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Why might you want to do this?
As many commenters have pointed out, if a prospective client asks for rates with a cover letter and you don’t include rates, you have technically not followed their directions. Proponents for the include-rate side claim that not following directions to a T will disqualify otherwise qualified writers.

Flickr: DavidDMuir
Too, commenters argue that it’s important to be firm about your rates. I couldn’t agree more. You don’t want to let clients dictate how little they are going to pay you (and in my experience, the ones looking for an upfront quote are often looking for the cheapest labor available).

But isn’t there a better way?
Yes. Let the client make the first move, and open negotiation after you’ve made the initial connection. Here’s why.

Talking about money is rude.
Yes, it’s an old-fashioned etiquette rule, and old-fashioned etiquette is no longer “in,” but these things come from somewhere. Talking about money makes people uncomfortable. If you’re trying to convince a client that you’re a great writer who can solve all his problems, why would you make him uncomfortable at the same time? After you’ve gotten the job, or have done the initial legwork to make a connection and learn about the project (and make the client feel comfortable with you) is the time to bring up money.

You lose your power to negotiate.Flickr: oooh.oooh
Unlike the commenters who believe “negotiation” means “lowering your rate to get the job,” letting the client make the first move is a wise idea. Would you storm into your first job interview, exclaiming “I want $35,000 a year to take this job, not a penny more, not a penny less!” Of course not. You’re going to go in with an idea of what you want and see how closely it meshes with the employer’s idea of your worth. If the numbers are too far off in either direction, you amiably part ways. Otherwise you find wiggle room. A great benefits package, a nice office, or a (written) promise of a 3- or 6-month review can offset a lower salary, or vice versa. Why wouldn’t you do this with your freelance work? A prestigious byline or the opportunity to work with a great editor can justify a lower rate–an annoying client or difficult subject matter warrants a rate hike. And none of this even scratches the surface of the art of negotiation.

If a client’s prepared to pay $500 for a project and you ask for $250 without knowing the budget, you’re either showing yourself to be cheap (in both senses of the word) or, well, cheap and poor, because you could have asked for, and gotten, $400. If you truly believe the project isn’t worth $500, by all means ask for $400—you get more than you’d hoped for and the client gets less than she had expected to pay, and everybody goes home happy.

That’s negotiation. Can you do that by putting everything on the table right away?

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“Well, you’re going to have to start paying them,” I said. (Too frank? The party was hosted by a generous sponsor who’d paid for an open bar.)

Seriously, though, there are three things I just wish editors would do that would make everyone’s lives a little easier. This applies to blog editors as well as those in the print spectrum.

1. Offer pay–and not pennies per word either. If you want people (potential writers) to take you seriously as a business owner and editor, you need to make sure you are taking writers seriously, and offering rates so low that they are a joke is a great way to show how little you care.
2. Offer sample copies, and make them easy to buy. I just tried to get a sample copy of a magazine I liked, but didn’t want to put my credit card number onto their UNSECURE (http:// vs https://) server. When I called and asked if they would take Paypal, I was told that only their merchandise can be paid for through Paypal. This is for a $3 magazine. Now I have to write them a check and stick it in the mail because they can’t code their Web server correctly? I might just skip this mag altogether.
3. Provide writer’s guidelines. It’s really important that writers are familiar with your blog, magazine, or other publication. But on the other hand, I shouldn’t have to sit there with my sample copy counting the number of words in an article so I know how long my piece should be. I shouldn’t have to guess whether a certain department accepts freelance or not. If this is all spelled out in your guidelines (which are online as a PDF or HTML file, not ones that I have to send in a SASE for) you save both of us time.

Feels good to get that off my chest, actually! Editors, take note–you’re affecting my health

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Nick Denton, publisher/owner of Gawker Media (aka that one guy who’s supposedly raking in all that cash) , wrote this in the post advertising a managing editor opening: “We’re casting a wide net for candidates, beyond the clubby world of bloggers. Because Gawker is becoming a larger and more complex operation, and, frankly, a more traditional one.” And “It’s no longer enough to take stories from the New York Times, and add a dash of snark. Gawker needs to break and develop more stories.”

Whoa. As Karp points out, it’s a silly question to ask whether blogs can do journalism–after all, quality, not platform is what we’ve been told for years–and a blog “is just a content management system — revolutionary because it made web-native publishing free and easy for anyone — but at the end of the day still just a CMS.”

Anyway, this is a fascinating turn of events. If newspapers can’t or won’t embrace the Web, maybe Web folks will start embracing newspapers.

Or something.

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Now, granted, I didn’t find myself swimming in work, and I suspect that I priced myself out of the market with many of the ads I did reply to, but I did find a few leads through here. Much more successful was, and still is, local networking and pounding the payment. So now, thanks in part to FWG’s work, I find myself too busy to read FWG every day–which is the goal, isn’t it?

So though your mileage may vary, FWG is free and blessedly concise: just a listing of freelance jobs every day and a few quick posts with writing tips or ideas.

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New findings have uncovered a design flaw at the interface where the brain encounters a computer screen: there are no online channels for the multiple signals the brain uses to calibrate emotions.

