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Is it worth entering writing competitions?

29 March 2012

Last year, I heard about a competition organised by an independent theatre group that was looking for new writers. The prize was to work with a director on refining the script and then to have your play staged. A representative from the theatre company spoke to a group of writers, including me, and told us there were no preconceived ideas about what kind of play they were looking for. We should let our imaginations run free.

Recently, I saw the two winning plays and they were brilliantly staged. But they were also something of a let-down: they covered religious conflict, teen pregnancy, and knife crime. They’re difficult issues, but they’re very easy from the point of view of commissioning theatre. Nobody is going to complain if someone invests money in those kind of productions because it’s just what theatre groups are expected to do. It would have been truly daring to commission a farce, a sci-fi play, or anything else that felt a bit fresher. That would have really helped to discover new voices.

I hadn’t submitted anything for this particular competition (I didn’t have a strong enough idea, and I was working on promoting Web Design in Easy Steps, and writing iPad for the Older and Wiser at the time). Watching this play made me realise that I’m highly unlikely to ever write the kind of play that could win, though. I ended up quite pleased that I hadn’t found the time to submit an entry because I’m just not the kind of writer they’re looking for.

I’ve entered a few writing competitions over the last couple of years when publishers have been looking for someone to write stories for their characters or plot outlines. I was a close runner-up twice in competitions organised by one publisher, which is a frustrating place to be, although it’s possible I might be lucky third time around if I give it another go.

Seeing this theatre production and thinking about my recent competition entries made me question whether it’s worth entering writing competitions. The upside is that the prizes can be hugely beneficial: they can raise your profile and give you new creative opportunities to find an audience and tell it a story. If a competition prize helps you to create a new work, you’ll learn a lot along the way, usually from people with much more experience than you. Competitions are often the most approachable way to break into a new style of writing too, because they welcome all-comers.

But the downside is that you’re writing to somebody else’s agenda, and sometimes you don’t even know what that agenda is. There will nearly always be safer options for the judges to choose than your work. There might be entrants with a stronger track record, or stories that tick more boxes.

You’re also going where the competition is fiercest. There might be hundreds or thousands of writers who are writing something to the same brief as you are. When the judges are choosing from similar submissions, how can you make your work stand out? Minor differences between the submissions become hugely important, in a way that they wouldn’t in most other contexts.

Whenever you write, you’re in competition, of course. You’re vying with other writers to win an agent’s representation, a publisher’s budget, and a reader’s attention. But when you come up with your own projects, you can use your ideas and style to differentiate yourself and stand out. You might be the only person who’s writing fiction about how technology is affecting the music industry, or at least you’ll be within a select niche. When you enter formal writing competitions, you have to run with the herd.

Not all competitions are the same. Some give you a lot of freedom to shape the story to your own vision, and to take the characters in new directions. Some give you detailed feedback, which might be valuable, depending on who’s giving it. And some have prizes that, even with the odds stacked against you, are well worth the gamble. Many will push you outside your comfort zone, and teach you something about writing, purely through the experience of creating your submission. You only become a better writer by practising, and I don’t regret spending time on anything I’ve written.

Writers should remember, though, that their time is precious and they can only write one thing in any given moment. It’s easy to get seduced into entering competitions, instead of cracking chapter one of your new novel, which perhaps begins a more difficult journey.

What do you think? Are writing competitions worth the time?

Labels: books, journalism, writing

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Apple releases free multimedia ebook authoring tool for iBooks

26 January 2012

Last month, I wrote about The Beatles' Yellow Submarine ebook, which is like a modern pop-up book, with animated illustrations, interactive pictures, embedded videos, and text that reads itself aloud. Since that was published, there have been some educational interactive books appearing in the iBooks store. It's clearly something that Apple is putting a lot of weight behind, and it represents a new class of content that is ideal for the iPad.

Now Apple has released the software for creating these books, iBooks Author, for free on the Mac app store. It's only for the Mac (obviously), but it enables authors and self-publishers to lay out their books and embed video, images with pop-up captions, custom HTML (web page code), photo galleries, Keynote presentations and 3D objects.

