All posts tagged freelancing

  • Freelance journalism presentation at Walkley MediaPass student industry day, August 2012

    I was invited by the Walkley Foundation to speak at the Brisbane leg of their annual MediaPass student industry days, which are held at capital cities across Australia. The brief was thus:

    Surviving and Thriving as a Freelancer

    Find out how to pitch a story, network and negotiate contracts. Featuring:
    [from left to right, below]

    Before an audience of around 40 final-year journalism students at the Brisbane Powerhouse, we each gave a five minute presentation and then fielded questions from the audience for the remaining half-hour. I spoke on the topic of ‘twelve points for all beginner freelancers to keep in mind’.

    My presentation is embedded below. Click here to watch on YouTube. (Apologies for the footage being off-centre.) I’ve also included the text of my talk underneath.

    Twelve points for all beginner freelancers to keep in mind

    1. Freelancing, at its heart, is really just hustling. It’s learning how to support yourself through persistence, energy and ingenuity. That’s all. Learn how to hustle and you’re set. The only problem is that it takes years to learn how to hustle consistently.

    2.When you start freelancing, the learning curve is steep. You’re fighting against the world; fighting to be heard, fighting to get your name recognised, fighting to get paid. You probably won’t make enough money to pay your rent in the first year, which is why you should do other work on the side until you’re ready to freelance full-time.

    3. But eventually – perhaps years later – it becomes less of a fight. You learn to glide through the world rather than struggling against it. You see things differently, with wiser eyes. You can dip in and out of conversations, projects, and work relationships with much less friction, because there’s much less to lose. You have less to prove, because you’ve already proven yourself to some extent.

    4. There’s a lot to be said for starting slow, though, and at the bottom. For example, I wrote for street press, essentially without being paid, for nearly two years before I decided that writing and journalism was what I really wanted to do. From there, it was a slow process of me working out how to get paid for what I really wanted to do.

    5. Find your gap in the market, but be patient. After doing freelance journalism for a few years, I eventually realised that my gap is to read between the lines and write about what others aren’t. That’s when I’m happiest. That’s not to say that all of my writing consists of that kind of work. I’d say less than half of my income comes from writing those kinds of investigative feature stories. It’s worth pointing out that I only had this realisation in the last 12 months, too.

    6. I definitely didn’t know my gap in the market when I started freelancing. In fact I had very little idea of what I was doing when I started freelancing. I just did it. I followed my interests, and my instincts, and kept knocking on doors. Some opened, some remained closed. When I started freelancing, music journalism was the only kind I did. Gradually, other interests took hold, and now music is one of many topics that I write about. I’d likely never have found these other interests, or that I could write about them, unless I’d started with music, though. So don’t be afraid to specialise early. You never know where your career will lead if you just keep at it.

    7. Hunger can’t be learned, only encouraged. You, and you alone, must be hungry enough to want to succeed. This is an inbuilt character trait, I believe – you can’t be taught to be hungry. You’ve got to be serious, and dedicate yourself to your work, if you want to succeed at freelancing.

    8. Your professional reputation is everything. Guard it with your life. Act with integrity at all times. Don’t do things in private that you wouldn’t be comfortable with, if it became public.

    9. Make a list of the best practitioners in your field; your favourites. Consume their work over and over. Work out why you like them and what they do that appeals to you. Then think about how you can put an original spin on their approach, or their approaches. It’ll take you a while to find your style and voice in any creative medium – writing, photography, comedy, illustrations. Don’t rush it. I’m not even sure if you can rush it, anyway. It’s a process that can’t be short-cut.

    10. Surround yourself with allies. Not necessarily other freelancers. Not necessarily people working in the same field as you. But you should start building up a support network, and regularly keep in touch with as many of those people as you can, because some of your best work will arise from one-off meetings or incidental friendships. Allies are important because freelancing is generally a solitary activity. Everyone needs to communicate with others at some stage. Best to start early.

    11. Be wary of anyone who glamourises the so-called “freelance lifestyle”. Most of freelancing is incredibly mundane. Seriously. Most of my days are spent alone at the computer. Some weeks I don’t even leave the house during my workdays. But there are definitely occasional glimmers of awesomeness that remind you why you’re doing this, and why you love it. Don’t get me wrong, freelancing is great, but to a certain extent it’s a job just like any other. There will be days when you won’t want to do any work. However, if you can push yourself to work even on those shitty days, you’ll eventually be a great freelancer.

    12. Don’t talk so much online. Just do good work, make meaningful connections, and be pleasant to everyone you meet behind the scenes. Try not to buy too much into meaningless talk-fests on Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately, you are the only person standing between success and failure. While you’re tweeting away your workdays, your freelance competition is quietly beating you. Don’t give them the chance.

    Elsewhere: I participated in the freelance panel at the Walkley Foundation’s last MediaPass student day in September 2011, too. Footage and text here.

  • Stilts journal submission: ‘Home is where I live and work’, September 2011

    I was asked to submit a piece for the first issue of a Brisbane literary journal named Stilts. The brief was short: I could write about anything, as long as it began with ‘Home is where…’. I decided to write frankly about what it’s like to work from home, which I’ve been doing on and off for over two years.

    I’ve included the full text below; click here to check out the rest of the Stilts issue, which includes an excellent piece from John Birmingham. Illustration by Merilyn Smith.

    Home is where I live and work

    Business and leisure, both rolled into the one location. This has benefits and costs. Benefit: No early-morning, cross-town commute. Cost: If I don’t have any meetings scheduled, I generally don’t leave the house. There’s a point each day—usually about 2pm—where I become thoroughly disgusted with myself and have to change out of my pyjamas. Benefit: A dedicated, comfortable workspace that’s free from distraction. Theoretically. Cost: Every form of entertainment imaginable is never more than a few footsteps or mouse clicks away from that same workspace.

    I am a freelance journalist. I’ve been doing this full time for almost a year. Monday to Friday I research, pitch, interview for, and write stories. I try to adhere to the business hours of the ‘real world’ so that I can interact with people at their workplaces. People, like editors, who determine my weekly income.

    I often feel as though I’m living outside the system. I can pinpoint this feeling on my choice to not partake in the work commute. I’ve been there before, and found that the cyclical nature of that process—a joyless hour or two that’s essentially lost to the sands of time—was a massive drain on my creativity and optimism. Occasionally, I feel guilty for living outside this daily ritual. I don’t take my ability to roll out of bed whenever the hell I feel like it for granted; more often than not, I feel like a cheat, a scoundrel, for having arranged my life in this way. If I’m to fully understand the world as a journalist and capture that understanding in my writing, it’s important to be able to relate to my fellow man.

    I’ve blocked off Saturday as my ‘PC-free day’. Before I made this decision, the laptop was the biggest source of anxiety in my life. I’m not an anxious person but the laptop is the source of my entire income. My mindset was something like, if I’m not using the laptop, I’m not getting paid. I need to get paid to continue living my life outside of the system. Now that Saturday is my PC-free day, I only feel this anxiety six days a week, not seven.

