Fuck You, Pay Me #7: Some of My Favorite Things I've Ever Written (Journalism Edition)

This is part 7 of “Fuck You, Pay Me,” an ongoing series of posts on writing, editing, and publishing. Read the rest of the series: Part 1: How To Become a Writer in 12 Easy Steps, Part 2: The Pros and Cons of Traditional vs. Indie Publishing, Part 3: Scenes From My Life Writing a Porn Novel, Part 4: Why I Hate Memoirs (but Wrote One Anyway), Part 5: 19 Ways to Make Money as a Writer, Part 6: Letters From Johns Revisited, Part 7: Some of My Favorite Things I’ve Ever Written (Journalism Edition), Part 8: Some of My Favorite Things I’ve Ever Written (Fiction Edition), Part 9: How to Promote Your Book Without Going Crazy.

I thought I’d list some of my favorite things I’ve ever written in terms of journalism. In this list, I’ve excluded my books—my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment; my short story collection, You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You?; and my novel-in-progress, (which I’ll refer to here as) Untitled Porn Novel.

1. “They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?” This is my 2009 long-form investigation of the Great Recession’s impact on the adult movie industry. Originally it was written for Slate’s Double X, when they were trying to turn Double X into a full-blown magazine that I think was described as something like the original Esquire but written by women. The editor wanted me to change my story in ways that I didn’t, I shopped it around and was unable to place it anywhere else because print magazines were nervous about running adult-themed content (some of it quite graphic) next to advertising that paid their bills, and I ended up self-publishing it (initially it lived on its own website, but I later moved it to my website). See also: “The Numbers on Self-Publishing Long-form Journalism.” I’m so glad I went this route instead of letting some editor trash it.

   Standout quote: “As for the ‘sperm omelet,’ as everyone referred to it in awestruck tones, that was Jim’s idea, she told me.”

   Year published and publisher: 2009, self-published

2. “How to Romance the Taller Woman.” I’m not saying this was my finest hour as a journalist, but this was the first story of mine that appeared in a glossy magazine. This story about how to date tall chicks (I’m six-foot-one) appeared in the December 1997 issue of Details. My editor was Duane Swierczynski, who is now a famous crime writer. The story was illustrated with the poster for the 1958 film The Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, which is maybe my all-time favorite movie poster. This story doesn’t exist online, but I bought the print version of the issue on eBay to replace the one that I lost somewhere along the way.

   Standout quote: “Just because we’re tall doesn’t mean our genitals are as big as the Holland Tunnel.”

   Year published and publisher: 1997, Details

3. “I Spent My Childhood as a Guinea Pig for Science. It Was … Great?” Speaking of Slate, last November this piece I wrote in conjunction with the release of my memoir appeared on the website. I wrote this story on spec, which is something I hate to do because I think it’s beneath me at this point in my career, but doing so gave me the opportunity to write my story how I wanted to write it. The editor was excellent. She had a light touch and came up with the title, which I think is brilliant and hilarious. This piece didn’t take me long to write; four days, I think. The only thing I don’t love is the image used with it, which is a stock image, that kid is maybe a boy, and I think those aren’t M&M’s but Skittles.

   Standout quote: “Even when I was in a dangerous place, I could feel a connection between the study and me, like a gossamer thread spun from inside of it and wrapped around me.”

   Year published and publisher: 2023, Slate

4. “Extreme Porn Crackdown.” Over two decades ago, I wrote this story for Salon about a series of LAPD busts in Porn Valley. I think this was the first time I wrote a big piece tackling an issue going on in the adult movie business. At the time, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment on the east side of Los Angeles. For some reason, various porn companies kept sending me VHS tapes (how one watched porn in those days), and my place was overflowing with them. Also I had a silicone vagina molded off a real porn star’s vagina that I kept in a hallway cupboard. As part of my research, I interviewed Seymore Butts at his home, and it just so happened that I had been on the set of an “American Bukkake” movie that was of interest to the LAPD. I remember seeing the story after the editor went through it and thinking what the fuck did he do, as he had changed it quite a bit, and then realizing he had made it quite a bit better.

