difference between “I don’t agree with you” and “I hate you”.

In some ways, I’m grateful for the green inkers. They’ve given me a far thicker skin than I ever used to have. They also remind me every time they get in touch that life's short - far too short to waste time worrying about what some Internet weirdo thinks of you. Also, one day, I'm totally going to put together a book of the best of the green ink, and retire on the proceeds.

Newsflash: I do not care about football. Or biscuits.

Someone chastised me on Twitter this morning for being snarky about PRs.

Oops.

I had Tweeted my congratulations to a PR agency for their brave and innovative thinking in creating a press release that linked their client’s survey to – wait for it – the World Cup. Well, paint me purple and call me surprised, I didn't see that one coming.

To be fair, I do understand the notion of using the news agenda to help make a client's story seem more relevant. But I think this technique works if one of the following is true:

a)    the underlying story is so good the news hijacking is irrelevant

b)    you’re one of a small number of people to have spotted the opportunity

c)    the story is genuinely related to the event in the news

In the case of the World Cup, I’ve yet to see a World Cup press release that was genuinely interesting. All 46 of the releases I've received so far this week were pretty dull, I’m sorry to say.

Second, let me just reiterate: I’ve received 46 World Cup press releases in two days. Sending a World Cup press release does not make your client stand out. At all. I stopped reading them after a while. Especially given that I’m a technology, business and HR journalist, and have absolutely zero interest in football on a professional or personal level.

Third, I can’t see why most of these companies are talking about the World Cup. When I think about the World Cup, I’m not immediately struck by the thought: “I wonder which bath oil I should use during the tournament?” or “I wonder how the business continuity market could help me enjoy the World Cup more?” Certainly not, "I wonder if Fabio eats macaroni cheese?" And who is Fabio, anyway?

I’ve received World Cup press releases about gas, biscuits, macaroni and cheese recipes, DVD rental services, HR consulting, insurance, credit cards, online supermarket delivery services, broadband, price comparison websites and – in possibly the most random example of the technique I’ve seen so far – I even got a press release about the World Cup and… the importance of discrimination legislation in the workplace. Hmm.

Maybe I am being unnecessarily snarky - after all, it's just as easy to delete a World Cup themed press release as any other. But it just strikes me that when so many PR agencies and clients are desperately trying to piggy back on this sort of big event, the idea of quality or relevance gets chucked out of the window – and I’m not sure anyone really benefits as a result.