    Ultimately, the fact that I live and work in Brisbane is largely inconsequential. When I’m at home, working, I could be anywhere in the world. All I need is my laptop, a sturdy desk, a strong internet connection, a comfortable chair, and loud speakers. Everything else is a bonus. With those five components in place, I’m content.

    Brisbane is convenient. I know a lot of people here. There are a lot of stories to be told here. I don’t have enough experience living elsewhere to compare Brisbane’s creative communities to any another. But I know from experience that Brisbane is a fine place for a freelance journalist to call home.

    For more Stilts, visit their website. Thanks to editor Katia Pase for inviting me to write.

  • Meg White asks: How do I approach pitching as a freelancer?

    Meg White is my favourite young Brisbane writer. She’s relocated to Sydney to write for Australian Penthouse in recent months, but that’s a minor formality in a nascent, yet distinguished career. Highlights? She wrote an amazing live review of Brisbane rock band Hits, launched a brilliant war against The Courier-Mail’s shoddy online music journalism [full series of posts here – read from bottom], and tore to shreds a decidedly average Butcher Birds live review I wrote for Mess+Noise last October.

    Meg asked:

    Hey Andrew,

    I have a question for you, seeing as you’re the most successful freelancer I know of. When you contact publications, do you make a general enquiry about their freelancing capacity, do you pitch them stories or do you offer to sell them content you’ve already written?

    I’ve been toying with the idea of getting involved in the freelance world because there’s no clause in my contract about writing for competing publications, and while I’ve been poking around and talking to people, these seem to be the three main approaches used. Just wondering which one works best for you.

    I replied:

    Hey Meg,

    This is how I approach pitching new publications.

    1. Find the name of the editor.
    2. Try to find someone who knows her/him, and ask whether they’re able to give me a quick email intro to the editor.
    3. If this approach succeeds and someone intros me, I jump into the email convo and ask whether the editor is open to freelance pitches.
    4. Failing that acquaintance-intro tactic, I write a quick intro mentioning my bylines, link to my published work, and ask whether they are open to pitches.
    5. From there, it’s usually a clear-cut ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

    I find that just outright pitching stories, without any kind of preamble, looks (and feels, to me) rude. I try to picture the response of the editor on the other end. ‘Who is this person, and why do I care?’ *delete*

    I have found that every editor who responds to my enquiry (whether intro’d through a third party or not) is upfront about their freelance budget. Most are happy to see story ideas – that is their job, or at least a big part of it, to commission stories – but some will state that it’s rare for freelance pitches to be approved. Which is part of the challenge, of course, and it’s nice to see an initial ‘no, we don’t take freelancers’ turn into a ‘well, that’s a good idea’ after a few weeks/months of persistence.

    In response to the third approach you mentioned – I have never written content before it is commissioned. I do not intend to. I don’t like the idea of spending time on something when I’m unsure whether I’ll be paid for it. You know?

    Thanks for the message. I kinda wish you didn’t smoke and drink so much, but then, your writing mightn’t be half as interesting if you didn’t put yourself in those situations.

    More of Meg at Uberwensch.

    More on the topic of pitching stories to newspapers and magazines in these excellent blog posts by freelance writer/editor Rachel Hills.

    And more questions about freelance writing answered – eventually – if you ask me.

  • A Conversation With Craig Mathieson, Australian music journalist

    Craig Mathieson, Australian music journalistI wrote recently that Craig Mathieson wears the crown of Australian rock journalism. Allow me to elaborate. He’s recently released Playlisted: Everything You Need To Know About Australian Music Right Now, his third music-related book, and his byline has regularly appeared in Rolling Stone, Juice, Mess+Noise, and Fairfax news publications. He’s even got a Wikipedia entry.

    Craig, at this point in your career, which writers do you view as your contemporaries?

    My contemporaries are simply the good writers, those who have a voice and critical faculties. In terms of age that group is all over the place. Most are younger ; I named Shaun Prescott, Tim Finney and Emmy Hennings as talented examples on my blog. A few are older – I’m 38 years old. And I’m still flummoxed that someone decided to knock up a Wikipedia entry for me.

    You stand as an example that it’s possible to earn a decent living as a full-time freelance music journalist in this country. Am I right, or do you have another job on the side to supplement your writing?

    I’ve freelanced full-time for twenty years, but it’s been divided between music and film. In the music scene I’m a veteran, in film I’m still something of a kid. My career to date comes in two parts: 1989 to 1999, which was very music-orientated, mainly in Sydney; burn out and a corporate sojourn at Sony Music during 2000 and the first half of 2001; back to Melbourne and dividing my time between film and music ever since.

    The way film and music writers/critics are considered is chalk and cheese. Everyone has a film critic, but the idea of a music critic – as opposed to the music writer who might pen the odd review – being on staff is anathema. I was the film critic for The Bulletin, the ACP-owned news weekly, from 2002 until it closed in January of 2008, and that was an absolute pleasure.

    Having two disciplines to write about has also made me a stronger critic – it gets you thinking about the work you’re appraising in different ways.

    Do you think it’s still possible for freelance writers to earn a decent living in 2009?

    I’m sure it would still be possible today for freelance writers to swim upstream as it were, but there’s the question of what they’re striving for? There are very few secure full-time jobs at the end of the rainbow and not everyone is comfortable doing the freelance shuffle, because there’s not a safety net present.

    Playlisted by Craig Mathieson, featuring Gareth Liddiard of The Drones on the cover

    Though you mostly focus on how the musicians profiled in Playlisted sound and appear, I noticed the occasional comment about demographics and marketability. Is the marketing/promotion side of the industry of particular interest to you?

    It does interest me, because it impacts on how music is perceived and sometimes, to the artist’s detriment, it can be the defining element of someone’s career, as opposed to the actual music they produce.

    Before playlisted.com.au, a blog created when Playlisted was released, you’d not blogged elsewhere. Why?

    I didn’t have the time or the inclination. I knock out a fair few words every week and I’m focused on maintaining a decent standard of living for my family – marriage/mortgage/offspring tends to refocus a lot of younger freelancers and move them onwards; I have a stubborn streak. Even now, doing the blog for Playlisted, I’m sporadic at best.

    Aside from Mess+Noise, you seem to write exclusively for print. Aside from the fact that its publications pay better, what do you enjoy about writing for print?

    As a freelancer, you can’t underestimate how important “pay better” is, but aside from that I’m attracted to the audience size, which is pretty sizable when you file for The Age or the Sydney Morning Herald. I’m also a traditionalist, in that almost every day of my life since the age of 12 I’ve read one of those two Fairfax titles, so to be a part of them now is very satisfying.

