Stilly River Sage:

Yeah, well.. I agree about writing for free once you have been making a living writing. I don't do it very much anymore either. I find it's bad for business if an editor finds out you can be had for nothing. However, if I just want to get into a costly show for free, I'll volunteer for the assignment knowing I won't get paid diddly. It's been awhile since I've done that but I can see where I might do it again. Sometimes when I feel very strongly about a subject, I'll do a spec piece and if I get paid, great..if not...well who cares? Generally, you are quite right to be careful about giving away free milk when you want them to buy the cow.

Humor on the other hand, is so subjective that to just establishing your particular approach can require peppering the field with a few choice free pieces. Also, if you suddenly choose to switch topics, as I have a couple of times, you sometimes need to have a few well-timed plants in friendly publications to generate new assignments. Writing freelance is a bit like duck-hunting...you have to send out a few elaborate decoys to lure the real thing in for the kill.

PDFs are great. If you have a fair amount of experience formatting your work that way and your editors aren't total dolts, it's fine. I haven't ever found any stray files in my PDFs. I do still experience great resistance to sending them via an attachment to an email though. Usually that comes from novice small presses and overly rigid editors who do not have an online version of their publication. Most of the foreign film journals do still want a hard copy of my manuscripts but for understandable reasons - they need to be translated or at least retyped into a program that allows for specific notations and accents. Even with the automatic trnaslation programs, most folks still want the hard copy for the ultimate reference. Fewer mistakes that way.

It's been a very long while since I have queried anyone on my own behalf that does only a print version so perhaps PDFs are all the rage now. The younger writers I still represent are often seeking publication in very specialised presses and many of them are operating using crudely patched together software for layouts. They still want the scripts also. E-zines on the other hand, are all fine with PDFs.

As for reviews.. well, they can be good bread and butter income to keep you through lean times. I find it's best to never turn that faucet completely OFF. I'm limited in what I can attend now due to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (a Disabling Collagen Disorder) so my bread and butter reviews are of foreign cinema. I'd much prefer to do Music reviews but here in Los Angeles, there is a surplus of music critics & a bumper crop of up-and-comers who will write free reviews of the edgier stuff. As a result, I stick with what works for me: Crime, Crime, more Crime, folklore, crime, ancient history, Forteana, Skeptical science, Crime, world cinema, archaeology and more Crime. Did I mention Crime?

The less I write for free, the better. My days of peddling Bay City Roller stories for profit are over too! If I can't make a living writing about what I want to write about... well, I can always edit somebody else's poorly written manuscript.

I hope I don't sound cynical. Writing can be a great career if you are willing to just go with it. If you need benefits and a regular paycheck you probably have to do what I did and go into Development. Those who brought up advertising are right on too. Lots of fun in that field and a little more security too. People don't realize just how much writing some fields require. You don't have to be a "Writer" to spend your days writing!

Best of luck to you. If you ever feel the need to go agent-hunting, let me know and I can make some recommendations.

Laoise/Lisa
LisaMFeerick@aol.com