I'm still fuming over this ad, spotted on Los Angeles Craigslist, seeking a "Very Brainy + Creative Thinker, Planner, Editor" for a series of high-end newsmagazines covering ritzy Southern California communities including Malibu Beach and Beverly Hills.
The publisher is looking for a brilliant miracle worker:
We need more intellectual firepower, investigative articles on serious issues.
We should do more interviews with top-level movers and shakers, authors, academics, CEOs, political leaders, etc.
...
This is for someone really brainy who wants to test the envelope.
...
I see you as someone who comes up with 4-5 really great ideas every month that we should write about. You could do some or all of the writing, or you could help me find just the right writer or writers who should.
...
This is NOT a role in which you will say to me, "What do you want me to write about this month?" It's VERY MUCH a role in which you will say to me, "Here are five fantastic ideas your readers will absolutely love." And then I want those ideas to be so great that I'll simply say "yes, yes, yes, yes -- and yes."
Sounds like a vital job for this enterprise, a combination of ingenuity and creativity, the kind of stuff that's unfakeable, that's invaluable, that cannot be done by just anyone. Plus, it will feed on the new job holder's own network of contacts both within the industry -- if the publisher expects this person to have access to a stable of writers, plus have PR contacts that will put him/her in touch with "top-level movers and shakers" -- as well as within the community, if this person will be ferreting out stories that readers have not already come across in other local publications, stories that make them go Wow!
As if to reemphasize how special a person someone will have to be to take on this extraordinary job, the ad spells it all out:
Please be smart, educated, talented, insightful, visionary, peppy, clever, earnest, fun, positive, reliable, organized, sane, honest, willing to work -- and eager to make a difference.
And what will the remuneration for this extraordinary person be?
For great story ideas, I see paying you $20 per idea we use, with a maximum of five, or $100 a month.If you write the story, I see paying you 20 cents a word. So a 1,000 word article nets you $200.
If you aren't perfect for writing the story, but find the right person who is, I see another $20 "finder's fee."
So you could make maybe $100 - $500 a month doing this.
But hey, don't be so glum:
it's not really a "job job," it's more an advisory role -- something fun and stimulating for you to take on in addition to whatever else you're doing.
See, you get paid in fun! Who doesn't love fun?
What? You say you expect to be paid on a scale commensurate with your total awesomeness? Are you some kind of idiot? Don't you know that
writing and/or editing is not a road to riches
and also that
this is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
Geez, you geniuses with your brilliant ideas and massive network of contacts, you really do expect something for nothing, don't you?
(Technorati tags: writing for free)
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