Face-to-face interaction, by contrast, is information-rich. We interpret what people say to us not only from their tone and facial expressions, but also from their body language and pacing, as well as their synchronization with what we do and say. [NYT]

Written communication in an office setting has advantages; for example, you’re accountable for what you say because you have written proof. But at my last job there were a few people who would send me e-mails to say hello rather than walk 20 feet to say hello in person. Hm. In those cases, I can see what this writer is getting at.

I think, though, on the whole I agree with this Lifehacker commenter (also where I found the original article): “People need to learn to write! Mood and tone anyone?”

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Also, this is a great resource for anyone building his or her own web site to promote a freelance business.

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News to me: The comma is a type of butterfly! flickr:Webmink.

The trusty AP Stylebook says under “essential clauses, nonessential clauses” (a bugbear for me when it comes to punctuation) that those terms are used “instead of restrictive clause and nonrestrictive clause to convey the distinction between the two in a more easily remembered manner.” I don’t know about you, but NONE of those words mean anything to me. I must have been sleeping during the sentence diagramming part of English class.

The example they give is:

“Reporters, who do not read the stylebook, should not criticize their editors.”

Versus:

“Reporters who do not read the stylebook should not criticize their editors.”

In one sentence only a certain class of reporters is being referred to; in the other, all reporters are included. Seems simple, right? Yet the only way I was able to make this stick was to come up with a new way of describing these clauses–as I said, “restrictive” and “essential” feel like bogus words.

So. An essential clause IDENTIFIES the subject. A nonessential clause further ELABORATES upon the subject. In other words (here’s the kicker), the first sentence could be split into two:

“Reporters do not read the stylebook. Reporters should not criticize their editors.”

Whereas the second sentence could not. Why I couldn’t find an explanation this simple on the Internet is beyond me, but this is what I had to do to get through the last two hours of work yesterday and escape an apoplexy.

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All My Children:

Annie is amazed over Ryan’s insistence that he would risk perjuring himself instead of ever testifying against Zach. Ryan and Annie don’t see eye to eye where Greenlee is concerned as Annie admits she empathizes with her plight. Ryan and Annie’s argument ends unresolved. Annie wonders if she and Ryan will ever get the chance to be happy. Josh consoles Greenlee and unwittingly gives her a new idea as to how she can get what she wants. Adam and JR snipe at each other. JR and Amanda meet with foul play when they go clubbing in Philadelphia. Colby and Sean each decide to go to the prom solo. Sean tries to make inroads with Colby as he apologizes to her. A scheming Ava sets Sean up for a fall. Ava seeks out Di at Wildwind. Aidan and Di are surprised when Jonathan jumps to Ava’s defense. Ava can’t deal with Jonathan’s faith in her and beats a hasty exit. Jamie finds Julia’s home pregnancy test kit and thinks it belongs to Di. Julia gets quite an earful when she questions Jamie how he’d react if he were in Aidan’s shoes.

One Life to Live:

Bo, John, Cristian and the rescue team work feverishly to clear a path into the severely bomb damaged operating room. Meanwhile, Michael talks a nervous Nash through closing and suturing Antonio’s incision. Nash hits a setback when Antonio begins bleeding but gets the situation under control with Michael’s guidance. Everyone is greatly relieved when Bo, John and Cristian make it into the room and Michael takes over for Nash. Antonio is moved to another operating room but Nash has clearly saved his life. Nash is reunited with Jessica, who is grateful to learn what he did for Antonio. Carlotta brinks tears of joy when Cristian gives her and Adriana the good news about Antonio. Rex drowns his sorrows with Roxy at Rodi’s, where they encounter Kirk. Rex’s gut tells him that Kirk is hiding something. Rex goes to the hospital but leaves without making his presence known when he sees Adriana in Tate’s arms. Marty is forced to make the decision of her life when Miles presses her to marry him or suffer the consequences. (Thank you, ABC.)

There’s something compelling, in a trainwreck sort of way, about these short paragraphs. I bolded my favorite parts. You have to wonder about the poor intern who writes ten of these a day, and if he or she is still in possession of an IQ higher than that of a rutabaga.

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Photographer: davidfg. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Mr. Nusca makes some good points, and yes, there are many who take this same viewpoint, but I believe there are some things the naysayers don’t address.

As I interpret it, Nusca sums up the problem like so:

-An internship is virtually necessary to get a job in this industry these days.

-Internships that look good on your resume (with big, well-known magazines or newspapers) pay little or nothing.

-Internships with smaller papers or magazines are not worth an intern’s time.

-Therefore, only J-students subsidized by their parents can afford to work three months for peanuts, therefore anyone doing “the right thing” is punished.

Point 1 is absolutely true. That’s just the way it is. Journalism really cannot be learned from anyone else; you learn by doing. Since no college newspaper or radio station mirrors a real newsroom, the only way to become qualified to work in a newsroom is to work in one.

“When did such a low-paying industry become so elite?” asks Nusca.

Maybe when the profession became so popular. A survey published in 2006 hailed the fact that out of all the 2005 graduates receiving bachelor’s degrees in journalism, 62% of them had found jobs by the end of the year. That means over a third were unemployed for over seven months. And this is good news? I bet nursing students don’t have to wait over half a year for a job offer.

