S6 Bonus 01: The Value of Freelance Writers

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we’ve always wanted to tell with the right support, encouragement, and structure. I’m on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space.

If you’re ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence, and publish your travel stories, you’re in the right place. Let’s go!

[EPISODE]

[00:00:38] YD: Hi, everyone. We are taking a quick break this September here at the Travel Media LAB Podcast, and we will be returning with fresh season seven episodes for you in October. Until then, I'd like to share with you a few conversations that we regularly have in the Circle, our membership in which we help you get your stories published with ongoing support, encouragement, opportunities, and a community as you establish yourself in the travel media space. In this bonus episode, I'm sharing with you a discussion we recently had in the Circle during one of our weekly check-ins. This is one of the many things we do in the Circle alongside pitch review, alongside support, and curated opportunities that I come out for our members every two weeks. But every week, we have check-ins on Zoom where we set the priorities for the week and also have opportunities to ask questions related to our pitches and working in the industry.

On this call that you're about to hear, we're discussing a recent shift that I've been going through personally on inviting more ease into my life, why we need to be actively working on raising rates in the industry, what is the value of freelance writers and why how we process information affects everything we do in life. Before we get started, I want to share with you a super exciting announcement. This October, we're inviting travel writer, Jessica Poitevien to run a series of travel writing workshops inside the Circle. We're calling the series, The Anatomy of a Travel Story. In it, Jessica is going to take you through the whole process from generating ideas, and pitching, to interviewing, and gathering your sources to developing your story structure, and writing your article. Jessica has written for Travel+Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic, Fodo's Travel, and many more. I'm so, so excited to learn from her this October.

Now, let me tell you a little bit more about how the workshops will look like. We'll have a total of three one-hour workshops on Monday, October 3rd, October 17th and October 24th. The workshops are free for our Circle members. If you join us at our Imagine level, which is just $27 a month, you will be able to get the audio recording of all the workshops. Now, if you want to attend the live call, if you want to interact with Jessica, if you want to ask her questions, then you can join us at our Rise or Soar levels. At those two levels, you will have live access to the workshops and opportunity to get your pitch critiqued by Jessica. Again, the first workshop will run on Monday, October 3rd. So if you join any time before that, you'll be able to learn alongside Jessica and get her amazing expertise and experience. Get more information about this at travelmedialab.com/circle and I hope to see you inside. All right. Now, let's get into this episode.

[00:03:49]

All right. Welcome, everyone. Yes, so just before we started recording, we were talking about how getting into the swing of things. Nicole, to answer you. It's been difficult for me. I just got so relaxed in France, that what I actually realized is that my pace before was not very sustainable. I knew this before. We actually had this conversation in the Circle last year. Do you guys remember last August? Our monthly theme was about learning how to restore and recharge ourselves and I gave this whole presentation about it. The old, old timers, OGs, the OGs will remember this and here we are again. I came back from France and I'm like, "Okay. I need to figure out a better balance, because it's – I don't want to return to that state. So yeah, it's been difficult, but let's see. I have my next schedule coming up. It's going to be just as crazy here in September through November, so we'll see. But I've been thinking a lot about what kind of storied do we tell ourselves about what is and isn't possible? Because for me, for most of my life, actually, the story has been that you need to work hard, you need to suffer. Nothing good comes without a struggle. That's like been my orientation ever since I was little. That's how I approach things. That's how things come to me because that's what I believe.

In France, I've actually been thinking about this a lot. Is this really the only way to be in the world? Is this the only way to work? Is this the only way to exist? Of course, it's not, right? People have all kinds of different ways in which they do things. I have been really focused in the past three weeks on how can things be more easeful for me? How can things be more effortless for me? How can I engineer and orchestrate things in my life, but without the insane hustle and struggle that it's always sort of been the case? I don't know, it's kind of a subtle shift in the way you think. But yeah, it's an experiment. We'll see, I'll report to you guys in terms of how it goes. But I just really want to stop thinking in terms of struggle, stop thinking in terms of everything as a struggle. Both in terms of relationships, in terms of love, in terms of money, in terms of work, in terms of getting pitches and assignments too, by the way. I don't know, I'm kind of going through this reorientation inside of. I don't want struggle anymore. I want things to be easy. Just inviting you into this process with me too.

