Employing

[Miss R]

Hi guys,


How do people source for contents i.e news, editorial features etc.. for a small scale mag? Is it possible to hire someone on a temp basis and just pay per projects?

Thank you.

 

[10Yetis]

Miss R,

Forgive me for I am a sweet innocent and slightly confused by your post.

Do you mean, how do people find out the types of things magazines are going to be writing about in the future so you can try and get your business/service into the articles, or... do you mean, how do people who run mags source the articles?

I can answer both questions, (not showing off I promise), but don't want to bore you with the details of both.

Off i toddle.

 

[Miss R]

Hi Andy,

Thank you for your post, sorry I've deleted another paragraph of my post by accident just realised when I read it just now.

Yes what I mean is the latter bit....people who run mags. I wonder how they source for articles, news, feautures and info for their mags. Also if you've just started on this type of business would you employ permanent staff or would you just hire freelance and pay them per project/contribution. Is it possible to ask someone to do some writing for you for free, and in return they get free mention on the mag about their service.

many thanks

 

[gary]

I would suspect you would go the freelancer route - that way you're only paying them for the work they do, and you're not hit with the endless amount of employee legislation that abounds these days.

Some articles are contributed by the authors in exchange for some exposure, for example I regularly comment on issues in various internet magazines - I don't get paid for it but I do get my name and my business mentioned. So you have a few options there already.

Gary

 

[MikeH]

As Gary has pointed out try to get people to submit articles. OK some will be of a poor quality but in return for acknowledgement you should get some good articles.

Most employment legislation can be avoided if you are outsourcing and people are submitting work to you electronically etc.

Mike.

 

[10Yetis]

Miss R,

Deleting paragraphs is an unfortunate illness I am tainted with and it is always quite annoying when a chunk of text you have lovingly typed...... then the parrott fell off and I had to re-type it all.

Anyway, glad you went for the latter option as I have a glacier full of information that you will hopefully find useful.

With a bit of cunning you can get top notch articles for little or nothing.

I work in PR and Marketing (have i mentioned that anywhere on this site yet?) and I know that quite often us PR folk will do anything to get our client/product/service a mention in a magazine. I have often been asked by national magazines and newspapers to write articles for them because they have space to fill and no budget for a freelance.

Once recent example would be; an offshoot of the FT (everyone duck, a bit of blatent name dropping happened there) asked me to write something about the industry the company I currently work for, operates in. Bosh, 1000 words later it was done and the company got a mention, everyone was happy!

Basically, decide what your main stories are going to be, put out a Forward Features list (this is a list that magazines distribute telling you what they are planning to write about in the future) to a load of PR people and ask if their clients would like to contribute.... when I say give it to a load of PR people, please give it to me first

Hey presto, off you go. Once your mag is then in a position to start paying freelancers, go for it as soon as possible.... Let me know if you are looking for the general going rate for freelancers. I have some figures you will find usefull.

Anyway, look at the size of this post! I am off to recover.[/b]