    Which are you favourite music blogs, both Australian and otherwise?

    Mainly the online voices of writers whose work I already enjoy, be it Simon Reynolds or Anwyn Crawford. I don’t have much time for the blogs that are focused on being first – first review, first streaming – with something. “First-ism” grows dull quickly.

    You wrote most of Playlisted in the summer of 2008. How much editing and revision was required between then and its November publication?

    There was a sturdy editing process, then proofing, for a solid period between April and June. I’m not the cleanest writer and I’ve never been much of a sub myself, so I’m sure it needed work (“needs more,” I’m sure someone will snort). But after that it entered a kind of publishing limbo until November, when finished copies appeared and the whole release/promotion rigmarole kicked off.

    Craig Mathieson

    When writing, are you much of a procrastinator?

    It can take me a while to start, but once I do I tend to find a groove very easily and I work quickly, until finishing, after that. It’s rare that I junk a draft – most pieces come together reasonably smoothly.

    As for procrastinating at the start, unless I’m under extreme deadline pressure then I actually try to take the time to enjoy it. Sometimes it’s worth letting your mind wander a little, you might have a far better lede than that intricate one you’ve been obsessively plotting just come to you.

    Finally, what’s thrilling your ears lately?

    I’ve been compiling end of year lists for various publications, so this week’s scope has been a little wider than an ordinary week, but in terms of recent releases I’m enjoying Fuck Buttons, Whitley, Denim Owl and Rihanna.

    I genuinely like pop music and I write about commercial releases quite frequently – to me that’s part of a critic’s job, to try and take everything in and see what may or may connect the mainstream and the alternative scenes. I get frustrated that some younger critics are almost specialists, they can become completely niche-orientated. I’d love to read them taking on something completely outside the aesthetic they’re drawn to.

    Thanks Craig. I highly recommend Playlisted; buy a copy here. Keep an eye on Craig’s blog here.

  • The Music Network story: ‘For The Record: An Album Retrospective Part 5’, August 2009

    In the final piece of a five-part puzzle, Andrew McMillen examines the digitally-inspired shift in consumer habits away from the long-established album format. After speaking to passionate Australian artists like Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Urthboy and Eleventh He Reaches London last week, Andrew verbally prods two innovative Brisbane-based acts who have turned the album-release expectation on its head.

    Were this album-centric article series an actual album, we’d have since bypassed the hit singles, the forgettable middle filler, and the surprising experimental freak-outs. This’d be track twelve; the last gasp that’s strategically-placed to reward the attentive hard-core of fans. Luckily, reader, track twelve is this metaphorical album’s hidden gem: it describes two Queensland acts who’re subverting the traditional cycle in favour of a flexibility that benefits both artist and fan. Press play and get comfortable, won’t you?

    Drawn From Bees: animal loversBrisbane natives Drawn From Bees [pictured right] are riding a healthy buzz following their recent national tour and more than a few nods of approval from Triple J. The art-rock four-piece have self-imposed an interesting alternative release strategy: a new record every six months. Explains bassist Stew Riddle: “Over a few drinks after our first rehearsal last year, we decided to use the fact that we’re a band of four songwriters to our advantage, and aim for a prolific introduction to the band. We felt that it would be interesting to break from the new-band cycle of ‘release an EP, tour for 6-12 months, release another EP’, and instead try to put something out every six months.” But the Bees are in a unique situation that encourages frequent releases; Riddle admits: “Dan, our singer, is also a producer, so we can afford to record very cheaply. If we had to hire studio and producer time, it might be a very different story.”

    Two EPs into their two-year experiment, Riddle contemplates the band’s feeling toward the album format: “I tend not to think about what we’re doing in terms of working towards an album, as to me, the length is largely irrelevant. I feel that each record needs to make a statement, and to be a snapshot of where the band is at that particular time. Our third release is looking to be an 8 or 9 track record that has a more melancholy flavour. Is it an album or an EP? We don’t know, so we’ll just call it a record and let other people decide!”

    When asked where he thinks the album format belongs in the future of music, Riddle is sceptical. “It’s a hard one to judge. It seems that while the physical single is dead, the digital single is now king. No one buys albums anymore, but if you look on my friends’ mp3 player, they tend to collect not just full records, but full catalogues of acts that they love. I think that the album will live on. Certainly, at least in the sense of releasing bodies of music that make various statements at different points in an act’s career. Does it mean that the length of an album will remain between 30 and 70 minutes? Maybe not. Musicians aren’t constrained by the format anymore; vinyl and plastic don’t dictate the length.” With a fourth release due around Christmas to bring the four-EP commitment to a close, what’s next for Drawn From Bees? “We’ll probably do an album. Or a greatest hits box collection, who knows?” laughs Riddle.

    From a regular-release ideal to a staggered album: meet Brisbane indie rock band 26 [pictured below left], who’re midway through an ambitious project to release a twelve-track album in three-song installments every three months. After releasing two albums in the standard manner since their 2005 debut The King Must Die, singer/guitarist Nick O’Donnell explains the genesis of the concept dubbed 26×365: “We don’t sell all that many hard copies anymore, so we decided to release the next album in small portions. We were finding that people were buying singular songs rather than the whole albums off of iTunes.”

    Each of the four parts to 26×365 is priced at $3.39. O’Donnell continues: “We thought maybe we could package a couple of songs together at a lower price point and you could get people buying them because they think they’re getting a bargain, as they’re getting three songs for the price of two. By April next year we’ll have the twelve songs that you can buy as a whole product, but our true fans can get the songs every three months. This allows us to introduce the songs gradually into our live set; in terms of the record, it’s like our fans are coming along for the ride.”

    26: averse to smiling

    With the new release, the band are aiming to reduce the comparative tedium that they’ve experienced with past releases. “It’s not like the situation where the band records the whole album and they’re already already kind of over the songs; you know, you’ve already been playing the songs for a year or so. As an artist, you get to the end of the album process and the songs aren’t fresh for you, but they are for the public. So you’re pretending that they’re new to you, but they’re not.”

    The band’s website further addresses the reasoning behind the project. Perhaps unwittingly, 26 have put their heads together and specified a bold manifesto for independent artists the world over. 26 state:

    Unless you’re Coldplay, Metallica or Andre Rieu, the one thing a band must do is maintain momentum. Peoples’ attention span is becoming shorter and shorter, so we want to be attracting CONSISTENT attention.

    The 26×365 release process will allow:

    1. New material to the audience, but not so quickly that it will lose its impact.
    2. Offer a time-based point of interest for the band
    3. Allow the audience to see how we are progressing as a band
    4. New content for an entire year, including pictures, videos, blogs, and give aways
    5. New gig material for an entire year and having it ready for consumption on iTunes. No waiting for the whole album to be released.