   Standout quote: “These days, it seems like the Los Angeles Police Department has got a thing for porn.”

   Year published and publisher: 2001, Salon

5. “To the Max.” I find a lot of people who work in the porn industry pretty interesting, even people who do things other people would think are indefensible, but Max Hardcore was a pornographer I did not like. I use past tense here because he died last year. Back in 2008, I wrote a post about him on a blog I had at the time. That post, which I reposted here because people kept asking me about it, was entitled “To the Max,” and I wrote it a few days after Hardcore was sentenced to 46 months in prison after being found guilty of various obscenity charges brought by the Department of Justice’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force. In the wake of the sentencing, the liberal and libertarian and independent-minded people of the internet were bellyaching about Hardcore’s sentence, wailing about their First Amendment rights being threatened. Glenn Greenwald was one of the loudest complainers, so I wrote him an email asking him if he had bothered to watch any of the Hardcore-created porn he was so busy defending (spoiler: he hadn’t), and then I wrote about why if you’re going to defend various types of extreme porn you might want to bother watching it first. I wish I could recall why years prior to this Hardcore had gotten pissed at me at some party in downtown Los Angeles or what he said to trash me to some reporter who visited him in prison, but I can’t. Anyway, my passion made the piece sing.

   Standout quote: “Because if you're going to talk about how far we've come when it comes to porn, if you're going to posit Paul ‘Max Hardcore’ Little as the latest victim of the Bush administration, if you're going to lament one more strike against your First Amendment rights, you should bear witness as to what a porn star drenched in vomit looks like.”

   Year published and publisher: 2008, my blog

6. “How the Biggest Strip Club in American Grinds.” For some time now I’ve been covering the business of sex on the Forbes website. In 2015, I was living in Southwest Florida and drove to the other side of the state to go to Tootsie’s Cabaret, which bills itself as the biggest strip club in America. Holy shit! I have been to a lot of strip clubs in my life, but I had never and have not since seen a place like this. I guess in Miami they just strip different. It’s 74,000 square feet! It has a 30-foot stripper pole! In a 24-hour period it might entertain 1,500 customers! On a weekend night, there may be 150 dancers working there! Anyway, it was fucking nuts, and I really enjoyed it, and I would like to go back someday.

   Standout quote: “‘I like dancing a lot,’ she says. ‘I'm not shy. I have a lot of spunk.’”

   Year published and publisher: 2015, Forbes.com

7. “Blood Sacrifice.” Around the same time, I wrote a story for the now defunct website The Billfold about how I flew from where I was living, Naples, Florida, to Chicago, Illinois, to have a $350 dinner. My friend had invited me, and the restaurant was Grant Achatz’s Next, and what was I going to do, say no? (I was not.) The tale involves the consumption of canard à la presse and getting over breast cancer and fantasies about meeting your heroes. This took place during a period in my life that feels so far away now. I was married, and now I am divorced. I was living in Florida, and now I live in California. I was fresh out of having survived breast cancer, and now I am a decade-plus survivor. Sometimes it’s good to write about things that are complicated because you can see how far you’ve come later.

   Standout quote: “He would smile knowingly at me, and I would smile knowingly at him, and then he would disappear into the kitchen, and he would emerge with a plate of something that looked like a tumor splattered across porcelain, and I would eat it, and whatever it was made of (rhubarb? venison? something else entirely?), it would be delicious, and I would have eaten the tumor that had tried to eat me, metaphorically, of course, and the cycle of life would close upon itself, completing itself, like Ouroboros with his tail in his mouth rolling down a street like a wheel.”

   Year published and publisher: 2015, The Billfold

8. “Porn’s Uncanny Valley.” How has tech transformed porn? I’m sure I seemed like the perfect writer to write this story which is why an editor at The Atlantic reached out to me to write it. I can’t recall what was asked of me, but it was something about like the landscape of (Virtual?) Porn Valley? Anyway, I ended up experiencing virtual reality porn for the first time, and, man, was that weird. I don’t mention it in the story, but when I was at the VR porn guy’s office, and I was watching the VR porn with the VR headset, I had this weird, visceral urge to punch the VR porn performer in the virtual world in the face. After I took off the headset, I related this to the VR porn guy, and he said something to the effect of, yeah, a lot of people have that experience. I have no fucking idea why, but there you go.

