This post is dedicated to stuff that’s been on my mind. No theme. Just stuff. Hey, give me a break here. At least I remembered it was Tuesday! (double-checking to make sure she’s right…)
I mentioned Entrecard last week. I have one. It’s right there to the left of this post. It’s a “calling card” system of meeting, greeting, and advertising. I was enamored with it – for about three days. Now I’m beginning to wonder why I bothered. People are dropping their cards alright – they’re dropping two and three times a day. Why? Because each drop gets you an advertising credit. So these “dropping hos” are doubling and tripling up, which is annoying to those of us who are still looking at it as a nice way to discover new blogs and get some credit in the process. And to make matters worse, you’re rated on how often you reciprocate. Good grief.
Had lunch with a friend yesterday, and we discussed all sorts of writerly topics. It was refreshing! And it was wonderful to see her. Because we live in two different cities, it’s not often we get together. That’s probably good – we’d be a lethal combo. :))
One of the topics we brushed up against was what Kathy Kehrli brought up on her blog not long ago. How much damage to our industry can we endure from those writers willing to take jobs that pay crap? Everyone from the beginner to the veteran is complaining about how “employers” aren’t paying like they used to. Why should they? Too many in our ranks are willing to do the work for mere pennies – or worse, free – in order to get some “published” credit. I’m here to tell you your credit is as crap as the payment you didn’t get for it. Have some self-respect, people!
Read on another blog about a situation the writer has – a client bringing in noneditorial types to “edit” on a project. Raise of hands – how many have had this issue? (my hands are both up) How did you deal with it? How would you deal with it? It’s a toughie. You want to continue, but it’s pretty obvious – at least in the writer’s case (sorry, can’t remember where I read it) – that the client’s project is already toasted. Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow…
Hi, just a note about Entrecard – it doesn’t matter how many times a day someone drops on you, they can only get one credit per blog per day by dropping.
Multiple drops are sometimes caused – as far as I can tell – by people getting an ‘invalid’ the first time so refreshing the page and doing it again. And then of course there are eejits like myself who forget who they’ve already dropped with.
Spontaneous Derivation (http://www.spontaneousderivation.com) has a great post about the benefits of Entrecard from a fairly unbiased perspective.
I like your blog, by the way, and I wouldn’t have found you without Entrecard. And I will probably will leave more meaningful comments in the future!
writing frump, perhaps? think i read something similar over there.
becky
Oh, Lori, there was a massive debate on this going on over at Men with Pens. I’m scared to link to it since I don’t know if Google frowns on links within comments, but you should check it out. I think they posted it on the 4th, 5th, something like that. Recently. But seriously, the comment board had some VERY strong opinions on this one, and you might like reading it.
Thanks, tei! I’ll check it out.
Becky, that may have been where I saw it. Thanks!
Catherine, thank you for the Entrecard explanation. I’m still on the fence, but it’s going to stay there for now. 🙂
Thanks for the plug! And hey, when do I get to meet up with you (and Devon) for lunch? ;o)
Any time you want, toots!
I meant to ask you about Entrecard when we had lunch. I looked briefly at the site and it gave me a headache. I’m not sure I can join anything else right now. Someone else suggested Twitter– honestly, I need a few weeks at a spa.
I’m interested in your further Entrecard adventures. It sounds like more my thing than Twitter right now.
Eventually, the sites that hire the lowest-paid writers will fold, because you get what you pay for, and when you only buy crap, you’ll lose your audience. Because the audience isn’t stupid. It’ll take longer than we all like, but then we add a higher aggravation fee when they come crawling back.