Work From Home Couple

When I first started writing for magazines and newspapers, I couldn’t rely on Google to led me to a quick answer. The Internet wasn’t even a thought in the minds of most of the general public. When I needed an answer, I had two choices: Go to the library or call someone. I usually picked up the phone and made a call.

Today, though, I run into a growing number of writers — well, I run into them online, at writing groups and on message boards — who seem terrified of the phone. In fact, I’ve found several freelancers who only take on stories that they can do entirely by scouring Google.

This makes me a bit nervous. First of all, it leads to too much recycled and superficial stories spreading across the Internet. Secondly, it’s lazy. A reporter’s job is to call people. You can’t call yourself a real freelance writer if you never take on stories that require you to call anyone. If you’re not interviewing people, you miss out on the fun anecdotes, the wonderfully witty quotes or the telling examples that make up real journalism. If you’re only writing stories that you can glean from a 15-minute Google search, you’re not a journalist, you’re a hack.

I recently read an exchange on a freelance-writing message board from a “journalist” who couldn’t quite understand part of an assignment letter she’d received from her editor. The journalist had send the editor an e-mail, but hadn’t heard back. Someone suggested she simply pick up the phone and call. She explained that she’d rather not; She preferred to interview people and talk with people by e-mail.

Again, this is terrible! When you interview people by e-mail, the results are usually wooden replies. When you talk to someone by phone, you get so much more. You get their tone of voice. You can tell if a question ticks them off or if it makes them nervous. By giving an interview subject time to think over an answer for hours, you get the safest, dullest possible response. Of course, interviewing someone in person is even better. But that’s a subject for another post.

Don’t be afraid to pick up that phone. It’s good for the reporting industry and good for you, too, as a writer.

I remember the predictions: The Internet is going to be a boon for freelance writers. Just look, everyone said, at all the new markets for writers it will bring.

Well, the Internet has been around for some time now, and I certainly don’t see too many writers — a few, maybe, but not many — getting rich from it. Instead, I see a lot of writers pumping out a whole lot of online content for not nearly enough dollars.

That’s been the problem with writing for most Web sites. Sure, they need writers, but they’re not willing to pay much, if anything, to them.

I was reminded of this when I stumbled across two online job postings, one for HubPages and another for Helium. Both were looking for writers. And both promised payment.

For writers unfamiliar with the sites, both are filled with short, blog-like stories written by freelancers. Problem is, the payment — at least the vast, vast majority of it — comes from things such as page views, ad clicks, etc.., In other words, writers will earn pennies from their stories.

One writer who posts on HubPages mentioned that she made $210 so far for the 120 stories she’s written. She seemed excited by it, and thought it proved that the site generated income for writers. Well, $210 for 120 stories is pretty awful pay. Unless this writer was able to pound those stories out in half a day, and if she could do that, I’d hate to read those stories, then she’s getting ripped off.

If you’re trying to break into freelance writing, avoid sites like Associated Content, HubPages, Helium or Constant Content. Never agree to write for payments based on Adsense clicks or page views. Most times, you’ll get nearly nothing for your efforts. Better to approach your local paper. At least then you’ll get paid something. It won’t be much, but it won’t be pennies per story, either.

It’s funny to watch the commercials for the upcoming season of American Idol. The part that makes me chuckle is when the announcer says that American Idol is the show that brings America together?

Really? American Idol does that? I had no idea.

I admit it; I do watch American Idol. I understand it’s not particularly good viewing. I understand, too, that lately the American Idol winners haven’t exactly been setting the music world on fire. And, finally, I understand that the show isn’t exactly good for music in general; Manufactured stars are never a good thing.

But there is something addictive about the show. And you do start rooting for people, despite yourself.

To claim, though, that a talent competition brings America together is amazingly egotistical. I’m making a big deal out of nothing, again, I understand. But this sort of untruth has become so common we don’t even bother to think about it. Maybe it’s the editor in me, but I prefer even my hyperbole to be a bit on the accurate side.

Sometimes something just strikes you as particularly strange. So it was last night at a local pizza place. My wife and our two kids were just getting ready to order when my wife asked the waitress the obvious question: “Do you have any specials tonight?”

The waitress gritted her teeth and replied: “Everything’s special here, every day.”

I was a bit stunned. The answer wasn’t rude. It was actually kind of clever. But it was obvious that our waitress didn’t really want to say it. She had that look on her face, the one that says: “I’d rather rip out my own eyes then say this corporate-mandated slogan one more time.”

I’m sure the waitress wanted to say: “Sorry, our owners are too cheap to ever offer any specials.”