   Standout quote: “‘It’s a phantom-limb penis syndrome,’ said a tall, British man who goes by the name Adam Sutra.”

   Year published and publisher: 2017, The Atlantic

9. “Everyone Has a Pervert Hidden Inside of Them.” A few years ago, I started going to estate sales. My maternal grandmother was a very successful antiques dealer, so maybe that is part of why I do this. Pretty quickly I noticed that when you’re pawing through the things the dead have left behind, you get a very intimate view of them. Sometimes you get to see what they kept hidden from the rest of the world. Occasionally, those secrets are sexual in nature. In this edition of my newsletter, The Reverse Cowgirl, I wrote about what that’s like and some of the things I’ve found, among them: small handmade penis sculptures, binders of autographed porn star photos, forgotten sex toys. It’s like nostalgia, but X-rated.

   Standout quote: “A woman had spent her days painting these penises, sculpting these phalluses, drawing these nudes.”

   Year published and publisher: 2022, The Reverse Cowgirl

10. “The Graduate of Porn Star High.” This was such a fascinating story to write, back in 2001. An editor at Arena magazine in the UK had heard about this Staten Island high schooler who had gotten a famous porn star to go to his prom with him (thanks to Howard Stern), and then the high schooler and the porn star had started dating, and the editor wanted me to write a profile of them and their relationship. For some reason, I wrote this piece in a more experimental way, using the second person and also interweaving block quotes and the text of the story itself. The editor was so enthusiastic about what I had written; it was such a delightful experience. I believe I sold the story to other markets that approached me, as well, in Europe, I think, and maybe Australia or Asia or something.

    Standout quote: “It was like he was in the porn star twilight zone.”

    Year published and publisher: 2001, Arena

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The Freelancer 3

If you’re a freelance writer, there are three factors to weigh when you’re conceiving or contracting a piece. Typically, whether or not you write a freelance article will depend on three reasons: money, subject, and byline. Ideally, you’ll get two out of those three. If you’re only getting one, you may need to restrategize.

1. MONEY

Sometimes you’ll write an article for one reason: cash. I’ve written articles for glossy magazines that paid $2 a word. Oftentimes, the subject matter of those stories was somewhat less interesting to me, or an editor hacked my prose to death prior to publication. For $1 or $2 a word, sometimes we make concessions.

2. SUBJECT

Sometimes, you’ll write an article because you love / are fascinated by / want to explore a certain subject. This is a perfectly reasonable reason to write an article. In fact, if you love the subject enough, you may be willing to write the piece for a pittance. Let’s say, for example, $150 for 750 words. You’ll get a great clip out of it.

3. BYLINE

One of the ways to get other editors to give you freelance assignments down the line is to list all the outlets that you’ve written for before when you send them your pitch. The better those outlets are, the more impressed the editor you’re pitching may be. So, if you’ve only written for small websites, but you write something for, say, Slate, that’ll give you leverage.

Buy a copy of my acclaimed story, “The Tumor” … “a masterpiece of short fiction.”

Ask Susannah: How Do You Get into Freelance Work?

Q: Love your writing. Curious, but how do you get into freelance work?

Image via Wikipedia

A: There’s no one tried and true way to get into freelancing. More often than not, it’ll happen when you undertake a series of experiments. Think of it as firing a shotgun and seeing what it hits or throwing shit against a wall and seeing what sticks. You never know what’s going to happen. It’s up to you to get moving.

