WHILE working full time for newspapers, magazines and local radio, one thing I learned was that the media business was remarkably cut-throat and – at most levels – remarkably badly-paid.
At one time, on a provincial evening newspaper which was part of an enormously successful national company, I was working a 60-hour week and getting paid for 37. I pointed this out, of course, but the answer was that I was obviously working too slowly if I couldn’t get my work done in the appointed 37 hours! That was rubbish. All we “drones” were working our socks off for little reward and certainly no recognition.
The straw which broke the camel’s back was an article in a glossy magazine detailing the life-style of the newspaper’s owner. There were pictures of him swanning around his ENORMOUS estate with pin-thin trophy wife in tow. I thought to myself, “I’ve bought him that lifestyle. He can only afford to live like that on the backs of people like me.”
That was when my conscientious attitude began to change. I looked around for another job and found one on local radio. The pay and the hours were better but there was still this feeling nagging in the back of brain that I could do better; that all my hard work was merely lining other people’s pockets when it could be lining my own.
I needed to work for myself and break into the freelance market.
My strategy – and you may want to do the same – was to start freelance writing in my spare time (under a pseudonym) and to continue my full-time job. I bought the Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book and started to submit articles on anything and everything to all kinds of publications. I started writing short stories and entering competitions.
At first, as the old cliché goes, I could have papered my walls with rejection slips. Slowly but surely, however, the rejection slips tailed off and I began to get those wonderful acceptance letters. I rarely get a rejection slip these days as most of my work is commissioned. Even if I don’t have an official commission, I have made a query and have detailed instructions of exactly what the publication or website requires.
In my next blog I will tell you in more detail how I found my first jobs and some of the lessons I learned.
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