🚀 go-pugleaf

They want all us artists and writers to develop content for their web 
sites for FREE!!!  Are you a college trained professional in your 
field ?  Do they pay you ?  Why should engineering and geek jobs be 
more readily valued over artists and writers ?

I cannot tell you how many of these posts appear daily in all the arts 
and letters groups - new businesses wanting everything for FREE!.  People 
expect us to give all the creativity we have 
hard earned and cultivated for nothing.  It is almost like burping at a 
banquet.  Please gentelmen...have some manners - even if brilliance is 
illuding your social skills.

CREATIVITY IS A PRODUCT!

Far as I can see there needs to be a huge 
wake up call around here more funds to the NEA & NEH & inddividual artists.

Mattison FitzGerald
Artist
http://www.rhinodev.com/MJscalzi 

(jscalzi@aol.com) wrote:
: Robert "I wouldn't be surprised if he's nicknamed 'Bat'" Masterson writes:

: >We are inviting writers for articles on women's issues.....for a new webzine
:  at
: > (http://www.mistyisle.com/magazine/)
: >While we cannot (yet) afford to reimburse
: >writers, we do offer a high quality site on which to get published.

: Oh, boy! My first opportunity for a reprint of the Manifesto!

: THE E-ZINE MANIFESTO
: or
: "Show Me The Money!"

: So you've decided to create an e-zine. Congratulations! The Internet
: is the world's greatest free market of ideas -- it costs almost
: nothing for you to get on the "Information Superhighway" and put up
: your own roadside kiosk. I welcome you! I encourage you! I heartily
: endorse your decision to make yourself heard!

: Just don't expect me to contribute to your efforts for free.

: You see, I am a professional writer, as are many if not most of the
: people who live, work and love in this little newsgroup we call
: misc.writing. When I say professional, I mean that I get paid for my
: writing -- not just now and then, not just on occasion -- but just
: about every single time I put pen to paper (or finger to keypad). I
: work hard, I write well, and I'm proud of the work I do. 

: My work has value, not just for myself, but for those who display it.
: It brings in readers, and it also brings them back. Those I write for
: get a net benefit from my writing, or else I would not be able to
: write for them long. And since my writing has value, since it has a
: positive benefit on the bottom line, I expect to be rewarded for my
: efforts -- in short, I expect to get paid. And so do almost all the writers
:  here.

: So when you come to Misc.Writing to announce the existence of your
: E-Zine and how you await our submissions, do not be shocked if the
: first thing we ask is "How much do you pay?" And if you pay nothing,
: don't be shocked when we dismiss you right out of hand. We are
: professionals. We don't give it away for free.

: Before you say them, let me say these statements for you. It'll save us
: both some time. And let me brutally honest.

: "I can't pay you because I'm paying for this out of my own pocket" --
: So? Don't expect sympathy for your plight -- you're not paying enough
: for it. If it's out of your own pocket, use other parts of your being,
: like your head and typing fingers, to fill out the pages of your'zine.

: "You'll be a published author/You'll get a byline" -- 
: The value of a byline in your 'zine is worth nothing. Being
: "published" in your e-zine does not constitute being published. I know
: this because as well as being a writer, I'm also an editor -- someone
: who looks at writers' resumes as part of his job. I know that there
: are more e-zines on the Net than a white-tailed deer has ticks. And I
: know that, since they don't pay anything, the quality of the material
: published there is marginal at best. Because, really, you get what you
: pay for. 

: So being "published" in an e-zine does nothing to impress me.
: And if it does nothing to impress me, who works for an online service,
: think of how little it impresses someone who is used to actual clips.
: What impresses me (and other editors, online or offline), are paying markets. 

: "You'll get exposure" --
: No I won't. Who's going to find your e-zine? How are they going to
: find it? You've put a listing in Yahoo? Great! So have a couple
: thousand other 'zines! The only way you're going to get "exposure" is
: to, say, run ads or do some other sort of advertising that requires
: payments of some sort or another. Which will lead to the question --
: if you can pay for advertising, why aren't you paying for writing?

: "Normally, we require payment to publish your work" --
: Please. If we're not going to write for you if you're not paying us,
: you think we're going to write for you when you require PAYMENT? Give me a
:  break.

: Right about now, I hear some of you asking: Are you saying you NEVER
: write without getting paid? Nope. I write a lot of stuff without
: getting paid -- on my own web page, for my own amusement. I've even
: written for an e-zine for free -- a friend's e-zine. Operative word:
: FRIEND. Got news for *you* -- you ain't my friend.

: So to wrap up: Unless you're paying for submissions, you're not
: getting squat out of me -- or, I suspect, any of the other fine
: writers here in misc.writing. Our time is too valuable for that. So
: please don't waste our time.

: If you're irritated or offended by that -- so what? Pay me. Then your
: opinion will be worth something to me. 

: Have a nice day!


: --
: John Scalzi
: Writer/Editor, America Online
: http://members.aol.com/aolscalzi --Quality Entertainment!
: "The askingness of that questionation on your part preludinates an answeresque
:  interluditudinal on our part."
:            --- Me