Milking it
What do I mean by ‘milking it’? Well, once again, I was not sure what to write about in this month’s Monthly Inspirer and again I went for a walk with Ian. Last week we moved into a flat in Crouch End in North London and so our daily walks no longer take us through the streets and parks of central London. Now we explore the Parkland Walk that runs on a disused railway track between Highgate and Finsbury Park and the streets in our village-like neighbourhood.
A couple of days ago a walk down Crouch Hill took us past Friern Manor Dairy Farm, a 19th century building of warm red stone (apparently the same stone used for Hampton Court) decorated with seven inset grafitto panels. It was from the panel, shown above, that I found my inspiration for this month’s Inspiring Bit.
And so to milk
Back when I earned my living writing features articles I soon learned from my mistakes. And, looking on, while my son trained and then began life as a freelance journalist too, I saw him make exactly the same mistake too. We all make it. Motivated by our own enthusiasm we put our all into researching, interviewing, writing, editing and polishing a piece. We sell it and move on to writing another, completely different one.
Your mistake
In time, you start to do the maths and realise that you put a huge amount of effort into each article and sell it just the once. You are shocked to see that actually your hourly rate has been below the minimum wage. This is a situation you cannot afford to sustain long term. So what do you do? You have two choices:
- You spend less time on your articles (which may mean you write something you are less than happy with).
- You use the material you gathered for that article again.
Savvy writers go for the second option, though there are some restrictions. You can’t sell the same sort of piece to the same sort of publication so that it appears at the same time as the original. You can, however, sell the same sort of piece to a publication destined for a different market, or at a different time.
I call this ‘milking it’. Spinning it in different ways, like unravelling a jumper and reknitting it into a scarf.
A few decades ago, when the boys were at school, I had financial responsibilities that were not optional – like school fees. I needed to earn a decent living so had to be clever about how I spent my time. To achieve this, I’d attend a conference or a talk and take copious notes filled with quotes from the speakers. I’d network with experts, ask for their business cards and then connect with them later by email and on social media. This alone ‘fed’ me with enough fuel to write and sell countless articles.
Start spinning
So, say I attended a talk on starting a business as a florist by a Bristol woman who left a 20-year career as a teacher. This is how I might spin the content gleaned from that single one-hour event into a range of articles:
- How to start a business as a florist – an entrepreneur magazine.
- What does it take to start a business as a florist – magazine issued by a bank.
- Mid-life career change – woman’s magazine, aimed at over 40s.
- Is there room for a new kid on the block? – florist magazine.
- Creative careers – craft magazine.
- Focus on a local new business – a Bristol magazine.
By speaking to a number of other florists, or women who started a new career over 40, or ex-teachers I could then create even more ‘spins’ on the original article.
If you want make a proper living out of your writing you too need to start milking your content.
