Commissions drying up so I started a blog: How we've got on so far

ARE you being told there's no budget for UK travel features? So ran a recent question on the Journobiz forum.

The answer from the forum's resident travel writers was pretty much a resounding "yes."

In February 2008, I reported the following for Press Gazette: What were the chances of building a career in this competitive field for anyone who fancied it?

Author, journalist and trainer Dea Birkett said:

Forget it. The biggest misconception about travel writing is that it’s an easy way to make a living. You have to do other things to pay the mortgage.

Think you know mummybloggers? Think again

I'VE been reading a bit about how PRs are engaging with bloggers lately and some of the discussion has either been sparked by or led to mentions of a recent trip I shared with six other so-called UK 'mummybloggers' to Walt Disney World.

See this forward thinking post from travel journalist Jeremy Head and this interesting piece by Manchester's Sarah Hartley to see what I mean.

Susanna, from A Modern Mother, recently shared guidance for PRs wanting to contact this group of bloggers and I have been meaning to add my thoughts on her excellent post for a while. The one point I disagreed on was that I write for other people, not for me.

How I use social media to survive and diversify

THE Black Country Social Media Cafe is described as a place for people interested in social media to gather, get acquainted, chat, plot, scheme, and share.

I attended the first meeting a few weeks back when guest speakers Pete Ashton and Chris Unitt outlined lessons learned on a visit to SXSW.

At the next meeting, to be held on Tuesday, May 12, at 2.30pm in the Alchemy Bar in Wolverhampton city centre, there'll be a chance for members to say a little about who they are and what they do, with a particular emphasis on how they have been able to use social media in their work.

It's unclear whether I am going to be able to make it to the next meeting, because of a work commitment. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about how our work has been transformed by social media, so am posting here about its impact on my professional life. As I think about tomorrow's JEE Camp, I also thought it would be useful to pull some of my experience together in this way.

Overall, I'd say that a growing knowledge of social media has allowed me to:

* Survive and diversify in my chosen career.

* Make and strengthen new contacts whom I never would have met previously.

* Improve ways of finding, researching and completing existing work

* Find new income streams - both directly and indirectly through blogging but also in offering my services to help others get to grips with the concept of social media and understand that it's not about technology for the sake of it 

* Better promote my work across various disciplines

My writing day: Anne Wollenberg

FREELANCE journalist Anne Wollenberg specialises in entertainment, technology and workplace issues and also works on more general or 'real life' features.

She writes for newspapers and a mixture of consumer, trade and customer magazines. As a result, she says that “working” has involved "interviewing everyone from members of the Lost cast to a woman whose husband is impotent."

Anne is a fellow member at JournoBiz and I know I speak for more members there when I say that her success in her freelance career, just 12 months in, is an inspiration.

JEEcamp - an 'unconference' for the future of journalism

BIRMINGHAM City University online journalism lecturer Paul Bradshaw has organised a second JEE Camp after the success of a first event last year - and tickets are selling fast.

Paul describes the event, at The Gatehouse, The Bond, Fazeley Street, Digbeth, from 10am on May 8, as being for anyone interested in news, from entrepreneurs to bloggers, developers and those involved in social media.

Back to basics: Ten mistakes to avoid when writing a news story

1. Missing the point

MAKE sure your story is as strong as it can be. Take a step back and play devil's advocate. Are you communicating what really matters to your readers?

Have you missed out any crucial information that would make the story more compelling or important? And if you can genuinely answer 'no' - then make sure you haven't buried that vital point too far into the story.

2. Assuming anything

Never think that just because you know something your readers do too. This isn't the same as understanding as John Thompson points out in his excellent piece here, that your readers know more than you. Will they really be aware of the organisation you are referring to or know who your interviewee is? Even something as simple as spelling someone's name should be checked, however obvious you think it is.  That leads us to...

'How a gorilla got me a job' Sarah Cruickshank on winning work online

SARAH Cruickshank is a Lancashire-based freelance journalist, who previously worked as a supply teacher, Sure Start project worker and in other education, arts administration, retail and housing jobs before becoming a full-time writer last year.

She writes about parenting, childcare, education, play and she says "anything else that grabs her interest" for print and online publications.

Here, she tells us about how building an online presence through a number of sites, has allowed her to reap the benefits of direct contact from useful sources and increased awareness about her specialism.

Ideas? It's all in the timing

HERE'S a piece that has been published at www.freelanceuk.com today:

FOR a freelance writer, ideas can make or break a career. As markets and budgets shrink and competition increases, it’s more crucial than ever to make your ideas stand out from the crowd. Linda Jones shows you how.

So you want to write for your favourite magazine and you are brimming with ideas – you’re a little disappointed that most of them – or something similar at least – has been covered already – but it’s still worth a shot, right?

Craig McGinty on how journalists can reap the rewards of blogging - and he should know!

HOW often do you have an article idea that you think will interest readers, but is unfortunately not commissioned by a newspaper or magazine? writes Craig McGinty.
With the online publishing tools available today there is no need to scrub it off your notepad or pop it in your ideas folder with countless others.

What does a year of blogging bring you?

I HAVE been tapping away at my keyboard at odd times of the day on a blog about twins and multiple births for a year now and thought it may be helpful to give a rundown of what this daft behaviour has achieved.

Craig has helped me a great deal. I wanted to make information available to parents and expectant parents. This was the driving force behind the blog as opposed to making money - this would be nice of course and as time goes on, then I need to look into this more.

At times it has felt like a really thankless task, especially as I was labouring under the impression that there was a grand total of 360 returning visitors. I have just looked properly at the statistics and there has been 24,944 unique visitors and 4,370 returning visitors over 12 months.