I'm sort of hesitant to talk more about these kinds of topics and subjects that are, let's say, a bit more esoteric, which are more about the mindset. Because it's – sometimes people can think, well, this is just kind of some cloudy ideas. I don't know what you're talking about, right? What's the practicality here. But the way to bring it back to practicality, for me at least is that, what we think and how we process the world, this is everything, actually. This is everything. This is what informs if we reach out to people. This informs how we bring ourselves to people and to opportunities. If we act on opportunities, or if we let opportunities pass, it informs everything actually, how we think about the world.

What I think now is, because I want things to be more easy, and more joyful, and more struggle free, I want my consciousness to be open to more opportunities, and to see those opportunities when they arise, and then to act on them when they arise. Because when I think everything is a struggle, I don't even think, I don't even see those opportunities, for example. I don't even – when I come across a brand, I don't even reach out to them. Because I think, well, it's too hard anyhow, it's too hard to get a sponsorship or whatever. That's why I'm always wanting to talk to you guys about these subjects, but I'm also always hesitant that I don't want you to think that I'm just giving you some fluff sort of ideas here. But in reality, this is what informs everything that you do with yourself in this life. The answer to the freelance struggle is raising our rates. There is no way around it. We got to demand better pay across the board. We talked about this before in the Circle as well, but that's just it.

I mean, why do we have to say yes to everything? Is because the rates are low, right? We need to have a large aggregately in order to be able to make some sort of living every month. That's where that comes from that. We need to be raising our rates simply, and it's hard to do that, and it's hard to demand that every single time you talk to an editor. Not when you pitch, right, when the assignment has – when they send yes to the assignment, the next question should be about rates. And you asking them every time, "Is there any room in the budget to increase it?" We had this conversation. For newer people that are listening or will be listening later, if you go through our archives, there is a conversation about rates specifically where we talk specifically about that and how do we do that. But that's one big part of it, is raising rates. The other big part of it is, which is something that we've also discussed in the Circle is, "What is our value as freelancers?"

Our value as freelancers is not to write articles that everyone else can write. Our value as freelancers is to write and bring ideas that no one else can really bring, because we have something special, something unique, a unique point of view, a unique obsession, a unique fashion, a unique way to see something in the world. That's where our value lies. If we pitch something that a staff writer can write themselves, an editor can write themselves, there isn't a value in that to the magazine. Why do magazines want to work with freelancers? Because we bring them something that they don't have. That's where our power and our value comes from. But also, when we run ourselves to the ground, it's harder and harder for us to come up with those ideas that are innate value. It's like this Circle, it can be a vicious Circle, right? We run ourselves to the ground, we don't ask for higher rates, we write and we pitch sort of run of the mill. I'm not saying we are doing. I'm saying, overall, we do run of the mill work. We're competing with everyone else for the same run of the mill work and it's this vicious cycle that continues. 

[00:11:16]

How do you break out of it? You ask for higher rates in every interaction with editor. I am serious about this. I want to push you guys. Every time you talk to an editor, no matter how much you've published before, no matter how big your portfolio is, it's just one question. Is there any room in the budget to increase the rate? It's a very – it's a very non-threatening question to an editor. We think it's threatening, but it's not really. It's just a matter of fact. Then we have a bit more rest, and then we have better chance of coming up with those ideas that, again, no one else can bring, because that's where our value lies, right. This is like – we want to turn that vicious Circle into a virtuous Circle. That's kind of where my head lies right now. That's a way forward in this industry. But yeah, I mean, it's not something that can change in one Zoom conversation. But still, I want this to be a reminder for all of us that that's the goal. That virtuous Circle that I just described, that's the goal. 

The other thing I wanted to also bring up with you is that, again, it's related to mindset too and it's related to how we process information, and how we process events, and how important that is. Because for those of us who have started going on press trips. So Hannah, you had experience with that and more of you will as you progress through in this career. You will start going on press trips. Then after you go on a press trip, there is of course the expectation that that you're placing an article somewhere, right? Because that's why you went on a press trip to begin with. It wasn't just a free trip as we all know. 