I believe the first published article I wrote was for a local newspaper, and it was a book review. Come up with one idea that you can sell. A review. A photograph. A comic. Identify the publication most likely to publish it. A local rag. A small website. A literary magazine. Figure out the person to pitch it to—the editor-in-chief, the photo editor, the features editor. Find their email address. If you can’t find it easily, and you’re pitching to a publication where people have their own emails, emails usually follow one of these styles: firstnamelastname@company.com, firstnameperiodlastname@company.com, firstnameunderscorelastname@company.com, firstinitiallastname@company.com. You can see if you’ve got the right one by googling it. Usually, their email is posted somewhere, and that search will confirm you have it right. Then write a pitch. Say: I’d like to write a story about X. Or: I’m interested in covering the upcoming cow auction. Perhaps: Are you looking for an op-ed columnist? Tell them what you’ve done that’s impressive. Include some links to your work or even a sample of your work.

A lot of times, editors never respond. That’s just the way it is. I hate when I pitch editors, and they don’t respond. That said, sometimes as an editor, I don’t respond to pitches. It’s the single most passive aggressive no you’ll ever get. Learn to live with rejection. Or ignore it. It’s just one person.

Of course, you can forget that whole pitching-to-publications thing and sell your stuff yourself. I like Gumroad. You can set your own price, produce your own products, and get paid in a reasonable time period.

At first, you might not make a lot of money with your freelancing. If you keep at it, you’ll get better. You’ll connect with other freelancers. People will start asking you to create things for them. Eventually, it just grows and grows.

Good luck!

SB

Buy my digital short, “The Tumor.” It’s been called “a masterpiece of short fiction.”

Don't Give Away Your Right To Negotiate For Yourself (Updated)

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to find a clause like this in a contract for a freelance article.

(*see below for an update)

Image via Magic: The Gathering

1. Read your contract in full before signing it. Don’t skim-read it on autopilot.

2. Do not agree to terms like these. You are giving away your right to negotiate.

3. Explain the clause must be removed from this contract in order for you to sign it.

“10. Film/TV/Audiovisual Works: You hereby grant and assign to [redacted] exclusive decision-making, signing authority, and rights with respect to feature film, motion picture, video game, mobile application, television, episodic programming, and any other audiovisual work based on or derived from the Work.

[Redacted] agrees to make good faith efforts to consult with you before signing any such ancillary rights agreements.

Any monies actually received by [Redacted] upon optioning and/or selling the Work (after deduction of [Redacted]’s actual, out-of-pocket costs and expenses, including, without limitation, agency fees and other fees and expenses related to sale and exploitation thereof) will be distributed as follows:

Fixed Compensation.

i) Option Fees/Purchase Price: 50% to [Redacted], 50% to you 
ii) Royalties and/or Series Sales Bonuses (if any): 50% to [Redacted], 50% to you 
iii) Contributor Writing or Consulting Fee (if any): 100% to you 
iv) Executive Producer, Producer, or Similar Fees for [Redacted] or its employees/contractors (if any): 100% to [Redacted].

Contingent Compensation and box office bonuses (if any): 50% to [Redacted], 50% to You

It’s acknowledged that [Redacted] may have a first look or overall deal with a third party, and any guaranteed fees associated with such an agreement are expressly excluded.

Accounting statements with respect to any ancillary exploitation of rights pursuant to this Section and payments, if any, will be delivered to you within 90 days following receipt by [Redacted] of the actual monies and such statements from third party purchasers or licensees of such rights.

It is agreed and understood that the services you are furnishing under this Agreement are extraordinary, unique, and not replaceable, and that there is no fully adequate remedy at law in the event of your breach of this Agreement, and that in the event of such a breach, [Redacted] shall be entitled to equitable relief by way of injunction or otherwise. You also recognize and confirm that in the event of a breach by [Redacted] of its obligations under this Agreement, the damage, if any, caused to you by [Redacted] is not irreparable or sufficient to entitle you to injunctive or other equitable relief. Consequently, your rights and remedies are limited to the right, if any, to obtain damages at law and you will not have any right in such event to terminate or rescind this Agreement or any of the rights granted by you hereunder or to enjoin or restrain the development, production and exploitation of the rights granted pursuant to this Agreement.”

I requested the clause be removed. The editor declined, describing the contract as “writer-friendly.” I declined to sign.