    The purpose of this article series is not to eulogise the demise of the album, or to bemoan the recording industry’s omissions. Instead, it’s to highlight that right now is a better time than ever to consider the ideal manner in which to distribute music to an artist’s fanbase. For independent artists, a direct artist-fan (one-to-one) connection may be the most appropriate business avenue. For bigger artists – the aforementioned Coldplays and Andre Rieus – a one-to-many, traditional distribution method may still be the ideal outcome. The keyword in this discussion is choice. Not only do customers now have the ability to choose how they consume music with more freedom than ever before; now, artists are privy to a wealth of release strategies, business models, digital distributors, while still retaining the option to engage in traditional physical product manufacturing and distribution.

    “A lot of purists tend to complain now that an album’s artwork is gone. I think it’s really great, because what has gone is all the shit surrounding the music. You can still get the music itself, so you’re getting the purest version of the art, because it’s just the music. It’s nothing else.” – Nick O’Donnell, 26.

    Brisbane-based Andrew McMillen writes for several Australian music publications. He can be found on Twitter (@NiteShok) and online at http://andrewmcmillen.com/

    (Note: This is part five of an article series that first appeared in weekly Australian music industry magazine The Music Network issue #748, July 27th 2009. Read the rest of the series: part one, part two, part three, and part four)

  • The Music Network story: “For The Record: An Album Retrospective Part 4”, August 2009

    In the fourth piece of a five-part puzzle, Andrew McMillen examines the digitally-inspired shift in consumer habits away from the long-established album format. This week, Andrew quits hypothesising, and instead speaks to those responsible for history’s loved and loathed albums: musicians!

    In the last three weeks, we’ve indulged in much reminiscing and theorising on the value of the album format in an era of unparalleled consumer choice. “The track has been disengaged from the album!” “Artists shouldn’t automatically sprint toward the album endpoint as a result of historical programming!” “It’s easier to choose to part with around a dollar for a song you’ll love, rather than $15-20 for an unfamiliar collection!” You’re familiar with these arguments, professed from this writer’s listener/critic position. But, er – what about the artists themselves? The ones who make music? Where do they think the album belongs in 2009?

    Hungry Kids Of Hungary: Bigger fish to fryBrisbane’s Hungry Kids Of Hungary [pictured right] write hook-heavy songs that’re informed by a studious observation of the pop legends of generations past. Their two EPs have attracted radio attention, festival slots and, most recently, a Q Song award nomination. Are they treading down the pop-proven album release path? “We sure are!” replies singer/keyboardist Kane Mazlin. “We’re currently demoing and writing songs for a debut album. Like most independent bands, it’s a matter of balancing time and finance as to when we will record and release, but we’re certainly hoping to be in a studio within three months. I think it’s just a natural progression for us to put our ideas down on a long player. It will give us more scope to present ourselves more accurately, which is something we’ve only been able to touch on when creating EPs.”

    No surprise, then, that the Hungry Kids are album purists. Drummer Ryan Strathie explains: “Artists put a lot into creating an album as an entire piece – a single song is only one part of the album puzzle. I think it’s crucial for an album to be experienced in full, artwork and all. For me, its just not the same without the whole package.” Strathie cautions, however: “Artists – big or small – need to take responsibility for the quality they put out. If you can’t put out 10 great songs, then don’t do an album! It’s obvious that people will still buy a record if it’s any good; too many artists maximise on a single song or a hit and put out an entire album, even if it’s not good enough.” He concludes: “People aren’t stupid, they have been burnt!”

    From young upcomers to an established act: Perth’s Eleventh He Reaches London [pictured below left] have forged a respectable name for themselves at the intersection of the nation’s hard-rock, metal and hardcore communities. Their 2005 debut album The Good Fight For Harmony preceded 2009’s Hollow Be My Name, for which the five-piece received a $13,000 recording grant from the Western Australian Department Of Culture And Arts. Drummer Mark Donaldson rationalises the decision to release music in this manner: “We never really gave any thought to releasing an EP or singles, because we believe that you can get more enjoyment out of our band across an album. We wanted to release something that was quite cohesive, and had some continuity, with a good hour-long running time.”

    Eleventh He Reaches London: simply red“I’m still a huge fan of putting on an album and listening to it all the way through. It’s very rare to experience an album that you can listen to from start to finish, and not get bored. It’s very rare to experience that, and it’s one of the things you look forward to in life, as a music fan – that next band that you’ll become completely obsessed with.” When questioned about the free MP3 downloads offered on the band’s Last.FM profile, Donaldson continues: “It’s still good for people to be able to download a song in reasonable quality, just in case they are thinking about downloading the full album. Because we’ve basically arrived at the situation where you can download a song for free, get a feel for the quality of it, and then decide whether you want to waste your bandwidth on it!”

    We laugh at the madness of trying to explain the rationing of 60-100 megabytes to a music fan fifteen years ago. But how does he feel about fans of the band who purport to love their music, but who’ve never bought anything from the band? “There’s no ill feelings toward those who don’t pay. What I don’t like is when people download the album, love it, but then don’t attend a show when we’re near them. That really cheeses me off, because touring is such a massive effort. You look forward to sharing the music with the audience, and that’s what playing live is all about. Being able to share your love of your songs with others.”

    As co-founder of the Elefant Traks label and a renowned hip-hop artist in his own right, Sydney’s Urthboy [pictured below right] understands the record business better than most. Born Tim Levinson, his third album Spitshine is due in August 2009. He reasons: “I love the idea of the album because it allows an artist to make a little book, rather than a short chapter. I completely respect that people receive music in their preferred form, but as an artist I think the whole LP is worth holding onto. The album allows the artist to stretch out a bit, and from that perspective you’re able to tell a better story.”

    Urthboy: both dapper and chipperIt’s a valid comment, given that hip-hop song structures are perhaps more reliant on narrative than their rock counterparts. When asked about digital distribution’s effect on the album format, Levinson concedes: “It’s slowly changing people’s attitudes and expectations toward consumption of music. We’re in a transition period where albums retain a huge significance – but some signs suggest it’s disappearing. Stranger things have happened and trends don’t always result in their predicted outcome, though.”

    Levinson’s position at the helm of Elefant Traks informs his optimistic wisdom. When asked whether Elefant Traks have adopted alternative release strategies to album delivery, he responds: “We’ve discussed it a lot; I want to keep open-minded about it. One of our key methods of promotion is bundling as many activities into the one ad spend. Usually this is simple: the album and the tour. We’re a record label, but we’re also a default management company – we spend money to invest in the artist who hopefully invests in themselves, and in turn helps us sell their records. Touring is not lucrative across the board – that’s an industry myth – but it forms part of the overall picture. The point I’m getting at, is that not every artist can simply put out a few songs regularly, sling ’em to radio, excite the public’s imagination and wait for the money to roll in. There are significant costs associated with any release, whether EP or album. The public may like the freedom of picking and choosing but I don’t believe they’ve fallen out of love with the album yet. Singles aren’t for everybody, but our music industry is; there’s no use writing eulogies at this point in time.”

