Copy date for the parish magazine today. Two articles to write; one for each PC (it’s a joint magazine between 3 villages, because we only have one vicar between us – think ‘The Archers’ – actually at present we don’t have a vicar at all). I write an article each month for each PC, just a summary of the meeting, supposed to be 250-300 words but it’s always twice that long because it’s hard to get through it in any less. And they never edit it down. So, got to try and do that this morning before I go to the hairdressers, send them off to the Chairs for agreement so I can get them to the editor today. Hate doing it so last minute but it’s been so hectic lately.
Sent the artwork for the magazine to the printers yesterday, I send it as a pdf, now I have to wait for the proofs. I was still changing it yesterday morning, the new president decided at the proof reading stage that she wanted lots of changes, not really for her to say, we (the editor and I) have gone along with some of it, but seems like she is trying to do our jobs as well as her own. She is on the editorial committee, the time to raise issues like not having italics in headers and cutting down the number of different fronts is at a meeting, not 24 hours before the thing has to go to the printers.
And she has cut down the length to save money, but some of the money that’s being saved is my income. Her idea is to have briefer articles in the mag and complete articles on the web, because that will save printing costs, but if she then thinks that I will do the work of formatting the articles to go on the web (for no payment, because I am paid per printed page), I am going to have to say I won’t do it. I hate being in this situation where I am the only one getting paid, because it makes me feel uncomfortable about asking for money. It’s the same with the organisation in Oxford (the work from there has now died a death because they couldn’t afford to pay me) and the Parish councils/school governors. I can’t run this as a business because I’m so used to doing stuff voluntarily that I find it very difficult to charge for what I do.
Anyway, I’ve moaned about that before.
I did hint to the editor yesterday that things are not great and I might be looking for a full time job somewhere, I am tired of working 150% of the time and get 60% of the money, her comment: ‘so then we would lose you altogether’, and they wouldn’t find a professional desk top publisher as cheap as me, god knows what they would do. I can’t even think about it.
I really do enjoy it all, the design, the editing, and I know I’m good at it, but I don’t know how to be professional about all this.