To celebrate a tiny milestone in the progress of Freelance Unbound – the 100th post – here’s an item by a journalist who has gone over to the dark side and set up a site whose purpose is – gasp! – to make money from web media. Julia Scott left a newspaper job to set […]
Press Gazette reports on the Government’s determination to “sustain local journalism”. It’s all part of the government’s glorious five-year plan to secure Britain’s place at the forefront of the global digital economy – otherwise known as the Digital Britain report. Apparently, earnest culture secretary Andy Burnham said: “Citizens need content produced to high journalistic standards. The internet in […]
Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; At last, the end of the journey and a handy summary. But first, Recovering Journalist Mark Potts has a very good post on Life After Journalism that is really worth reading. A former 20-year journalist (hmm – like me), Mark Potts is now “an entrepreneur and […]
Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; It’s been a bit of a marathon, but finally we’re getting to the end of the recession-busting advice. In the next post, I’ll put together a handy summary, so you don’t have to wade through so much copy to see the bullet points. First – […]
Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; It’s round three of media survival tips for recessionary times. Last time, I talked about Assessing Your Skills, Learning New Skills and Updating Your CV. Now we’re pretty much focusing on networking, networking and networking. And maybe some advertising. First, though: Draw up a plan Be organised. […]
Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Now for your second slug of recession-busting (NB: slightly updated). Earlier, I posted about my recent, slightly panicky drive to bring in more freelance work. In case anyone finds it of any use, here are some of the lessons I picked up from it. Here we […]
Today I spent an hour in a vast lecture theatre giving a talk about freelance journalism to first-year students at Kingston University. It was great fun, actually, and I got to use their super high-tech AV equipment (which luckily didn’t break down on me). That’s me on the right looking suitably dorky in front of […]
Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Sometime between September and Christmas last year, my business plan fell apart and I was faced with the grim prospect of actually having not enough money coming in this year. It happened to a lot of freelancers I know, all at the same time. I […]
According to anecdotal evidence – it’s pretty bad. It’s not a good time for journalism students graduating this year, certainly. Tracking the job ads on Journalism.co.uk gives a rough indication of how the job market is going. Just before Christmas 2008, there were just over 100 jobs on the site – mainly journalism, but with […]
During last autumn’s climate of fear about a collapse in the publishing industry, I registered with People Per Hour – a freelance marketplace that allows you to bid on projects posted by a whole range of potential clients. I was curious to see how it worked, and also thought I might even get some paying work […]