    It’s worth reinforcing that the purpose of this column series is not to eulogise the album as a whole. Rather, it’s to highlight that digital distribution has allowed listeners to choose how they consume music, and musicians to choose how to deliver their creations to listeners. Next week, we’ll meet some artists who’re rejecting the album-release expectation in favour of innovation, and look to a bright future where musical expression isn’t necessarily confined to 10-12 tracks.

    Brisbane-based Andrew McMillen writes for several Australian music publications. He can be found on Twitter (@NiteShok) and online at http://andrewmcmillen.com/

    (Note: This is part four of an article series that first appeared in weekly Australian music industry magazine The Music Network issue #747, July 20th 2009. Read the rest of the series: part one, part two, part three, and part five)

  • The Music Network story: “For The Record: An Album Retrospective Part 3”, August 2009

    In the third piece of a five-part puzzle, Andrew McMillen examines the digitally-inspired shift in consumer habits away from the long-established album format. This week, Andrew ruminates on the death of a pop icon, worldwide grief counselling through iTunes’ figurative cash register, and recent digital sales trends.

    One of the joys of writing on a short schedule is the agility with which weekly publications such as The Music Network can relate to current occurrences. After tracing the history of recorded music in the last two weeks – from technological advances, to the reduced reliance on singular album entities in favour of a more liquid, portable state – a significant event in musical history occurred. Thursday, June 25 2009 found Michael Jackson dead, aged 50.

    The grieving process translated into an outpouring of public reminiscence, which resulted in astounding sales figures for Jackson’s back catalogue. According to Billboard.com, US sales figures put the singer’s album sales for the week ending June 28 at 422,000, of which 225,000 were digital sales. A staggering 2.3 million individual song downloads found Jackson far and away the first act to sell more than a million downloads in a week. Within Australian shores, the disparity between albums and singles was curiously less noticeable: Jackson’s album and single sales were placed at 62,015 and 107,821, respectively, according to Undercover.com.au, while in another strange, archaic turn, only one out of every five Michael Jackson albums sold in Australia last week were digitally downloaded.

    Goodnight, sweet princeRegardless, Jackson’s enormous sales in the US simply couldn’t have eventuated ten years ago. Record stores inventories would’ve been exhausted across the country, and compact disc factories would’ve rushed to press more discs to meet the demand. Both of these outcomes still eventuated, but instead of experiencing weeks-long delays, music consumers have the option of instant online gratification: his 2.3 million download count resulted in six Jackson tracks appearing in the Billboard top ten.

    The Jackson phenomenon highlights several points central to the discussion raised in this column series. First, consumer choices are trending away from the album as the favoured mechanism of music release. Choice is key here: it’s easier to choose to part with around a dollar for a song that you’ll love, rather than parting with $15-20 for an unfamiliar collection. If money is no object to the consumer, then time surely is: as industry analyst Bob Lefsetz phrased it in his July 5th, 2009 Lefsetz.com column, “Who’s got the time to listen to an hour of music that you’re not truly interested in when there are all these other diversions that fascinate you?”

    Second, the popularity of digital music sales continues to snowball the trend away from the album as the industry’s singular organising principle. The modern music consumer can now purchase music from her home, without being subject to an array external factors while travelling to the record store. This operates in a similar manner to the ease with which she can cherry-pick her favourite songs from an online store, and ignore the rest, A simple point to make, but it’s worth reinforcing that digital distribution is the spark that set alight the consumer’s reliance on the album.

    Finally, a startling counter to the arguments that copyright theft is the primary factor crippling record labels’ established business models. In the period between Jackson’s June 25 death and July 1, streaming media analysts at VisibleMeasures.com report that combined views of the “Thriller” music video totalled in excess of 28 million. Considering that his aggregate single-song sales during the same period were 2.3 million – and just 167,000 for that particular track – it’s somewhat surprising that less than 10% of his fans chose to buy his music, and instead opted to stream it for free. But to step back within the boundaries of this discussion, let’s discount Jackson’s untimely demise and instead examine recent digital sales trends.

    The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) – comprising 1400 record companies in around 70 countries – released their annual Digital Music Report in January 2009. This report quickly became infamous within the recording industry, as media hurled themselves upon the IFPI’s estimation that, after collating studies in 16 countries over a three-year period, over 40 billion music files were illegally file-shared in 2008, which resulted in copyright theft rate of around 95%.

    But to focus on the near-past so as to not bore you with figures, here’s five key points garnered from the IFPI’s report on the international digital music business in 2008:

    • The digital music industry saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by an estimated 25% to US$3.7 billion in trade value
    • Digital platforms now account for around 20% of recorded music sales, up from 15% in 2007
    • Single track downloads, up 24% in 2008 to 1.4 billion units globally, continue to drive the online market, while digital album sales grew 36%
    • Consumer demand for music is higher than ever – NPD research found that total music consumption in the US rose by one third between 2003 and 2007

    The typical music listener, as imagined by marketing execs everywhereAt a national level, ARIA’s 2008 figures revealed that:

    • Physical sales declined from 51,866,917 to 44,438,874 (down 14%)
    • Digital sales overall rose from 47,267,034 to 128,532,126 (up 171%)
    • Digital album sales rose from 788,316 to 2,853,040 (up 261%)
    • Digital track sales rose from 17,647,057 to 23,464,576 (up 32%)

    It’s important to distinguish the disparity between album and track sales. While digital album sales experienced growth in Australia, they were still outsold nearly ten-to-one by single digital tracks. Why? In an era of musical abundance and complete portability, the consumer is spoiled for choice. We live in an age where you can experience “Thriller” for around a dollar, with a minimum of fuss – or you can stream it from YouTube, if you’d prefer. Freed from the constraints of physical products, we’re able to sample sounds before purchasing so as to reduce the rampant buyer’s remorse that we both feel while casting our eyes across our music collections.

    The record industry marketplace has fundamentally changed for content creators and consumers. To pound a cliché into your head: the internet has theoretically afforded any artist the chance reach your iPod earbuds. The barriers to entering the recording industry have been lowered, and the costs of bedroom production and online distribution are trending toward zero. As a result, it’s unreasonable for artists and labels to continue propagating an album-release business model that’s so firmly rooted in the past.

    But what about the present? I’m glad you asked, as part four of this five-piece puzzle will find me removing my hats marked “boring history” and “boring sales figures”. In their place, I’ll hatlessly hammer the thoughts that current musicians feel toward my incessant prodding of the album; that alleged, proverbial dead horse. Expect well-articulated rock-posturing, before part five finds us exploding in an orgy of alternative release models, innovative case studies and an unerring optimism for a recording industry who’ll eventually realise that as music fans, all we really want is our favourite artists to release great music as often as possible.

