Attention Young Writers! Wake Up!

An example of traditional unfairness in the communications industry hit me like a thunderbolt on an otherwise beautiful Monday morning during the Spring of 1970. I came into the office of a weekly newspaper where I worked for $75 per week, producing a minimum of five feature articles for the publisher/editor, Mr. Paul Jervay.

As soon as I hit the door, Mr. Jervay called me into his office, and slammed a copy of the Sunday features page on his desk in front of me and declared loudly: "I will not have you writing for me and the competition, too," he declared loudly. "You have to make up your mind!"
The editor's ire had been triggered by a feature article published over my byline in the Raleigh News& Observer, then and still a relatively large daily newspaper in the North Carolina capital city.

Consider the background of this clash!

A little more than a month earlier, i had applied for a feature writer's position with The Carolinian, a weekly newspaper in Raleigh that catered to a mostly African American readership. I was given the position that paid $75 per week and told that I had to produce at least five feature articles each week. Simple math determines that this "job" and its requirements worked out to either $1.87 per hour for the 40 hours I worked each week, or $15 per feature story. During the interview with Mr. Jervay that ended in the job offer, he said at least five times: "Afterall Milton, the real value of this job is the exposure you will be getting as a writer."

Can you say da ja vue?

Tonight while attending a community function, an advertising account executive for a new publication in Raleigh (NC) handed me copies of their initial three issues of the full-color, digest size magazine and I engaged the genteman in a conversation. About two minutes into the conversation, I asked: "Do you need quality professional writing?" "Yes, " the account executive replied, "we always need good writers. "Do you pay free-lancers," I queried. "No," he said with no embarrassment, "we use writers who want to write to get exposure." The statement chilled my blood. Later in the conversation, the young man, a mass communications major in an area university, suggested that I might "submit" something for consideration. As politely as possible, I refused the "opportunity," explaining that after 39 years as a professional writer I refuse to write for free, and I don't need exposure.
It's almost hard to believe that after nearly four decades in this industry, I am still hearing an idea that was patently unfair then, and is even sillier and more unfair today.

Wake up writers!

There's no such benefit in the communications industry as exposure. The only values that matter in this industry are audience service and money. Readers don't care about your by-line until they see that you content--what you write--is useful, relevant and interesting. Remember, publications, venues, even websites like this one, exist to provide audience services. Potential readers buy, subscribe or otherwise engage the vehicle to get useful, relevant information, packaged in an interesting way. Studies indicate that satisfied readers become favorably disposed to read and consider advertising in a publication. Therefore, I concluded more than 30 years ago that writers, particularly for print publications, turn "potential" money into "real" bucks.

Let me explain.

Saavy advertisers understand that a publication's purchasers do not buy or pick up the publication for the advertisements, but for the editorial promises on the cover. These advertisers also understand that these purchasers become an audience only when the editorial content consistently meets their needs.
We can summarize this concept in a statement I read later that night after getting to my office at home. The article headline in the current issue of 1to1 magazine said: "Costco is tops in customer experience. The paragraph that riveted my attention said: "'Costco was top rated because it most frequently met customers' needs,' Temkin says (Bruce Temkin is vice president and principal analyst, customer experience for Forrester Research and author of the report covered by this issue). "Consumers have a clear set of expectations when they show their membership card and walk into a Costco warehouse. And, more often than not, they get what they expect. There's a key lesson here for retailers (including communications professionals, particularly writers): Develop and communicate a clear value proposition and make sure that you consistently deliver on it.""

Listen up young writers! Think about your vision as a professional writer. Balance your mission as a professional writer. Clarify both vision and mission with a philosophy built on the foundation of finely developed and clearly communicated value proposition and consistently deliver what you promise.
Now consider why I contend that writers transform "potential" money into "real" bucks.
Advertisers pay afer publication and read the numbers such as: circulation, readership, including pass-on readership, audience satisfaction and CPM, or cost per thousand. Potential will get them to advertise once or twice, maybe even six times in a publication, but it will not keep them in when content fails to meet quality standards. Contrary to what most young, inexperienced, publishers, editors and writers seem to believe, advertisers do not look at a publication first to see if their ad made it, looks good, etc. No! Advertisers, either business leaders or the ad agencies that represent them, examine the editorial packaging, which tenders the promises, and the content that must deliver on those promises.

Only the writers' work meet and deliver the medium's promises to its audience. Therefore, the "potential" money from advertisers becomes "real" money and particularly long term, sustaining money, when quality professional writers consistently deliver the publication's editorial value proposition.
Wake up writers! Exert yourselves! Everyone else is being paid! Advertising account executives do not work without at least earning sales commissions. Fulfillment distribution operations contract to get publications into various outlets because they get paid to do that. Graphic artists and designer get paid.
Photographers get paid. Why should writers not be paid?

Now let me finish the story of my confrontation 38 years ago with the late Mr. Paul Jervay, Sr.

About two weeks previously, after hearing a conversation about the "dangers" of the afro hairstyle among some barbers as I waited for a haircut in their shop, I wrote a feature that I thought would help our readers learn to take care of their hairstyles. I interview a variety of barbers and beauticians. I double checked their exertions about possible scalp damage with a local dermatologist. I wrote what i thought was I good article. Jervey rejected it, claiming that it gave the barbers and beauticians free advertising for their businesses.

Early that year I had met Guy Munger, the features editor of the News& Observer. After Jervay rejected my story on proper care of an afro hairstyle, I took it up to Munger to see what they thought about the article. At that time, I didn't know anything about free-lance writing. So I was faking my response after he asked: "Would you like to free-lance this?" "Yes," I said as I wondered what "free-lance" really meant. "I'll run it next Sunday," Munger said, "will you take $75 for it?" Suddenly, I got it1 Free-lance meant that I could earn as much money for one article as I had been making for five articles as a so-called staff writer getting exposure.

That's why Jervay and I clashed that Monday morning, and why I quit The Carolinian that day, and the following week moved to Wilmington, NC and my first job as a fulltime staff writer for a daily newspaper and a parttime freelancer for several other publications.

Wake up writers!

I will continue this discussion in my next article.