The Delicate Art of Negotitation

Attempting to sell the Melanie C piece has been something of a headache the whole week. In the end, the piece wound up back where it started--with Xpress. The piece was not so much commissioned as "if you want to do the interview, go ahead, and if we have page count we'll take it." And then they were supposed to get the increased page count, but their head office in Montréal had their own interview, which they were supposed to use instead. And then, that piece turned out to be too Montréal-centric, and it was back to me. They could put it on their website--but not pay me for it.

I don't like working for free. I've done a couple of spec pieces here or there for editors I've never worked with before, and in most cases they've panned out. In one case it didn't quite--the editor liked the piece and planned to run it, but they ran out of space, and then the bill passed, and they it was rendered moot. Nevertheless, it led to new work from him a couple of weeks later.

So I shopped the interview around, but most outlets either had their own piece done--in some cases I knew that but pitched that this interview steered clearly away from the topics they had covered--or in one case, the editor never got back to me, after three voicemails.

Winding up back at Xpress, I submitted the piece on the condition that they arrange for passes for me for the show in lieu of payment. That seemed to work, and it is some token renumeration for the work that I put in. Being as they have a new editor there as well, this was my trial run with him. So it all worked out as best as it could, and I did get to interview a Spice Girl. But it highlights some of the perils of working as a freelancer.