Buy "The Tumor" — my short story that’s been called "a masterpiece of short fiction."

Freelance Math

On average, you will land one story for every ten you pitch. 

My LinkedIn

Looking for a journalist, blogger, editor, copywriter, or something else involving words? Check out my LinkedIn. Then email me here.

Buy THE TUMOR, a digital short by Susannah Breslin that's been called "A masterpiece of short fiction."

Have Laptop, Will Travel

Fall.

"Fall."

"Flogging the Freelancer" is a blog post a day about freelancing in the gig economy. Browse the archives here.

I'll be traveling, and blogging, over the next few days, but one thing I try and do as a freelance writer is to do a story every time I travel.

So, when I went to Hawaii, I wrote "Gun Tourism Is All the Rage in Waikiki": "It was like Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California — except for instead of burning incense and selling hemp necklaces, they were hawking the fruits of the Second Amendment."

When I went to Miami, I wrote "How the Biggest Strip Club in America Grinds": "'I like dancing a lot,' she says. 'I’m not shy. I have a lot of spunk.'"

And when I went to Shanghai, I wrote "This Restaurant Is Shit": "I had no trouble eating the desserts that looked like shit at the toilet-themed restaurant."

Freelancing is about starting, and stopping, and restarting. I've found this process of living, and working, and reworking helps me stay in the flow.

You can connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and you can email me here.

How Much I Got Paid: #8

Title: Contributor

Publication: Forbes.com

Date: 2011 - 2014

Word count: N/A

Payment: See below

Notes: I blogged for Forbes.com for three years. Looking back, I would describe the experience as "awesome." Sure, assholes like this dumb fuck can say contributors like me besmirched the Forbes brand, but, for me, it was a great gig. My first post was about what it was like to get shitcanned, my most popular post (1.5M+ views) revealed how hard it is to be a male porn star, I shot a gun for fun, I wrote about being diagnosed with breast cancer five days after it happened, and I ate a hamburger topped with an unconsecrated communion wafer. My editors were the great: they got out of my way and let me do what I do. One of the best things about blogging for Forbes is that when you ask people if they're interested in being interviewed, they almost always say yes. For a journalist, it was like scoring one of Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets. I was paid a flat fee every month, which required a minimum of five posts a month. On top of that, I was paid a certain amount for how much traffic I generated; I was paid a certain amount for one-time visitors and a higher amount for repeat visitors. The last couple months, I made around $5,000 a month because I wrote this.

Conclusion: Sometimes I miss it.

[How Much I Got Paid]

Who Was the First Sex Blogger?

Sex blogger Lilly has an interesting post in which she presents: "A Brief History of Sex Blogging":

"Erosblog, run by Bacchus, started in 2002, is primarily a mash-up of aggregated sexy photos and commentary on sexuality things of all types1. I believe this is the first thing that can be considered a 'sex blog', and he recalls being the first to use that terminology.  Susannah Breslin with her Reverse Cowgirl site came shortly after Bacchus started. ETA: I was off by a few months! Reverse Cowgirl came first, but as Bacchus said, we’re not sure Ms Breslin would consider her site a sex blog. Do you?"

ErosBlog did some digging:

"Susannah Breslin’s blog The Reverse Cowgirl’s Blog (which you might or might not consider a sex blog, though it had a lot of sex-blog-like content, and rocked the subtitle 'in which a writer attempts to justify the enormity of her porn collection') got started a month plus five days before ErosBlog did. That’s why I have always acknowledged that blog as a possible contender for 'the first sex blog' even though nobody called it a sex blog before I first coined the phrase."

As I pointed out on Twitter this morning, I was preceded in sex blogging by Daze Reader, whose first blog post dates back to May 2002. I didn't launch The Reverse Cowgirl until August 2002. I've always seen Daze as the first sex blogger. I don't know that I would've ever created my blog if it weren't for Daze's pioneering sex blogging.