    Brisbane-based Andrew McMillen writes for several Australian music publications. He can be found on Twitter (@NiteShok) and online at http://andrewmcmillen.com/

    (Note: This is part three of an article series that first appeared in weekly Australian music industry magazine The Music Network issue #746, July 13th 2009. Read the rest of the series: part onepart two, part four, and part five)

  • The Music Network story: ‘For The Record: An Album Retrospective Part 2’, July 2009

    In the second piece of a five-part puzzle, Andrew McMillen examines the digitally-inspired shift in consumer habits away from the long-established album format. This week, Andrew highlights portable playlist control as a key component in the reduced reliance placed upon the album by music consumers.

    In last week’s column, I discussed the history of the album format, from the revolutionary, 45 minute-long LP through to the rising costs of compact discs. Now, take your imagination on a mental walk to your music collection. Stand before the shelves and admire your beloved classics, your blinding debuts, your middling sophomores, your utter disappointments, and the hidden atrocities that you’re embarrassed to have purchased.

    There’s an enormous nostalgia value attached to your record collection, whether in actual LP format or CDs. Few cultural topics are as divisive and subjective as one’s music taste. I’m certainly not writing off the value of the album in its entirety; that’d be madness. But why is it that you fondly fondle some albums, and not others? To use a cricketing metaphor: why do some releases hit you for six, while others barely make the length of the pitch?

    So, what'll it be? Barenaked Ladies or Pink Floyd? (photo credit flickr user gsimmonsonca)To elaborate on the latter example: picture the average album you’d buy from a store – perhaps not in this era, since both CD shelf space and CD merchants continue to dwindle – but ten years ago. Hypothetically, the disc is likely to be front-loaded with some great songs. They’re the ones that you’re likely to have heard before you bought the album. These strategically-placed songs are the ones that either – or both – the band and record label wanted you to hear first and enjoy first.

    Then you’d get to the second half of the album and, more than likely, you’d find a dramatic reduction in the quality of songwriting. As with any conversation regarding music, this is an entirely subjective topic of discussion, but there’s not a music fan reading who hasn’t experienced the phenomenon of an album’s proverbial tail failing to wag.

    As I wrote last week, the recorded music industry has revolved around the album for decades. Record deals, release schedules, pricing structure, the touring cycle, the catchy lead single, album reviews; these choreographed industry institutions are all funneled toward the end goal of selling albums. Music consumers were tied to the album format as a force of habit, since it was by far the most convenient method to listen to music. In the LP era, it was easier to let an album play from beginning to end, rather than painstakingly searching for the groove that contained the beginning of your favourite tracks.

    But portability heralded a substantial change in listening habits; the now-ubiquitous MP3 audio compression algorithm was a mere twinkle in German audio scientists’ eyes when Sony released the Walkman to the public in 1979. The device used cassette tapes, which allowed listeners to use headphones to play audio recordings while on the move. This led to label-released albums and singles finding a wide audience, and the proliferation of home taping from sources such as the radio, television, and your existing record collection. The ‘mixtape’ was born!

    The Walkman’s successor, Sony’s Discman, was released in 1984. The CD-based player allowed a greater freedom from the comparably imprecise Walkman method of fast-forwarding and rewinding through a cassette to find your favourite tracks. But the device was still tied to the concept of the album: while songs could be played in a ‘random’ order – an important precursor to Apple’s iPod Shuffle – it could only handle a disc at a time.

    Forward-thinking, back-looking. (photo credit flickr user Neil101)That listening habit was exploded when CD burning technology allowed listeners to compile the circular equivalent of mixtapes, without the cassette-associated fuss. As the audio filetype known as MP3 became easier for the masses to acquire online, consumer attitudes to music further deviated from the past when the first digital audio players became available in the late 1990s.

    Commonly known as MP3 players, these devices allowed a user to transfer CDs encoded in the MP3 audio filetype onto a portable hard drive that could play the files. For the first time, a listener could store their favourite songs in a portable format that could be ordered on-the-fly, as desired. No rewinding or fast-forwarding, no moving parts; control had been placed into the fan’s hands.

    Several unremarkable forays into the digital audio player market from Rio and Compaq set the stage for Apple, whose first generation, exclusively Mac-compatible iPod debuted in October 2001. A Windows-friendly version of the device followed in 2002; frequently-released incremental iterations have boosted its worldwide sales in excess of 210 million, according to the Associated Press.

    Apple’s success in the digital audio player market can be attributed to their user-friendly design and savvy marketing. Their devices satisfied a demand for portable music that’d gathered momentum since the Walkman’s debut. The twin Apple successes of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store – which will be covered in greater depth next week – are evidence that listeners prize portable playlist control, after decades of passively absorbing albums from start to end.

    This newfound control is central to understanding the shift from albums as the key organising principle behind music dissemination. Industry analyst Bob Lefsetz wrote on his Lefsetz Letter website in August 2006: “The track has been disengaged from the album. The label wants an album budget, producers, a full-length that they can charge in the neighborhood of ten dollars wholesale for. No matter that no radio station goes deep and neither do the fans.”

    He’s hinting at the killer-versus-filler argument that’s as old as the industry itself. While there’ll always be pleasure gained by experiencing a classy, calculated collection of songs from beginning to end – see Perth post-hardcore act Eleventh He Reaches London‘s 2009 release, for example – writers like Lefsetz and myself argue that the record industry’s unending fascination with the album as the definitive musical product is misleading and erroneous.

    The record industry’s perceived market expectations are the driving force behind the unending push for more albums. This wouldn’t be problematic – for artists, labels, or listeners – if real supply met perceived demand. Instead, album sales have declined worldwide, while sales of individual songs – key singles often released to radio so as to promote an album – continue to climb.

    Oh god, get it off me! (photo credit flickr user pinkbelt)In 2009, artists shouldn’t automatically sprint toward the album endpoint as a result of historical programming. Their creative output shouldn’t be stretched to meet the 45 minute/12 track (whichever comes first) expectation, just so that the parties involved can proudly call it an album. In an era where more music is being written, recorded and performed each day than at any other point in history, an artist shouldn’t throw together words, chords and beats just to meet an expectation built upon a decades-old concept.

    The question that I put forth is simple: why continue to push acts toward the goal of the album release, instead of working with artists to determine the most appropriate method of releasing their recorded work? Next week, I’ll further investigate the divide between the recording industry’s historical expectations and current consumer habits.

    Brisbane-based Andrew McMillen writes for several Australian music publications. He can be found on Twitter (@NiteShok) and online at http://andrewmcmillen.com/

    (Note: This is part two of an article series that first appeared in weekly Australian music industry magazine The Music Network issue #745, July 6th 2009. Read the rest of the series: part onepart threepart four and part five)

  • The Music Network story: ‘For The Record: An Album Retrospective Part 1’, July 2009

    In a five-part series, Andrew McMillen will examine the digitally-inspired shift in consumer habits away from the long-established album format. He begins with the history surrounding the album, and the hints at the consumer unease that has led to its reduced importance within the remodeled recording industry.

