The Future of Freelance Journalism, Part 2B: End of the Rainbow; and Coda: Print is Dead. Long Live Print!

Flickr imitation by Rhys Alton

More notes, quotes, tweets, distractions, practical links for how to get $$, as well as during slightest a single stout fortitude from a right away long-ago though not quite mislaid confab during Stanford University.

**Nb. If you missed Part 1, begin here. Part 2A: Sweaty Balls is here.

Friday, Jun 18, 12:45 PM, Old Union Courtyard, Stanford University

WITHOUT THE DISTRIBUTED DEADWEIGHT OF LEMONADE as well as duck salad sandwich wedges, a red plastic tablecover eventually submits to a breeze, bearing cups, plates, crumbs, cookies, as well as various cut ripened offspring pieces in a westerly direction, off a table, divided from a fountain.

Stanford University, flickr imitation by jeffpearce

Ive been chatting with Carolina Miranda, former staff bard during Time Magazine, right away a inclusive freelancer, travel writer, blogger, USC Annenberg Fellow, as well as bard to countless Lonely Planet Latin America titles. Shes formed in Brooklyn, as well as has flown all a approach opposite a continent in hopes of hearing large ideas. She hasnt heard any yet.

Theres been a lot upon what you should do to market ourselves, she says. But how does all of this essentially change a nature of a job?

We pick a rubbish off a lawn, deposit it appropriately, afterwards walk opposite to a bookstore for a crater of coffee. She talks about her passion for Lima contra Cusco as well as about upon vacation a Louisiana Gulf Coast in a days rught away following a supply explosion. We plead a relations disadvantages of receiving a scanty contributors price upon a Lonely Planet title contra receiving an even some-more scanty allege opposite intensity royalties upon an eccentric guidebook. We speak about a dearth of l! ow rider s in Espaola, New Mexico, once conjectural to be a Low Rider Capital of a World. She tells of a Canadian lady she met there who had a tabernacle to a Virgin of Ftima in her trunk. It wasnt full redemption, though it was a little consolation.

I go to a patron have use of table as well as ask a amiable work-study staffer to check a computer. This is not vanity, you tell myself. This is work. This is how you contingency have a vital as a writer.

Somewhere along a arena you comprehend dual things: (1) which when you contend Mens Journal many people hear Mens Health (which actuality will further remonstrate me which there have been no longer enough substantial differences in between those dual magazines); (2) which this Carolina lady happens to be none alternative than a @cmonstah you have been following (and spasmodic retweeting) given progressing this morning when you discovered a running side commentary during a #ffrl hashtag. (Later you will sense from Carolinas LinkedIn profile which she was once declared by The New York Times a single of 9 people to follow upon Twitter.)

2 PM, Stanford University Bookstore

In lieu of going behind for Digital Ventures: Which One Will Become Your Best Client? (in a Cardinal Room) or Google for Freelancers (in Nitery 209), you decide to check a bookstores California Travel territory to see if my Yosemite book is there. Its not. you go to a patron have use of table as well as ask a amiable work-study staffer to check a computer. This is not vanity, you tell myself. This is work. This is how you contingency have a vital as a writer.

I spent a day once roving around LA with a pre-eminent book offered guru by a name of Ken Wilson. We took his car. you appreciated a air conditioning as well as a lack of toddler detritus upon a floor. We drove 100 miles (at $.50/mile). From Santa Monica to Pasadena to Encino as well as back, you visited thirteen bookstores, roughly wholly Borders as well as B&Ns (there is in actuality a slight disproportion in betwee! n a two, you learned).

The total thing price me $475, including mileage. My logic (and questionable math), in a absence of further financial contribution by my dear as well as ever-shrewd publisher, ran something similar to this: if a journey somehow led to a sale of 335 copies of a book (at 7.5% of cover price) you would break even. If not, you would during a really slightest sense something of inestimable value about a businesses of edition as well as distribution as well as retail.

Ken calls it Grassroots Guerrilla Marketing, which fundamentally means you, as author, go to any bookstore you can find. You check a shelves. You have sure your book is there, which a in a right section, as well as which there have been during slightest 3 copies of it. (Apparently, a raft of sell studies has shown which a likelihood of offered a particular title decreases exponentially subsequent 3 copies.) Then youre ostensible to introduce yourself to a store manager, may be give him or her a giveaway duplicate if youve got a single upon palm (apparently even bookstore managers similar to removing giveaway books), as well as offer to sign a stock.

Ile de France, Flickr imitation by austinevan

Again, you contend to yourself (as Ken does), this is not vanity. This works in dual directions: (1) studies have shown which autographed books have been some-more expected to sell than those which have been not autographed (especially if they have a fresh Signed Copy plaque upon a cover as well as have been thus positioned to locate a courtesy of shoppers); as well as (2) signed copies which dont sell cannot be returned to a edition house (and have been therefore some-more expected to be positioned to sell by a retailer, who would prefer not to eat a price of a book). Thus, everyone wins.