In regards to Lilly's question, would I consider The Reverse Cowgirl blog a sex blog? Yes. At the time, I was a freelance journalist and my primary beat was sex. I created the RCB to share my crazy life working the sex and porn beat, from Porn Valley to the Playboy Mansion, and I was intoxicated by the opportunity that sex blogging afforded me: an uncensored venue where I could write and express whatever I wanted -- without censorship.

Someone should write an oral history of sex blogs. It would be fascinating.

This Is Business

I just got my new business cards. I ordered them from MOO. They're heavy, well-made, and cool. They arrived quickly, and I designed them online in about 15 minutes. Thanks to Len Kendall for the referral.

The Quantified Writer

"I've written for page views," Michele Catalano blogged in May of last year. "I’ve written for hearts and reblogs. And while they are two very different things – the page views were for money, for being published as a music writer and the hearts and reblogs were for personal content – they were really very much the same thing. They were all a form of validation that kept me from enjoying the craft of writing to its fullest."

Previously, she'd been a blogger at Forbes, and she writes of how she checked her stats obsessively while she blogged there -- in part because that's how you're paid at Forbes: by how much traffic you get. Then, after what looks like about five months, according to her archive, she quit. She explains: "I left Forbes for several reasons but one of the main reasons was that it was killing the spirit of my writing, if not my love for the craft."

Of course, as she writes, this modern writerly quest for external validation and/or real payment is not limited to Forbes. Today, if you're writing online, professionally or socially, you're keenly aware of how many views, readers, likes, retweets, hearts, and the like you succeed in getting or fail to generate every time you imprint yourself in the digital space. To reclaim her writing, Catalano ended up moving her blog back to its original domain, "away from the instant validation."

I saw Catalano's post earlier today because my friend Clayton Cubitt retweeted a tweet by Austin Kleon in which he linked to a post he'd written about Catalano's post. And it stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

In a few months, I will have been blogging on Forbes for three years. Generally, I do not keep jobs long. And, in a way, that's what blogging on Forbes is. A job. At least for me. A part-time job, surely, but a job nevertheless. As a contributor, I have a blog on Forbes and am required to fulfill certain requirements every month for which I am paid a certain amount. As Catalano points out, that amount is based on the number of people who read your blog during a given month and how many of those readers return to your blog during that given month. I'm a freelance writer, and this is one of the ways in which I generate income in the gig economy.

That means numbers matter. For someone like me, they have for a long, long time. My first blog was hosted on Salon. It was called The Reverse Cowgirl, and it was often the second most-read blog among the collection of blogs Salon hosted at that time. Back then, in 2002, we talked about "hits," not uniques, and I remember the glee I experienced the first time my blog had 5,000 hits, whatever that meant, in one day. Screw the man! one could believe one was doing at that time. Blogging seemed like something a vigilante did. Not everyone was doing it. Not everyone had bought into it. Now, everything has changed.

Several years after that, I ended up taking a job for a then-Time Warner-owned blog, and part of my job was driving traffic to that Time Warner-owned site. I did so in two ways: by generating content that would bring readers to the site and by sending links to the content on the site to other sites in hopes they might link to the Time Warner-owned blog. I called this "chasing traffic." Readers were like a swarm of wayward ambulances, and I was a rabid dog trying to herd them to our URL. We had aggressive traffic goals to meet every month, and if we were in danger of not meeting them, the GM at the time would get on the phone and let the team know that if those traffic goals weren't met ... No one wanted to be out of a paycheck.

Today, everyone who writes online is a quantified writer. Catalano may have retreated to WordPress and the land of no stats, but she remains on Twitter, where, I would have to imagine that she is aware, she has nearly 900,000 followers. Online, the instant validation or lack thereof cannot be escaped. The quantified self movement has not spared the creative, and who needs quantification more desperately than those who trade in arts that cannot be quantified? The photographer, the painter, the novelist are driven by the maddening reality that no one can tell them definitively if their work is any good. The quantified web has solved all that. 1M uniques = success. 0 Likes = failure. It's all so very clear. Fuck art. This is math.

