Rumpelstiltskin - where the bloody hell are you?
Well, it's 5 weeks since the Irish newspaper last gave me a night shift subbing, and my bank account is looking very thin. Strangely enough, thanks to a lack of regular cardio exercise, I'm not looking thin, but rather plumpish, especially with all the extra layers I've put on to combat the cold & save on heating costs.
Thanks to a contra deal that involves the exchange of no hard cash at all, I've been having business coaching lessons from a friend, B. He comes over every Saturday morning for a couple of hours and harangues me - lectures me - motivates me: "On a scale of 1-10, how motivated are you to do this?" "How many do you reasonably think you can do? Four? Well, why not make it five?" The aim is to find other ways of increasing my income, by marketing myself more effectively (for 'effectively' read 'persistently') to publishers who already use me, have used me in the past, and new publishers - assuming I can find any. The "four, well why not five?", was the number of pitches I was 7.5 committed to making in a week - ie - pitching story ideas, based on the old salesperson's adage that it takes 9 nos to get a yes. Hmm.. the freelance market, at least in print publications, is shrinking in line with shrinking ad revenues. And while there are online opportunities, it's hard to make them pay.
So we are trying other avenues of marketing me. I'm on a social networking site for business people, LinkedIn, so one suggestion was to email all my LinkedIn contacts and ask how I could be of value to my fellow networkers. Well, once I'd eliminated my friends and family members, there were about 6. So I sent them my 'value' email. Two emails bounced, three didn't bother to reply, and the other one said she was taking time off to travel round the country with her husband and focus on her photography. But she'd love to be friends, and sent me links to her website with all her photos, and a long screed about where she and hubby were going next.
One area that has been relatively successful has been writing stories for online sites, in particular Suite101.com. I can write what I like, generally on consumer health, animal health, interesting science, and get paid a fraction of a cent per page view, plus a percentage of the commission on Google ad clicksthrough. They are fun to write, and I can usually manage 2 or 3 a week. This month, I'll make a whole $US13!!
So, I'm doing all this self-marketing, seeking new outlets and income streams, writing online articles, and at the same time I'm chasing experts and researchers for the few articles I have been commissioned to write each month. I feel like I'm trying to spin straw into gold. Oh, Rumpelstilstkin, where the bloody hell are you?
Thanks to a contra deal that involves the exchange of no hard cash at all, I've been having business coaching lessons from a friend, B. He comes over every Saturday morning for a couple of hours and harangues me - lectures me - motivates me: "On a scale of 1-10, how motivated are you to do this?" "How many do you reasonably think you can do? Four? Well, why not make it five?" The aim is to find other ways of increasing my income, by marketing myself more effectively (for 'effectively' read 'persistently') to publishers who already use me, have used me in the past, and new publishers - assuming I can find any. The "four, well why not five?", was the number of pitches I was 7.5 committed to making in a week - ie - pitching story ideas, based on the old salesperson's adage that it takes 9 nos to get a yes. Hmm.. the freelance market, at least in print publications, is shrinking in line with shrinking ad revenues. And while there are online opportunities, it's hard to make them pay.
So we are trying other avenues of marketing me. I'm on a social networking site for business people, LinkedIn, so one suggestion was to email all my LinkedIn contacts and ask how I could be of value to my fellow networkers. Well, once I'd eliminated my friends and family members, there were about 6. So I sent them my 'value' email. Two emails bounced, three didn't bother to reply, and the other one said she was taking time off to travel round the country with her husband and focus on her photography. But she'd love to be friends, and sent me links to her website with all her photos, and a long screed about where she and hubby were going next.
One area that has been relatively successful has been writing stories for online sites, in particular Suite101.com. I can write what I like, generally on consumer health, animal health, interesting science, and get paid a fraction of a cent per page view, plus a percentage of the commission on Google ad clicksthrough. They are fun to write, and I can usually manage 2 or 3 a week. This month, I'll make a whole $US13!!
So, I'm doing all this self-marketing, seeking new outlets and income streams, writing online articles, and at the same time I'm chasing experts and researchers for the few articles I have been commissioned to write each month. I feel like I'm trying to spin straw into gold. Oh, Rumpelstilstkin, where the bloody hell are you?