With any “glamour profession” there has to be some sort of winnowing process. What career counselor worth his salt would advise an aspiring actor without a warning that the road ahead is tough and pays terribly? If a counselor neglected to tell said actor that he or she would most likely be working for free or cheap for years, waiting tables in the meantime, the counselor would be fired.

(Just to be clear, I’m not comparing journalists to actors in any sense other than that they’re both popular professions. Surely we can agree that journalists are far more necessary than actors. Didn’t Thomas Jefferson once say “If I had to choose between Hollywood without newspapers, and newspapers without Hollywood, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter”? Perhaps I am paraphrasing.)

Nusca goes on to crunch some numbers for a hypothetical intern living in New York. I’ll let you read his math at his site. The basic idea is that interning 2-3 days a week and working the rest of the weekday is nowhere near enough money for rent, food, and transportation. One could argue that perhaps the hypothetical intern could work only two days a week and take a paying job for four (One might argue this, because, in fact, it’s what I did), but it’s true not many people want to give up even half their weekend to sell sandwiches. (“Pressatas,” in my case. Sexy.)

Nusca agrees: I am leaving weekends out of this. Not only does any sane human need time off…

(But he also writes: An intern would give 50 or 60 hours a week if they did not have to worry about basic living needs. Hmm.)

Okay, okay, 50 hours working at a deli is not nearly as much fun as 50 hours in a newsroom. But 50 hours is 50 hours. Since as Woody Allen says, 80% of success is showing up, can we call this a system of weeding out the people who want to be journalists because they think it “sounds fun” or because they don’t know what else to do? Someone only mildly interested in journalism will not make it through this system.

Is it true that internships discriminate against the poor by making it possible for only those subsidized by parents or loans to intern? Yes, it’s harder for someone on his or her own to survive a summer of remarkably tightened belts, but it’s possible to do regardless. This is true for any profession or any aspect of life, and I don’t see why journalism is a special case. If internship providers discriminate, then the rest of the world does, and we should be trying to fix the problem as a whole, not one symptom of it.

The other problem, Nusca explains, is that big papers think they can get away with not paying because you’re getting a line item on your resume, but that doesn’t excuse no-name rags who’re simply trying to score free labor.

Really, how many times have you seen “NO-NAME MAGAZINE” offering unpaid internships? Why? Never heard of it! And then you want me to work for you for free? Side-by-side with full-time employees the same age as me? And assume that I’m learning a lot because 1) you say I am, 2) you’re a publication, 3) I’m working closely with the ‘editor,’ one of three total people on staff, and 4) clerical duties really subscribe to an experience an internship can provide but a secretary job can’t?

This might not be an internship I’d take, but I can see the draw, and I don’t think Nusca should be so quick to dismiss it. Two days a week with a magazine that is or could be an up-and-coming publication is something you can take away at the end of the summer and show to employers. It looks good if you say “I put this entire spread together. This is mine, this is mine, and this is mine.” An internship like this might be worth a shot, because you will not be performing clerical duties on a staff of four, I can guarantee that. What will you have to show at the end of a summer in the mailroom or fact-checking department?

Besides, smaller newspapers–which are not at all the same as “No-Name Magazine,” though Nusca seems to conflate the concepts–are…I don’t want to say “perfectly respectable” because that’s still looking at them from a “big city” lens. A smaller paper is more than perfectly respectable, it’s an aspiring journo’s ticket to the big dailies. Expect to be asked to choose between a resume line that looks good but translates to filing, photocopying, and inventorying the newsroom’s “junk closet”–or a resume line with a small paper and a portfolio full of clips.

So is the system “broken”?

School can only teach you so much. You can only learn to write from having written. Is it really so terrible to let someone to work for free two days a week? By taking on an intern, sure, a company’s getting free labor, but they also have to deal with supervising the kid to make sure he/she doesn’t totally screw up. Most internships offer some sort of mentoring program along with the work a student’s expected to do. More time and resources. Am I so cynical that I wouldn’t trust most of my peers in a major metropolitan daily? Actually, yes. Hell, I wouldn’t trust myself. Hence the internship I’ve accepted. I don’t mean to apologize for a system that many find unfair, but it’s a system that’s worked for me and for many others. (Oh. I guess I do mean to apologize for the system.)

(And I’ve heard the “well move to another city then!” thing before, and I think it’s hogwash. Media is here. Opportunities are here. Why move away?)

Because if someone can’t find an opportunity, especially with multiple internships under his or her belt, how are we so sure so sure the jobs are here? The market here is saturated. Let’s be realistic. I love New York, but I’m not going to spend five years writing obits for the Daily News just so I can have the chance of moving up to court reporting, so I can maybe see my name in the New York Times a quarter-century from now. In 2002, everyone was recommending doing a stint outside the tri-state area. I doubt much has changed, so I’m going to spend some time away from New York, build up my skills, become someone more valuable than an obituary writer, and then, maybe five years from now, I’ll come back.

And I’ll be better for it.

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