Unlike a Rolling Stone

Not sure, but it was a full feature, so I'm guessing at least 2,500.

A magazine like Rolling Stone should be paying at least $2 a word to an experienced freelancer.

 

I wrote a 3000+ story for Playboy and got $500, and I'm an experienced freelancer. Are you sure that story is not online-only, which seems to be at a far lesser rate?

 

I would be interested to know whether it was for the magazine or the website. There are a few places -- not sure Rolling Stone is one anymore -- where I'd consider taking a little less just to be able to cross it off my list and say I had a byline there.

 

They don't get to put it in print and on the website?

 

Online does pay a lot less almost everywhere, but he was talking about the fact checking process, which made me think it was for the print version.

 

Music reviews are right up there with whiskey reviews in the pantheon of bullshit writing. And when 90 percent of your feature subjects get final approval rights, you’re just doing PR.

 

Correct. There’s some artists who could burp for 10 tracks and still get a favorable review.

 

How long -- including any research required -- did that take you?

 

Cough cough Radiohead cough cough

 

This breaks my mighty heart.

 

Hauled the new-look RS out of the mailbox yesterday. Huge, oversized thing, kind of reminded me of its newsprint size in the 70s and 80s. Now a monthly (I wondered why my subscription, which I have had since 1978, had been extended to 2020) and while I haven't had a chance to dive into it yet it looks like they have expanded the reviews section which had all but been forgotten about in the last year or so.