Thursday, July 16, 2009

How nervous do publisher e-mails make you?

Yesterday, I received an e-mail message from the publisher of one of my top print-magazine clients. I shudder when these arrive these days. Often, they're an announcement that the publisher can no longer afford to hire freelance writers.

Sure enough, this particular e-mail message was bad news: The publisher wasn't firing his freelancers. He was asking them to take a voluntary pay cut on all their stories. I agreed to the cut. What else was there to do? I need all the clients I can get these days.

For writers, the end to this recession can't come soon enough. It's getting a bit depressing to see so many great magazines -- both consumer and trade -- go out of business. And what's happening to the newspaper industry is even more frightening. Again, some truly good newspapers are no more thanks to declining ad revenue. And my hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, is a shell of its former self.

This turned out be a depressing post. Oh, well. It's that kind of day, I suppose.

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