    Cast your mind back 10 years.

    As a music fan in 1999, you’d read music magazines and listen to the radio to garner information regarding upcoming releases from your favourite artists. You’d talk about your expectations and predictions to your friends in person, and strangers online. You’d hear the lead single on the radio and see it on the television a couple of weeks before the album was due. You’d visit your favourite record store on launch day and pay $20-30 to own the compact disc containing an act’s latest music and artwork.

    Shawn Fanning on the cover of Time Magazine. Intimidating!Or if you were really cluey, you’d use an online software application called Napster to find a fan who’d encoded the CD into the MP3 format. You’d download the CD from them for $0.

    1999 was the year that the recording industry was irreversibly changed by Napster, which circumvented the needs of millions of music fans worldwide. No longer were we forced to travel to a record store during business hours in order to buy a CD. Instead, we could download the audio in passable quality from our homes, burn the data onto a blank CD, and freely distribute these recordings to our friends.

    The recording industry’s response to the Napster quandary is well-documented elsewhere, and it’s not the focus of this series of columns. Instead, we’re investigating the history of the album, which is commonly known as a recording of different musical pieces.

    But why the album? How come we’re so used to artists releasing a collection of ten to fifteen songs every couple of years, comprising between 30 and 80 minutes of music?

    It first appeared a hundred years ago. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite was released by the German label Odeon in 1909. The first album in the history of the recording industry comprised four double-sided 78 RPM discs, and was sold in a collection that resembled a photo album.

    These recordings were a big deal at the time. You could use a record player to listen to music in your home, at your leisure! Crikey!

    Then came the 33 1/3 RPM vinyl discs known as LPs. Short for long-play, LPs were first mass produced by Columbia Records in 1948 and came in two diameters: 10- and 12-inch. The latter format was initially reserved for premium-priced Broadway theatre and classical recordings, while popular music appeared solely on 10-inch discs. This early discrepancy in the history was caused by record company executives, who misjudged the commercial appeal of non-Broadway and classical recordings. By the mid-1950s, the 10-inch LP was discontinued. It reappeared in the late 1970s as extended-play mini-albums, which are also known as EPs.

    Show me your vinyl and I'm show you mineUp until the release of the LP, musicians had accepted that – owing to the limitations of the 78 RPM format – they could only record songs that were shorter than four minutes in duration. Double-sided releases were common, which resulted in the distinction between the A-side – the featured song that was most desirable for radio play – and an additional song, known as the B-side.

    The LP format could contain up to 45 minutes of music, which was divided into two sides. Record labels and recording artists were faced with a new window of opportunity, wherein they were no longer confined to a series of four minute-long creations. Once the format gained market dominance, musicians and producers realised that they could use continuous playback to maintain elements of style and mood between songs, or to promote thematic continuity in the form of concept albums.

    As the record industry matured, LPs were no longer just a collection of singles released in a streamlined format in order to increase sales. Decades of ‘single’ releases led to ‘album-as-art’ aesthetics, wherein the industry’s stakeholders – musicians, listeners, and labels alike – came to rely on innovative, creative uses of the LP format.

    By the 1960s, record companies were employing artist and repertoire (A&R) representatives to approach emerging acts with recording contracts. These were commonly known as record deals, wherein an artist or band would agree to record an album – or series of albums – that the record label would subsequently sell and promote.

    And therein began the rot.

    As the record industry became comfortable with the album format, they sought out the acts most likely to help them sell their products. The compact disc (CD) format was ushered into the market in 1983; annual sales in the US rose from 800,000 in the first year of production to 288 million by 1990, and almost 1 billion per year by the turn of the century.

    But after being seduced by major labels’ reputable names and marketable reach, artists found themselves locked into increasingly-shortened ‘write, record, tour’ schedules. This was the dream of musicians the world over, sure. To make a living from writing, recording and touring their music. But few would have dreamed of comprising their artistic vision, or rushing to complete unfinished material in order to meet a label’s release schedule.

    This photo was allegedly taken while recording Passion Pit's album, but it really could be from any studio ever.As a musician ten years ago, commercial success was largely dependent on signing a huge chunk of your profit away to a corporate entity who had the cash with which to line the pockets of the corporations that controlled the interdependent businesses of radio, music television, touring and record stores.

    This was the era of the widely-quoted figure: for every successful album, a major label released nine failures. But these businesses could afford to buy musical talent en masse and sign these emerging songwriters and performers to an album-release contract, then drop them if their commercial appeal faltered.

    Rarely were artists afforded time to find their feet and cultivate their best material; not with the clock ticking, the recoupable expenses climbing, and the label’s stakeholders demanding quarterly growth figures. No way!

    Of course, I’m painting an exaggerated picture on a slightly-skewed canvas. There have been success stories on both major and independent record labels throughout the history of recorded music. But the latter were all but hidden from the view of the average music consumer, who only paid attention to the acts who were charting near the top on radio and television and playing arenas.

    For decades, the recorded music industry revolved around the album: the record deals, the release schedules, the pricing structure, the touring cycle, the album reviews, the catchy lead single that’d inspire consumers to purchase the album. But ten years ago, Napster-induced cracks began to appear in the established business model.

    From the Walkman to its brother, the Discman, and from the burning of CDs to the rise of Apple’s iPod, the digital generation ushered in a massive shift in music consumer demand. Next week, I’ll highlight portable playlist control as a key component in the reduced reliance placed upon the album by music consumers.

    Brisbane-based Andrew McMillen writes for several Australian music publications. He can be found on Twitter (@NiteShok) and online at http://andrewmcmillen.com/

    (Note: This is part one of an article series that first appeared in weekly Australian music industry magazine The Music Network issue #744, June 29th 2009. Read the rest of the series: part twopart threepart four and part five)

  • Free freelance writing advice from Lucy Robertson, Australian writer and sub-editor

    Lately I’m of the belief that the best way to learn is to study and ask questions of those who’re older than me. This realisation only dawned on me after I noticed that I was paying the most attention not to my peers, but to those with decades more knowledge and experience.

    And maybe this is a simple, elementary realisation to have – I mean, the entire education system is built on this old-teaching-young structure – but what I’m trying to say is that for perhaps the first time in my life, I’m starting to throw away the bullshit arrogance that’s become a part of my personality, and I’m instead listening to and taking on board the advice of the wise.

    Lucy Robertson is a freelance writer and sub-editor who I reached out to after perusing Dave Earley’s list of journalists on Twitter.

    Hi Lucy,

    I just came across your site after seeing your comment on the Earley Edition Twitter list. I saw that you’re a sub-editor and contributor to many publications, so I thought I’d ask for some advice.

