No freebies influenced this blog

There's a rumble happening over a new Federal Trade Commission regulation that says bloggers who post reviews of books or products must include a notice if they received those books or products for free. It violates First Amendment rights, say some. Others are just putting a blanket notice on their blogs that says they do receive some free copies for review purposes but that does not affect what they write. For me, the only reviews I'm writing these days are for my newsletter, and I usually review books I bought or got at the library. I did receive a review copy recently, and I disclosed that fact.

I don't think saying you got something for free is a problem. But then I think about newspaper book review sections, and they never mention that most of the books reviewed are sent by the publishers or the authors as free review copies. Why apply such a rule to blogs and not newspapers?

Other freebies can get you into trouble. Travel writers are often offered free trips. Most higher-level publications will not consider articles based on these freebies, but some writing publications advise writers to take the free trips and all the goodies you can get.

In my days as an on-staff reporter for community newspapers, I never got anything expensive, but I did receive my share of tote bags, T-shirts, zucchini and the occasional ticket to a show. Sometimes I received a gift after an article came out: flowers, candy, coffee mugs. Do these things influence a writer's attitude? I'd like to say no, but we're all human. If someone gives you something nice, you think favorably of them and you may, consciously or not, lean toward writing positive things about them--or putting their news in the paper the next time they call.

Most big metro papers don't allow their staff writers to accept anything. But they do get those books to review. CDs and DVDs, too. It's hard to draw the line. We all have friends, feelings and favorites. Is perfect impartiality even possible?

What do you think?

If you're bored, your readers will be, too

Did you ever write an article that was so boring it was hard to make yourself work on it? I certainly have, and I don't recommend it. Sometimes you have to take an assignment to please an editor or pay the mortgage and sometimes you can find an angle that makes it fun, but if at all possible, choose a subject that interests you. If it doesn't excite you, you might be able to sell it, but will you be proud of it once you torture it out of your computer? Will it have any zip or sparkle? Will it make a clip you'd want to show people?

I won't tell you which piece I did recently that fell into that category, but it made writing such a chore. I just wanted to publish something and get paid. But you know what? Between the time I drafted this blog entry and now, that story, for which the editor said yes to my query, got rejected. She was bored, too. I would have been better off spending the time cleaning my clogged gutters.

Try not to pitch a story only because you think it will sell, and if you're submitting a list of ideas, as I did to another editor recently, don't put a story on the list unless you'd be happy if the editor said yes.

Watch for Signs of Trouble

Once upon a time, my income depended on three newspapers. I was happily writing, publishing and collecting checks. But the paper I wrote the most for, a monthly community newspaper, seemed to be slowing down. Issues came out later and later. Then the checks started coming later. "Ahem,"I said to management, "I don't like this. I may have to quit."

Management assigned a new guy whom I'd never met to take me to lunch to assure me that all would be well now that he was in charge. They would get back on schedule and I would be paid on time. "In fact," he said, "We have a new publication coming out that we want you to write for. Please don't quit." "All right," said gullible me. But the slowdown continued. I wrote a lovely story about drought-tolerant gardening for the new publication, but it never got off the boards (this was back in the days of paste-ups). And I didn't get paid. I quit, but not before I lost money and valuable time.

Meanwhile, I thought my other two gigs were solid. I was writing for a home and garden publication, so when a big home and garden show came to town, I invited my friends to join me and my husband at the show. Our first stop was the magazine's booth near the entrance. I didn't know the advertising people sitting there, but I walked up and introduced myself as one of the writers and showed my friends a copy of the magazine. See, see my story. But then man behind the table said, "Too bad this is our last issue." What? I wanted to crawl behind the booth rather than tour the displays of floor coverings, water-saving toilets, marble sinks and other wonders. This was pre-Internet and pre-cell phones, so I had to wait until Monday morning to call the editor and ask if this was true. It was.

Over the years, I have seen plenty of publications go under. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's bad management, and sometimes it's both. These days, it could be the economy combined with the massive exodus from print to the Internet. I have learned to watch for the signs. What are those signs? Running late, not being able to get management to answer your questions, checks arriving later than expected, publications getting thinner and thinner, and rumors that something is wrong.

My friends, if you see these signs, exercise caution. Talk with your editors often so that you stay in the communication loop. Also talk to others who are writing for the publication so you can keep each other informed. Don't take on huge time-sucking assignments if you're not sure they will be published, and for God's sake, if you don't get paid, don't do any more work for that company. If the ship is sinking, get off while you can still swim to shore or at least grab a lifejacket.

End of sermon. May your checks be fat and your clip files overflow.