But the fact of the matter is that this seemingly new system is only an externalized version of the problem that resides within. We all want to be read, we all want to be seen. Why else would be on this stage? To create, one must tolerate the anxiety of the work's reception. To hit publish is to upload a newborn baby for public consumption. You're never sure if your precious, still-wet offspring will be coddled and cooed over, if a cannibal will show up to eat its brains, or, god forbid, it will be left to starve to death in some forgotten dumpster. Without the terror of the unknown (what will they think?), we will be compelled to fall silent. Except for those brave souls willing to write with invisible ink on the wind. And those are few and far between. It's just too hard to create in an empty space. The loneliness is far too staggering.

So quantify me, like me, hit me, click me, view me, pay me. The act of creation is no religion, and there's nothing in this that's worth worshiping. This is an offering from me to you. It's a question, really. "If I give you a piece of myself, will you give me a piece of yourself in return?" Don't leave me hanging. Through this, I can almost let myself believe that we made some kind of connection in the midst of this swirling, incomprehensible, pulsing chaos that's everything around us, here and then gone.

I Get Rejections

"Hi Susannah!

I think it's a little too graphic for us to run, but thanks for letting us have a look! We're always open to pitches."

How Much I Got Paid: #7

Dan Price

Title: Digital copywriter

Publication: N/A

Date: N/A

Word count: N/A

Payment: $100/hour

Notes: In February of 2011, I was downsized from a full-time job I had as an editor for a popular Time Warner website for women. That day, I wrote a post on my blog titled "Hire Me." Not long after, I heard from a man who worked for a big PR company in New York. He talked to me about doing some social media copywriting. He offered me $100 an hour. I took it. Over the next year and a half, I wrote digital copy for some of the world's biggest brands. My favorite assignment was pretending to be a product that talked to its fans on Facebook. I wrote scripts for commercials, became a celebrity tweet ghostwriter, and billed thousands and thousands of dollars. I was good at it, I liked it, and I could generate the online engagement the billion-dollar companies with which I worked wanted so desperately. I was a kind of Facebook whisperer. As a writer, it was the best-paying job I've ever had. One might suggest that marketing copy is thin and meaningless compared to journalism, but the reality is that every writer is in the entertainment business. The question is: How much do you want to get paid for what you do?

Conclusion: There's no shame in paying the bills.

[How Much I Got Paid]

How Much I Got Paid: #6

Title: "The Last Real Porn Star"

Publication: Hysterical Literature

Date: July 15, 2013

Word count: 939

Payment: $0

Notes: In April, my friend Clayton Cubitt asked me to write an essay for a site he would be launching, Hysterical Literature, which would be the digital home of a wildly successful video project he'd undertaken in which he was shooting women reading and orgasming at the same time. The site would feature all the videos and several essays about the project. Did I want to write an essay? Yes, I did. We decided I would write about Stoya, whose video session features the porn star reading an excerpt from Supervert's Necrophilia Variations (as of this writing, Stoya's video has been viewed 10,399,221 times). The essay I wrote features commentary on Stoya, a review of the book, and the answer as to whether or not the man who wrote the book that Stoya reads while orgasming had masturbated to the video of the porn star orgasming while reading his book. I wrote this piece for free. Cubitt is a friend, it gave me a chance to use my brain, and when someone asks if you would like to write an essay about a porn star orgasming while reading a book, you say yes.

Conclusion: Freedom is perception.

[How Much I Got Paid]

How Much I Got Paid: #5

Title: "Great Expectations"

Publication: Marie Claire

Date: November 2012

Word count: 803

Payment: $1,400

Notes: If you've never written for a women's magazine, Sarah Miller brings to life vividly what it's like on The Hairpin in "What If a Women's Magazine Editor Edited a BBC News Story About Syria?" I pitched several stories to a Marie Claire editor in 2012, and I ended up writing a back-of-the-book personal essay on dating as a tall woman. (I'm 6'1".) There was a lot of back-and-forth editing. The final version is not my proudest moment as a writer. In Hollywood, some directors make "one for them" (for money) and "one for me" (for love). For me, this was the former. In the magazine, the essay appears under a photo of short preteen boys awkwardly dancing with taller preteen girls.