Somewhere along the line, you might experience a situation where you're pitching, and pitching, and pitching that article, and it's just not being picked up. It's just not being picked up. That situation is more common than you might think. You might think that, "Oh my God. What's happening? Why this is happening to me?" I'm now on the blacklist of this PR organization, because I'm still not able to pitch the article. But in fact, this is just one interpretation. The most important thing there, and I've talked about this in the past. The most important thing there is to keep the agency updated on what's happening. Because the only time they will put you on a blacklist is when they take you on a trip, you say you go into pitch at somewhere and then you disappear. That has happened too, right? That's why they have those blacklists, because they don't want to take people like that on press trips again.

If you're communicating, and if you're keeping them updated, and if you're bringing them on that journey with you. :"Hey, I pitched it here. They said no for such and such reasons. I'm pitching it here. They said no for such and such reasons." You don't have to email them every week, but from time to time you can give them an update. Then they know, because they know how this industry is and sometimes it's very unpredictable in terms of where your story ends up or doesn't end up. Why am I telling you all this? Some of you might have seen that I'm going on several assignments in the next couple of weeks, and one of them is back to Austria.

I've been to Austria last August for a story and that story still hasn't been placed anywhere. I've been pitching it now to so many places, Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, New York Times. One by one, they're all saying no to the story. I again went down that hole of, "Oh my God. What did I do? Now, the Austrian Tourism Board will put me on the blacklist because it's been a year and the story still hasn't been placed." Literally, as I'm going down that line of thinking, I get an email in my inbox from the Austrian, my contact, who says, "Hey, Yulia. Would you like to come back to Austria this fall for another assignment, for another thing that we're doing?" She's like, "I know the story hasn't been placed yet, but I know you're working on it. It's such a great story, so just come back. We're happy to have you again." It was a reminder to me that we can interpret things one way, but we also can – most of the time, the way we interpret them have nothing to do with reality. It was just a very important reminder. She knows, I've been updating her on where the story stands, why all these publications said no, so far.

I think that that's also very important to keep in mind. As long as you're communicating, as long as you're telling them where you are, what's happening, then it's absolutely fine. They're not going to be placing anyone on any blacklist. So yeah, our mindset, the way we process the world, the way we think about the world is everything, actually, because it informs what we do later. How we think about what's next, what we do or don't do, whether we take or don't take opportunities, all of it is impacted by the way we process events, the way we process the world. It's just so important and yeah, I wanted to remind you guys of that today.

There is a scientific explanation to this, manifestation. I need to find this, because I talked about this recently. I had another Zoom call with someone. The reason why manifestation works, we think, okay. This is some, again, woo-woo, whatever science or pseudoscience. But the reason why it works is that when you give your brain an orientation for something, your brain starts picking up signs that before it wouldn't have noticed. It starts interpreting things differently. Because most of the time, we don't pick up on most of the signs that we see. Our brain, our unconscious, our subconsciousness doesn't pick them up. But when you give yourself that orientation that that's what I want from now on, you start seeing things that you haven't seen before. Then, it's up to you what you do with that. It's a bit of – it's manifestation, yes, but it's also up to you to do something with it. I will find a term for it. I found it recently, in a podcast I was listening to and it was amazing, because I always again, I feel like – I don't want to give you any pseudoscience or any things that are like some – because there's a lot of that too, especially in social media, you see that. Manifest becoming a millionaire tomorrow, or I don't know, some silly things like that. There's actually scientific explanation to this phenomenon, that as your brain starts picking up signs that you haven't seen before, and that's – and then what do you do with that information? So yeah, let's – I'll post it in chat later. 

Just an invitation for everyone to think about how can we go from that vicious cycle to the virtuous cycle. Increasing our rates, giving ourselves more space to come up with those ideas that is our value because that's why magazines want to work with us. Just inviting more easefulness into our lives and less struggle, more ease. That's my sort of orientation and mantra for the rest of the year. Yeah, invite you guys to think about that as well. 

[END]