Precision Verb & Noun, Inc.

I would be in on this because of the sheer amount of organizing and planning I do for freelance work. In my area - and that of a couple neighboring states, too - I've set myself up a decent amount of freelance opportunities covering games and writing features. Anyone who does this as well knows it takes quite a bit of work to get one job, let alone several a month.

If there was some kind of agency to do that for me, that would be incredible. It would just be like being at a regular paper and being sent out on assignment. I don't know how much the percentage would have to be for it to be acceptable - I don't get paid a lot for assignments as, again, a lot of people know, and so anything like 10 percent to 15 percent might be pushing it. But for the purpose of having to eliminate a lot of the gruntwork, I think it would be a good idea.

Leo, you raise some good concerns, but I think that if this was to be a real threat to newspapers, it would have already happened with the availability of stringers. You see how many people pound the same areas over and over and over again on the freelance board, and yet, many papers still use their beat writers to travel across the country to games. If it would happen, it might have happened already.

Oh yeah, and as others have said, I'm in. PM if you want to brainstorm more, because I've thought about this on a much smaller scale as well.

 

Just back in -- thanks for the posts so far, guys.

Much food for thought.

My early thinking was that this would be a fairly small deal -- major centers, tight on hiring and control so that you could guarantee the quality of the product. One bad experience, and I'm pretty sure a client wouldn't come back for more... Journalism isn't really a second-chance kind of business.

I was also thinking that all the stories could go through the central office -- that's the Precision Politburo for you, jgmacg -- for an edit before they're sent off to the clients, as a kind of added service.

Probably because of what I do, I was also thinking that most of the stories would be longform, featurey type stuff... I figure the wires do a pretty thorough job of event coverage. I could be wrong there, though. Maybe if you want a little something extra out of your World Series stories but didn't want to send a staffer.

Which means, Leo, I can see where you're coming from. To be honest, I was thinking if I was a sports editor, part of the incentive to use Precision would be to save travel costs. (Of course, I was also thinking that clients could request a particular writer, ignoring geography, in which case they wouldn't be saving the airfare.) Part of me wonders if this is part of the evolution of newspapers and magazines -- that the industry is somehow behind others in farming out.

But the idea I had kicking around would be one-off stories, mostly. If you were going to farm out an entire season's worth of Cubs games (and I wouldn't wish that on any of my imaginary staffers), you might as well hire a full-time reporter.

I'm going to check out Germany and so on -- thanks for the tip there, Mr. Hunt.

And da man -- My hope would be that the increased revenue that staffers would enjoy would offset that percentage. The way authors use literary agents -- they earn their fifteen percent by getting their clients better deals.

Anyway, all of this is just thinking out loud at the moment. Thought I'd put it up here and see what came of it. No sleep for me tonight, it's looking like. Brain is abuzzing.

 

Let us know if you end up at Kinko's at 3 a.m., handing a mission statement to a guy with a ponytail who says, "That's how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there."

 

Yo, Jonsey, I'm in.

 

Just to reiterate, the company, at the moment, is only imaginary. (Well, the company is real, but right now I'm the only employee.) I just don't want anybody waking up tomorrow thinking they're going to have an assignment and a paycheck waiting for them.

Now I know what it's like to be Lynn Hoppes. Good God, the power!

 

Hell, I've already given my two weeks' notice. Was that premature?

 

Jonsey,

Should this get off the ground--and I hope like hell it does--could writers volunteer PV&N to ex-clients?

For example, there's a paper that I've done regular work for. I'm sure they would be interested in using the proposed company.

 

That would be the biggest trick, I think, 'beat. Would writers be willing to give up a chunk of their earnings to work for clients they've already worked for? Because in my head, staffers would have to be exclusive to the company -- otherwise, they could use it to make contacts and then do work outside... Plus, for scheduling and things, you'd have to know where everybody was and what they were doing. You couldn't have staffers doing work on the side.

I know I'm starting to sound like a tyrant, but I think that's how it would have to be.

Probably the biggest sticking point, in my mind.

 

Leo:
Get a clue---if a paper wants to hire a free-lancer for $250 to do what it would cost $1,000 to send a staffer, I guarantee you they are already doing it with a roster of help archived for about 15-20 cities, and it only taking a couple of phone calls to line someone up for a new area.

Papers don't need a PV&N to give them this idea for the first time, although I like the PV&N concept.

 

As an individual, I'm in for helping BuckWeaver with the boring work.

As a sports editor, I might be interested in hiring a writer through this company maybe once or twice a year.

 

Jones,

Making it exclusive would not work. If a writer is working exclusively for the company, he would need to pull in at least $25,000 a year to make an income. Thus, given the going rates of freelance assignments, at an average of maybe $200 (counting game coverage and features), you'd need to work 125 stories, which would be about 2.5 a week. This isn't going to be difficult, but that's a break-even point. Counting possible travel, logistically, it might be tough. Not saying it's not possible - a Major League Baseball beat proves it - but this guy is going to be the stud of the company to pull down that many assignments a week, especially in the winter.

 

Ditto. My writing chops don't measure up to Jones or jgmacg. I'm a desker; I'll do the grunt work.