This isn’t a big deal, of course. But it struck me as funny. When you think about it, there are very few times when people really say what they mean. Look at the presidential campaign that ended last year. Weren’t you rooting for Barack Obama to say, just once, “John, why in the world did you pick Sara Palin to be your running mate? Don’t you want to be president?” Or maybe you longed to hear McCain say something like, “Barack, I’d like to punch you in your smug face, you know that?”

No, instead we get sound bites. Or advertising slogans.

I suppose it could be worse. Our waitress could have said: “No specials tonight. Everything’s pretty lousy. As usual.”

In my last post, right below this one, I wrote about the tough 2008 I had on the freelance-writing beat. I wrote more stories than ever, but still made less money than I did in 2007 or 2006. The reason? More of my assignments paid lower rates. The big payers were few and far between, thanks, I guess, to the rough economy and general upheaval in the publishing business.

Despite that, though, I still believe that nothing beats both working from home and working for yourself. I do both, and I know I’d hate any alternative.

Here’s why. One of my freelance jobs involves editing a commercial real estate trade magazine in Chicago. I go into the office once every two weeks or so. The job is a big one, and comes complete with health insurance. But going into the office is one big drag.

That’s always been the case. But it’s worse now. Now I have to listen to all the salesmen, who are struggling desperately to sell ad space in the magazine, sit in their cubicles and sigh. And if they aren’t sighing, they’re reading aloud dismal statistics from the Wall Street Journal or CNN. It’s enough to make you want to hang yourself by your necktie. (Good thing I’m one of the few male employees there without a necktie!)

If that’s not bad enough, I often receive visits from an assistant publisher who’s especially despondent. I can’t blame him, though. He’s the one in charge of firing people if sales don’t pick up. The last time I went to the office, late last week, he stopped by my cubicle twice to shake his head and tell me which rival magazine or industry publication decided to shut its doors.

I know it’s bad out there. Believe me. My wife and I were considering refinancing our mortgage loan. Turns out, though, that our home is no longer worth what we paid for it three years ago. There go those potential savings!

But as a work-from-homer, and as a freelancer responsible for my own well-being, I think I’m in better shape to survive the downturn. I can always work harder and more creatively. I can change my strategy if things aren’t working: Instead of searching for higher-paying jobs, I can change up and take on as many lower-paying, but easy to complete, writing assignments as possible. I’m learning that you can’t force the writing industry to change. You have to instead anticipate those changes and react to them.

It’s not a perfect system, that’s for sure. But it does beat the alternative. I wouldn’t trust any full-time employer these days.

Illinois government has been a laughingstock since before Christmas. That’s when our sleazy governor with the bouffant hair do was arrested for, among other things, trying to sell the open Senate seat vacated by incoming president Barack Obama.

Everyone wants the governor to resign. But that isn’t going to happen. Blagojevich, who’s been an embarrassment ever since taking office two — yes, Illinois voters voted him back in! — terms ago, is maintaining his innocence, despite overwhelming evidence that indicates he was using his governorship to make him and his wife rich.

Showing his defiance, Blagojevich recently appointed longtime political hack Roland Burris to Obama’s former seat. This was a shrewd move on Blagojevich’s part: Burris is black. He immediately picked up support because of this. Critics are also a bit muted partly because Chicago has such a long history of racial unrest. There’s still, unfortunately, a big divide between blacks and whites in the city. Chicago remains perhaps the most segregated city in the country.

So the news today is that Burris will probably get his Senate seat. This is disgusting. Burris should first of all be ashamed of himself for even accepting a nomination from such a tainted official as Blagojevich. Burris knows exactly why Blagojevich appointed him. The governor is using Burris to stick it to everyone who wants to see him locked up as soon as possible.

The news is disappointing, too, because it shows that despite Obama’s election, the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois is nowhere near solving its racial problems. I guess it was naive to think otherwise.

During the last week, our friends from Texas braved the wintry Chicago weather to stay with us. It’s been a relaxing few days of card games, eating out and catching up.

What’s interesting, though, is that one of our Texas friends works in the field of public relations. Because I sort of work on the other side — I make most of my money as a stay-at-home freelance writer — I enjoy talking with her about her views on the media.

We had something unique to talk about this week. Our local hockey team, the formerly miserable now up-and-coming Chicago Blackhawks, played a historic game this week. They put an ice rink in Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, and played the Detroit Red Wings outside this Sunday. Now, this is a neat thing. But from the way the game was hyped in Chicago — and, I’m guessing, in Detroit — you’d think the Hawks had just found a cure for the common cold.

