Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> One time about 25 years ago I found myself unemployed after sixteen years in > my chosen field of aerospace engineering. No problem I thought, I will just > write a magazine article and sell it, maybe change my career path forever. > Two weeks of considerable work, a couple of field trips to photograph what I > was writing about and I had my article and four photos to send to a lucky > publisher. A couple a days after sending it out I got a call from the editor > wanting to know if I was a profesional writer and would I consider letting > him publish my article in their annual under the byline of Robert Stack, (the > movie/TV guy). I said Hell No, I wrote it and wanted my name on it. He said > OK, our payment will be $150, if you want to send it to a larger magazine you > might get $300 for it, but not much is given for the work of an unknown. > > I decided right then that starvation and low paying work in the writing and > photography business was not my cup of tea. You guys can have it and I will > not spoil it for you. -- Regards, Paul Connet > Also unemployed 30 years ago in California I accidently (the way most of the things in my life have happened) fell into free lance motor sports journalism, writing and photography. At the time the standard pay was $1 per inch for story and $5 per picture published. Certainly not much, but by being good and hustling I started to get plum assignments which meant the inch and picture rate doubled. Wow!! Now $2 inch and $10 a picture, still not really very much. But I got by and after about a year I was offered a staff position at a salary that was barely over poverty level, at least it was steady. And as an assistant editor I had a lot of people call me up wanting to write for the magazine and when I told them the pay there was always silence on the other end of the line and a "let me think about it." Since then I have freelanced for a few national and international magazines and the rates are still pretty meager. As an example of somebody we all know and love, Mike J. former editor of Photo Technique e-mailed me last winter after I posted an item on the LUG about a photographer here in Annapolis who had taken the famous photo of John, John saluting his father, JFK, at his funeral. The photographer was now suffering severe depression. Mike J. thought that would be a good story and by-the-way take a picture. The pay? $25. I have a friend who is a free lance writer who does feature stories for the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post, been doing it for years, and has never been paid more than $200 for a feature story. So why bother? Well if you have a burning desire to be a professional photographer or writer this is what you have to do, start at the bottom, work for practically nothing, be very, very good (because there is tons of competition), learn the self-marketing skills that puts you in the position to demand a fair price. I never made much money as a freelance photographer even though I have photographed, homeless bums, many celebrities even a President in the Oval Office. I lost count at 1,000 of photos published, but, it has been a great trip. And along the way I learned enough skills so that now I OWN my second monthly magazine. So, it seems like it all depends on where you want to be in life. Just my .02 cents. Steve Annapolis http://www.streetphoto.net http://www.icommag.com