    I’m Andrew, I’m 21, I live in Brisbane, and I write for a bunch of places including The Music Network, Mess+Noise, Rave Magazine and FourThousand, as well as my blog.

    I conducted an interview in Sydney with one of my favourite writers a fortnight ago – Neil Strauss, six times New York Times bestseller – and I’d really like to get the interview published as a feature article in a publication similar to the Virgin and Qantas in-flight mags.

    Any advice you can spare as to how to pitch this article to editors will be very much appreciated. I have an inkling that’s not so much who you are, but who you know – I started writing for TMN and M+N only after being introduced to the editors of those publications by a mutual friend.

    Thanks Lucy – nice to e-meet you! :)

    Andrew

    A couple of hours later, Lucy floored me with some valuable, honest advice that’s applicable to any freelance writer. With Lucy’s permission, I’ve reproduced her reply in full.

    I hope you find Lucy’s words as entertaining and inspiration as I did . Thanks again, Lucy.

    Hey Andrew,

    Great to hear from you! It’s always wonderful to see new writers coming into the industry with a healthy dose of passion. Thanks for stopping by my site, although I have to say it’s not as functional and relevant as yours – I’ve been meaning to get a blog up and running for a while but it keeps getting punted down my ‘to-do’ list. Sigh.

    Anyway, to your questions… It sounds like you’re already well on the road to finding some good outlets for your work, and it’s great to be concentrating on something you love. I think the best way to carve out a niche for yourself in such a competitive industry is to write about what you love and make yourself indispensable in that area (another thing I haven’t really managed to do – I’ll write anything!).  So snaps to you.  Street press like Rave Mag and niche independent pubs like FourThousand and Mess+Noise are fabulous for getting some quality bylines and to start building a name for yourself in music/arts writing, so hopefully they’re paying you OK and giving you regular stuff.

    You’re also right about it often being who you know instead of what that gets you work … I worked on staff at Text Pacific for VirginBlue’s mag and have continued to get work as a freelancer there because of it. Same with ACP mags (Qantas, Austar, Foxtel, Ralph, etc), where I was a sub for a while and got to know the people who hand out commissions. Buying people a beer after work has never been so important! Try and get to every meet-and-greet opportunity you can, and hand out cards like it’s nobody’s business.

    BUT, that said, I’d like to think getting writing work is also about the simplicity of having a great idea at the right time. Editors are usually an overworked, underpaid bunch of creatives who spend their life trying to come up with new angles on old stories or interesting ways to sell an idea. So, if your email lands in their inbox at the right time, with the right wording and after the right amount of caffeine, you’ve usually got a foot in the door. And speaking of doors, SQUEAKY ones help too… I know a few pretty ordinary writers who keep getting work simply because they pitch madly and constantly to spread their chances.

    So basically, get an email template up and running and get into the habit of sending it out to as many editors as you can get email addresses for. Aim for two new contacts a week or something to build up your contact list. I’d make your pitch short and sweet, and include everything in the body of the email, because editors don’t often have time to open an attachment. Get straight to the point and just introduce yourself in one line, then put your idea forward with a snappy headline (try things that catch their attention like puns on the theme of your story or name of the writer, etc, or a play on words that sticks in the mind without being contrived) and the first paragraph of your proposed story that will hopefully have them wanting to read more. Sometimes I outline what could follow in the rest of the article a few quick dot-points, including any talent you might have already lined up or are able to get hold of… If you don’t hear anything back from them in a week, send it on to somebody else. And if you DO hear back from them saying they’re not interested or whatever, don’t give up – keep sending it around!

    Of course it pays to do your homework and make sure your idea fits with their mag. For instance, at VirginBlue we were constantly getting emails from freelancers pitching ideas about great travel articles on skiing in Japan, which would have been perfect for an airline that actually flew there. Same goes for seasonal stuff – don’t pitch a winter-themed story at the end of winter, because by the time the story goes through three months of so of production, it will be sweltering. Blah blah blah, I’m sure you already know all of this!

    Now for the bad news. Unfortunately it’s very hard to get much published as a freelancer at the moment. Lots of my regular monthly commissions have dried up (including Virgin Blue!) because the first thing most big publishing houses do in a downturn is cut staff writers, reign in their freelance budget and start syndicating material from their international partners or sister media channels (for instance, Text Pacific is owned by Channel Seven, so they’re re-working interviews done for TV or by international titles at Pacific Mags, rather than paying for a whole new story).

    You’ll also see the same thing happening a lot at Fairfax and News Ltd, which are using a lot of AAP-sourced material and have laid off a shitload of journos in preference of regurgitating older material or taking free contributions (from academics, researchers, etc) and even just cutting book sizes to reduce their costs. Personally, I think this sucks and it’s a bad way to run any successful media organisation, because it’s only a matter of time before readers get the shits with being served the same old story for the same price. BUT, it’s something we all have to deal with for a few months and hope it all blows over sooner rather than later. If you have an economics degree, it might be a good time to be an accountant for a while! Ha haaa. Or not.

    Ironically, it’s usually the smaller publishing houses that are used to having their backs up against the wall that keep commissioning good writers during down times, because they live and die on the quality of their rag. Which is where you answer lies… research the THOUSANDS of crazy little magazines floating around out there and pitch to them. You’ll be amazed how many custom magazines, online newsletters, and little niche publications there are out there, and you probably have more chance of winning a pitch because there’s less competition for their bylines. It’s less glamorous, but it pays the bills and builds up some solid contacts that are usually less flighty than the big wigs. At the moment, without much work at all coming in from the likes of Virgin Blue or Qantas, SMH, etc, I’m living off smaller, quirkier commissions from weird places like a business magazine for dentists, an in-store brochure for GO-VITA health stores, some film reviews for Optus magazine and a bit of marketing writing for websites. It’s all super snore-ville stuff, but hopefully I’m just biding my time till the market picks up, the ads start coming back to mags, and the commissions start rolling in again. Fingers crossed.

    So, my advice to you is to keep pitching those great ideas to all the pubs you want to write for. Just don’t lose heart if you don’t get heaps of work straight away, because it’s seriously a bit tough at the moment. It will pick up, and when it does, you’ll be ahead of the queue! But also, keep writing for those independent publications and keep writing about stuff you love. And keep up the blog!!

    Try not to get ripped off with anything less than about 40-50 cents per word, too. Somewhere around .70 per word is more reasonable, but it’s a fine balance between getting published and earning a living at the moment, so find out where that line is for you. Also don’t write for free for these big guys unless it’s an on-spec arrangement and you think you might get paid for later work.

    Geez, I’ve rabbited on. Are you still awake?

    I hope that helps mate. Let me know how you go, and keep up the passion levels. It’s hard to do sometimes, but if you really love words then it’s all worth it in the end! And it can be a great lifestyle – even in tough times like … um, right now.

    Cheers,

    Lucy