Our friend from Dallas knew all about this, of course. When the public-relations machine kicks in, there’s no stopping it. In fact, we’ve had a lot of the PR machine these days. After all, that’s what the holidays are all about, right? First, there’s nothing at all as important as FINDING THAT PERFECT GIFT FOR EVERYONE for Christmas. Then, the instant Christmas arrives, no one cares about it anymore. The hype machine then moves on to New Year’s Eve and how important it is to HAVE THE BEST NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE! If you watched any of the New Year’s Eve shows that night, you no doubt would have heard some breathless announcer enthuse about how “the scene here is amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it!” Yes, you have, every single New Year’s Eve.

It’s nice that the hype season is over … at least until the Super Bowl, THE BIGGEST FOOTBALL GAME EVER!

This holiday season has been a bit rough because my family during its course has lost two people due to cancer. We had our second funeral in as many weeks today.

Both funerals were sad, of course. But today’s particularly struck me. Not because of the emotion involved, but because of the emotion it lacked. The reverend who spoke didn’t know the deceased. No one from the 25 or so attendees got up to say anything. And it was all over in under a half hour.

In contrast, the first funeral we attended, about two weeks ago, was packed. At the wake the day before, people had to wait outside in the cold to get a chance to view the body. On the day of the funeral, the entire church was filled, and at the reception afterward, people lined up for the chance to tell their stories about the deceased.

Is the funeral you have an indication of the type of life you’ve left? That’s a tough one. Both deceased were good, kind people. One was more vivacious, immersed himself in his family and his community and made everyone he spoke to feel like they were the most important person in the world.

It’s hard not to imagine your own funeral at times like this. It’s hard not to hope, either, that yours is like that first one I attended two weeks ago, and not the one where the only personal item the reverend speaking could include was that the deceased was feisty.

You’ll be reading in the papers this week that we just suffered through a bad holiday season. Retail sales were down during the season, somewhere around 5.5 percent to 8 percent.

But does that make this a truly bad holiday season? I mean we can’t always spend more than we did the year before can we? There has to be some limit to the amount of money we as a country fritter away during the holidays.

Think about this. It’s only three days after Christmas as I write this. Do you even remember everything you received for the holiday? I know I can’t, and we made a concerted effort this year to spend less than usual.

I’m not a religious person, at all. But I do think that Christmas has become too much about spending, too much about spending stressful hours searching for that perfect gift. Christmas should be about spending time with family and friends. It should be about taking a much-needed break from work. Instead, it’s about spending, and that’s kind of sad.

Here’s hoping that you had a good holiday season, and that you have a fun New Year’s celebration planned, even though the cash registers didn’t ring quite as loudly this year.

I know a bit about real estate: I’ve written about residential real estate for more than a decade, for newspapers and trade magazines. During this time, real estate agents — and everyone involved with the buying and selling of homes, actually — have been quick to remind me just how important they are.

Agents help buyers purchase homes for a fair price. They help negotiate with sellers. They … Well, I’m sure they do something else. I just don’t know what it is.

As the rains keep coming here in the Midwest, I have this to say in response to all those real estate agents: You’re wrong. You’re not important at all. In fact, you’re rather useless.

I say this because my basement is flooding today. Again. We’ve owned our little house for three years now. This is the fifth time our basement has flooded.

As you may or may not know, sellers are required to disclose when their homes have basements that flood. Our sellers did not disclose this. In fact, they checked a box on the sales contract that said their basement was dry.

Well, either they were incredibly fortunate during the eight years they live here or they’re liars. I opt for the second.

Fine. Problem is, not one of the real estate professionals who helped us buy this house has been able to help us remedy this situation. Our real estate agent did come over the day after our first flood and frowned, tsked and sighed. But she didn’t know what else to do. We contacted the real estate attorney the state of Illinois requires in every housing transaction only to be told by him that it’s probably not worth our time to try to prove in court that our sellers lied. The home inspector who’s supposed to help find things like this was quick to cover his own butt, saying quickly that it was a dry day when he did our inspection. I’ll make sure to schedule our next home inspection, should we buy again, during a deluge.

The frustrating thing is that none of these people — most of whom we paid to look out for our interests — have done a thing to help us now that we actually need them. Sure, they’re all peppy and “helpful” when they’re completing the routine tasks that go with the buying and selling of a home. But when you actually need them to do something they don’t do 1,000 times a day, they shrug their shoulders.

The advice we’ve gotten is that we should just suck it up and pay to have the basement waterproofed. That’s what we are going to do, unfortunately. It’s just a shame that people in the real estate industry are so useless. I guess it’s no surprise that the housing industry is falling apart. For years, the people who worked in it were unethical, corrupt, lazy and stupid. Of course the industry is going to fall apart.