Finally, if your books not there during all (or if there arent enough of them), you have been to hover subseq! uent to a physical education instructor during a mechanism while he or she orders 3 copies of your book as well as thereby brings a batch (and a balance of a universe) up to date.

Remember, Ken explained, a in their interest to sell your book as much as it is in yours.

Ken described a routine as a single competence an avalanche watchful to happen: you trigger a sure series of orders from a informal distribution warehouse, which in turn triggers an even larger series of orders from a edition house as well as you guess during a little indicate people begin essentially believing which a thing competence sell, can sell, which it should be sole (i.e. positioned to sell).

Ken is a pro. He does this all a time, with first-time hacks as well as literary celebrities alike, as well as always with good aptitude as well as aplomb. Hes finished it for a likes of T. Jeff Parker as well as Josh Ferris. Sometimes (as in those latter cases) a even upon a publishers tab. The bookstore managers love him. Who have you brought us today? they would contend when you walked in.

Late in a day you crawled behind in to my vehicle, rolled down a windows, pumped a gas as well as caused it to locate fire, firm in a believe which a world was mine. If you worked it right, you right away knew, you competence even be means to provoke my little informal manual right onto a LA Times non-fiction bestseller list. It was an thought Ken had planted, a tangible intensity of which you was shortly means to confirm.

If you can sell enough books during 2 or 3 of a stores who report, in a same week, you can strike a local bestseller list, explained a friend who happened to be a boss of a greatest eccentric bookseller in Southern California. No a single knows how many it takes. Some weeks a bestselling non-fiction book competence usually sell twenty-five copies.

In my box it may not have been a best week to fool around such a game. In teetering stacks upon tables near a entrance to any bookstore in America were copies of a! brand b rand brand new book called Eat, Pray, Love, as well as an additional called Three Cups of Tea, plus not a single though dual bestselling memoirs by a hip brand brand brand new presidential candidate by a name of Barack Obama.

and a Southern Sierra Nevada, you contend to a staffer during a Stanford bookstore assistance desk. By David Page.

Sorry, he says, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. But you can sequence it for you. Then he looks during me, curiously, pauses, afterwards says, Are you a author?

How does he know? you think. Then you comprehend Im wearing a nametag from a conference: David Page. Fucking idiot.

Thats cool, you say. Thanks for checking.

3 PM, Clubhouse Ballroom; The Big Dig: Reorganization as well as a Future of Investigative Reporting

Were hearing about a decimation of informal magazines as well as alternative weeklies. When were talking about a altogether series of boots upon a belligerent in inquisitive journalism, says Clara Jeffery, Editor-in-Chief of Mother Jones, weve mislaid some-more than weve gained.

Danelle Rondberg

Which isnt to say, she explains, which there isnt still income out there for inquisitive reporting. There is. Its only which in these times a less expected to come from magazine publishers as well as some-more expected to come from non-profit outfits similar to ProPublica, or in a form of grants as well as fellowships scratched together by a forward bard upon his or her own.

@TheStripPodcast: Tons of $ coming in to nonprofit broadcasting according to @rosey18 as well as @clarajeffery. Encouraging. #ffrl

In my head rings a virtuoso voice of my lunchmate, from an progressing tweet:

@cmonstah: future of freelancing: bard has to cover own expenses, mags simply compensate writers fee.

Jefferys greatest concern, it seems, is not so much how to get a things paid for though rsther ! than how to beef up a peculiarity of what comes in. Investigative stating has prolonged suffered a necessity of account flair, she says. The need to be taken severely leads to severely depthless prose.

4:30 PM, Outside Nitery 209; Restoring Yourself as well as Journalism, Too: Fellowships as well as Grants

I cant bring myself to lift in to a swarming session upon appropriation as well as fellowships. Instead, you implement myself upon a really gentle sectional sofa only outward a door, inside of cords reach of an electrical outlet. Exchanging pleasantries with multiform alternative conference goers, you kick back, watch a Twitstream, as well as bookmark 3 exciting (and intimidating) appropriation possibilities, any in a name of a single or some-more passed journalist:

1. The Dick Goldensohn Fund
Amount: typically a few thousand dollars
* Dick died of a heart conflict during age 39 in 1985. Since he had been a intrepid inquisitive reporter, a Fund makes tiny grants covering research, stating as well as travel costs to freelance reporters working upon international stories. Facility in English is a requirement.