Check out Word Count

I'm overwhelmed right now with work and family stuff, but I want to share with you an excellent blog where you will find plenty of information and inspiration from a sister Oregonian. Visit http://michellerafter.com to read her blog Word Count--Freelancing in the Digital Age. I could spend all day there. Thank you, Michelle, for all you do.

I'll be back next week.

Go to the source

In the process of revising a book I'm working on, I kept bypassing one section where I quoted a quote contained in an article that arrived via my Google alerts. (Don't know what these are? Search for Google alerts, tell them what you're interested in, and they'll send you articles and blog posts on that subject.)Every time I read it, I knew I had to either take it out or interview the expert myself. I was just being lazy and anxious to finish the manuscript. Ultimately I decided I didn't need that quote and deleted it.

Newspaper articles depend on interviews. They are not term papers where you look up everything that other people have written and quote them. Background research is certainly helpful, but good reporters talk to people. Rather than quote what somebody else wrote, we need to find our own sources. They will lend life, freshness and accurary to our work. If we take our information from what other people have written, we run the risk of copying something that has been said over and over, and it may not even be accurate.

Go to the source, the person who knows the most about the subject, whatever it is, and ask your own questions. Likewise, if you read about a study and want to quote the results, don't take them from a published article; find the original study results and draw your own conclusions. Usually if you search for the organization that did the survey, you can find its website and read the search results there.

Newspaper writing often requires quick work. We don't have much time to do research, but people believe what we write. We need to make sure they can trust every word, even if that means leaving something out because we're just not sure about it.

Here's a book you may like

Today I'm typing with a sprained wrist. I'm not even supposed to be typing, and I'm definitely not supposed to have my splint off yet, but I do so I can put a few words down without the torture of doing it one-handed. But note that I have typed one-handed quite a bit over the years. You do what you have to do. I have been injured, but more often, I have been on the telephone or eating while trying to meet a deadline.

So, in the interest of less typing, I offer this book to you. I don't love every page of it, but there's plenty to recommend. (Don't tell my doctor I was typing.)

Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal: How to Have a Great Life as a Freelance Writer by John Clausen, Writer's Digest Books, 2001. Beyond the delightful title, Clausen offers 207 pages of information and inspiration for freelance writers. He intertwines straight how-to with his own experiences and those of other successful writers who plunged into the business and flourished. One of the ways he pays the bills is by writing advertising, junk mail and press releases for various companies, and he tells us how to do it. For those of us who would rather not get involved in that type of writing, there's still plenty of good information on how to make it in magazines, newspapers and other media. This book is straightforward, optimistic, and very useful

I’ve been edited!

You write the best article you can. You polish it until every word shines. You check every name, number and link. Confident this will be your best clip ever, you send it in. Then, when the paper comes out, you barely recognize your own story. You’ve been edited.

Everyone can use some editing. We should be grateful for the editors, copyeditors and proofreaders who save us from misspelled words, typos and incorrect assumptions that we just didn’t see. Sometimes an impartial reader can see how cutting and rearranging paragraphs can make a story much better.

However, editors have different styles. Some use a light touch, tweaking a word or a comma here and there, on stories that are basically fine the way they are. If they see something drastic that needs fixing, they confer with the writer before making the change.

Other editors seem driven to put their own stamp on every piece that they publish. They revise and rewrite, even when it doesn’t seem to be needed. In the worst cases, they change our facts. That happened to a friend this week, and she’s understandably upset. Sooner or later it happens to all of us. We read our published work and scream, “No! That’s wrong!”

So now what do we do? We have to talk to the editor. Calmly. Some are just crazy. But others are working as hard as we are, and they’re working at such a fast pace that they do make mistakes. If the facts have been altered so that the story is inaccurate, we need to ask that a correction be published. Yes, a paragraph in a printed newspaper on a different day won’t do much to save the original story, but it will help defuse any anger from the people you interviewed. The online version is a different situation. Changes can be inserted so that the mistake goes away. Of course, anyone who reads it before the correction is made will read the erroneous version, but at least anyone who comes to it later will get it the way it’s supposed to be.

What if the editor resists making any changes and takes no blame for the inaccuracies? Maybe it’s time to find another gig. A freelancer’s integrity is vital. But before you quit in a huff, have an honest talk with the editor--if you can. Explain that you are uncomfortable with the heavy editing and ask if the editor has a problem with your writing. Is there something you can fix? Is it just the editor’s style? Is there any way you can see the edited version before it goes to print? The answer to that is probably no because editors are moving so quickly on deadline, but you could ask.

Bottom line: editors do and should edit. Any writer who insists that nothing can be changed will soon be out of business. But when an editor regularly turns your words into Silly Putty, it may be time to take your business elsewhere.