Conclusion: If you're going to sell out, consider the price.

[How Much I Got Paid]

How Much I Got Paid: #4

Title: Le Sex Shoppe

Publication: Dead by Charles Saatchi

Date: Not yet available

Word count: 0

Payment: $150

Notes: In July, I got an email from a woman doing research for a forthcoming book by ad kingpin and art collector Charles Saatchi to be called Dead. She had found a photo I took of a sex shop -- through Google Images, perhaps -- and she wanted to include the image in the book. She offered $100. I forwarded the email to a photographer friend of mine and asked, "Should I do this?" He responded, "Sure. See if you can get $150." I emailed the woman, "For $150, we can do this." I added, "If so, send me a contract, and I'll get that back to you. Thanks." This is a strategy I use often in negotiating. I assume the sale and make it easier for the co-negotiator to say yes than to say no. The co-negotiator doesn't necessarily want to pay you the least amount of money. They want to close the sale. They will pay more to not have to deal with you anymore. The amount here is small, but I found it works just as well when negotiating bigger sums. As for the photo, I took it over 10 years ago, and Le Sex Shoppe, which was purportedly beloved by Charles Bukowski, has since been demolished, according to a report.

Conclusion: When you're a freelancer, everything is for sale.

[How Much I Got Paid]

How Much I Got Paid: #3

Title: "Porn from My Perspective"

Publication: Glamour UK

Date: November 2013

Word count: 121

Payment: £100

Notes: In August, an editor at Glamour UK asked me to write a short piece "on the hot topic of porn" for the magazine. The feature would be titled "Porn from My Perspective," and it would feature eight mini-essays by women on porn. I would write one of those perspectives. The final version includes anti-porn pundit Gail Dines, former porn star Sasha Grey, and a sex addiction therapist. Originally, the editor requested 300 words. Subsequently, she revised that to 200 to 300 words. She offered to transcribe my words in an interview if I didn't feel moved to write. I wrote my perspective in about half an hour. The pay was low, but the subject was in my area of expertise, and it was easy.

Conclusion: Exercise your writing muscle as you would go to the gym.

[How Much I Got Paid]

How Much I Got Paid: #2

Title: "What No One Tells You About Breast Cancer"

Publication: Women's Health Online

Date: October 1, 2013

Word count: 517

Payment: $1,000

Notes: I was approached by an editor at Women's Health Online to write this essay. They were doing a series of stories on breast cancer for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and this would be the inaugural essay. She asked me what I charge. I responded, "These days, I mostly work in the $3/word vein." This is called bluffing. She offered me $1,000. I agreed. I spent about an hour working on a first draft of the essay. That version was gut-wrenching, complex, and probably not a fit for the venue. I spent an hour or two writing what would be the final draft of the story. That version is straightforward, simple, and uplifting. The essay includes before-and-after photos of what I looked like during chemo (bald) and what I looked like after (not bald).

Conclusion: How much I got paid < cost of cancer treatment.

[How Much I Got Paid]

How Much I Got Paid: #1

Title: "How Do I Become a Male Porn Star?"

Publication: Salon

Date: December 2, 2013

Word count: 1,262

Payment: $150

Notes: I wrote this piece on spec; in other words, I wrote the piece and then set about placing it. Typically, I don't write on spec. Instead, I pitch editors, get a contract, and then write the piece. I probably spent a total of two, maybe three hours writing this story over a couple days. I ended up sending it to five different editors. Four expressed interest. But there were various issues with those various responses. Eventually, I heard back from the editor I'd sent it to at Salon; I'd worked with her previously and knew she wasn't going to fuck up the piece. I believe I was paid $300 for the last piece I wrote for Salon several years ago; this time, she said she could only offer me $150. I accepted. The piece was good, I trusted the editor, and in this instance, I wanted the piece where it belonged and didn't give that much of a shit about the money.

Conclusion: It's OK to write on spec -- sometimes.

[How Much I Got Paid]