2. The Alicia Patterson Foundation
Amount: $20,000-$40,000
* In memory of Alicia Patterson, editor as well as edition house of Newsday for nearly 23 years prior to her genocide in 1963. Winners have been chosen by an annual competition. The competition opens in June; all entries contingency be postmarked by Oct 1. Applications have been supposed from U.S. citizens who have been imitation reporters with during slightest five years of professional experience.

3. John S. as well as James L. Knight Foundation Journalism Program
Amount: Range of full-ride fellowships as well as important stipends for mid-career journalists
* Since a creation in 1950, a foundation has invested some-more than $300 million to allege broadcasting value as well as leisure of countenance worldwide. Our priority grant-making areas: ! Digital Media as well as News in a Public Interest, Press Freedom as well as Freedom of Information, News as well as Newsroom Diversity, as well as Journalism Training as well as Education.

5:30 PM, Outside Nitery 209

A young lady of decidedly complicated heritage (South African, Argentinean, Jewish, Southern Californian) reaches opposite a ottoman, hands me her commercial operation card. Lets do this thing, she says, because this is what you do. If you had a commercial operation label Id give it to her. But you dont. you should have a little printed, you think. Theres an magnificence to a law which somehow isnt replicated by a electronic sell of Vcards.

@cmonstah: you consider you need a bubbly beverage fellowship. #ffrl

@JessicaDuLong: Im so there, dude. RT @cmonstah: you consider you need a bubbly beverage fellowship. #ffrl

@whit_richardson: you second a need for a bubbly beverage brotherhood #FFRL

@davidtpage: yeehaw! RT @cmonstah: you consider you need a bubbly beverage fellowship. #ffrl

Coda: Print is Dead. Long Live Print!

October 26, 8:25 PM, Mammoth Lakes, CA

I HEAR MY DOG BARKING IN THE DISTANCE, probably during a bear, or during a dancing moonshadow of a fir bough. Or may be hes only cold, sitting shotgun up there during a front door, as well as wants to be let in.

I decide, finally, all these months later, to jump over over a rest, all those tiny moments which together (thanks some-more to a cover than a brain) have up a slow essence of sure days past a smell of eucalyptus, a popping of dry leaves beneath my bike tires, a tequila, a microwave calzone, a phone message from my father about how hed sliced off a tip of his finger (theyre perplexing to save it, he said), a self-doubt of bonobos, a curious late-afternoon heat upon a Bay as seen from a westbound lanes upon a San Mateo Bridge, a male in a pickle suit as well as basketball shoes tripping a light illusory upon a dilemma of East Yosemite Avenue in downtown Manteca.

The upshot of a thing: commercial operation models have been in flux, old outlets have been giving approach to new, or elaborating to house as well as take value of brand brand brand new technologies as well as social realities; producers as well as purveyors of consumer artifacts go upon to outlay outrageous amounts of income to get those products in front of a people who competence buy them; savvy publishers go upon to hasten as well as digest brand brand brand new ways to get as well as attorney a courtesy of their readers; gifted writers as well as reporters go upon to find as well as write enthralling stories (the unstoppable ones even making a vital during it); as well as a common thirst for those stories abides as it will for as prolonged as we, as a species, can hang onto a sentience really much undiminished. As Mark Robinson, Articles Editor during Wired put it behind in June, Our enlightenment has a couple thousand year story of need for narrative.

From what Ive seen etched in to a basalt above ancient, now-dry Pleistocene seas, Id contend it goes behind a lot over than that. But a points well taken. The trick, from a blue-collar worker writers indicate of view, is how to sell a hard-labor of crafting stories in symbols for an adequate quotient of food, shelter, knickknacks, toys, fuel as well as intoxicants. And down a highway to be means to demeanour behind during a work hes done, after earthquakes as well as floods, a commotion of a marketplace (5 Genuine Experiences! 10 Affordable Exotic Destinations! The Last Great Undiscovered Waterfall!) as well as all alternative manner of tellurian folly as well as delusion, as well as see which it a pile of rocks hes done next to a highway still stands as a waypoint for travelers. Maybe even a single value a $27 annual subscription as well as a sure series of metric tons of (duly offset) carbon emissions.

Probably my slight! est favo rite extracurricular activity is unresolved out with people who want to speak about a genocide of print, a genocide of journalism, a genocide of books, a page, a word, a word count, a industry, a whatever, freelance guru David Hochman wrote a alternative day upon UPOD, his eminently useful as well as inspiring forum for freelance writers. These conversations have been during best annoying though additionally unhelpful.

So what a hell, lets bring together a little engaging companies, with products you have use of as well as ethics you respect (and money), lets lift together a best writers, photographers as well as illustrators upon a planet, as well as lets have a kickass brand brand brand new travel magazine. Why not? Whos with us?

Print is Dead. Long Live Print!