This will make it much easier for anyone (with a Mac) to publish their own interactive ebooks, which has an upside and a downside. The upside is that authors can express themselves in more interesting and creative ways, and readers can benefit from a richer catalogue of original content, unfiltered by major publishers. The downside is that not everyone is brilliant at video, layout, writing, design and all the other skills that are required, so there's bound to be some rubbish content that undermines faith in the format as a whole. We've seen the same phenomenon in website publishing and print-on-demand publishing. I'd much rather that people have the opportunity to use these tools, but the best way to exploit them might be for writers to team with other creatives who can help to bring their ideas to life. For now, before the masses adopt the tool, there's clearly an advantage for authors who can move quickly to publish compelling interactive content.

You can find a short guide to iBooks in my book iPad for the Older and Wiser, and my articles for writers and publishers here.

Labels: iPad, iPad 2, journalism, webdesign, writing

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Sharpen your proofreading skills with a short test

06 January 2012

Proofreading is all about quality control, making sure that an article is accurate and consistent. Often, it will involve picking up factual errors (such as names that have been spelled incorrectly) and layout problems, but the focus is usually on grammar and consistency of style. The art of proofreading interests me greatly. I have written an interview with the Guardian's style guide editors and created a proofreading exercise, and have some more ideas for content I can share on this subject.

I've also spent a lot of time on quality control in agencies and publishing houses I've worked with, and one of the key things I've noticed is that you can get better at proofreading. It's tempting to think you've either got an eye for it or you haven't, but I've seen people improve markedly by practising it and focusing their attention on getting their copy right. That's why I encourage writers to work on their proofreading skills. You can do it almost anywhere: simply pick up a newspaper and see if you can spot the errors the subs missed.

WM Group, which runs training courses on writing among other things, has put a short proofreading test online. In some ways it's easier than my test: it's shorter, and there are fewer errors in it. But in other ways it's harder, because the errors are quite subtle and easy to miss. The company says that only 31% of people who sent in a response were able to get full marks. People often queried accurate punctuation but missed some significant mistakes which made them cringe when they were told the answers afterwards. I've seen the results breakdown for 49 people who tried the test. I don't want to give the game away, but one mistake was only picked up by three people, even though there's a heavy hint in the article itself. WM Group has revealed that there are eight errors, but the two top scorers only found five of them. Can you do better? You can try the test here.

Labels: journalism, proofreading, writing

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Five questions journalists should ask themselves following the Internet Explorer IQ hoax

04 August 2011

Yesterday, the BBC was among many news outlets that was fooled by a press announcement made by an organisation calling itself "Aptiquant", which claimed that people using the Internet Explorer web browser had lower IQs than those using other browsers. The announcement claimed the result was based on administering IQ tests online and then looking at the browser the test participant used. It was all utter cobblers.

As the developer behind it confessed, it was just a prank he set up to raise awareness of the problems Internet Explorer causes web developers. In that sense, it's not really a particularly well set-up prank, because the story attacks the users instead of the browser designers. And it doesn't make much logical sense either: I'd actually expect the average IQ of IE users to be lower than that of other browser users because IE is installed by default on most computers, and other browsers must be installed by a reasonably clued-up user. There's not necessarily a link between IQ and computer literacy, but a mass market browser that's installed by default is bound to represent the average web population, which would have an average IQ. I wouldn't be surprised if people using Safari, Chrome and so on had a higher average IQ between them, because they aren't representative of the general population, and are skewed towards those with more intellectually demanding jobs (IT, web design and so on).

Anyway, the BBC published a story announcing it was all a hoax. When putting together its story, the BBC consulted Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University's Statistical Laboratory, who said: "I believe these figures are implausibly low - and an insult to IE users." The implication in the BBC's follow-up story is that they did their job because they included his alternative view in the write-up.

But is that good enough? They had two sources: an unknown company that issued a press release claiming IE users are dim; and a respected statistical scientist who said he thought the data was "implausible". Instead of believing the scientist and spiking the story, the BBC believed the press release from a company it had never heard of. The company didn't even really exist, it turns out.

So here are some questions journalists and bloggers should be asking themselves following this hoax:

Does everyone have an equal right to coverage in my publication, or does the credibility of the source matter?
Is it more important to publish the truth, or to publish a balanced report?
What do I take responsibility for when I attach my byline to a story?
Does my publication have to cover everything, or can I spike stories I don't believe are substantiated?
Is this really news?

Feel free to leave your thoughts on this below. For tips on handling (legitimate) press releases, see my article Don't Believe the Hype. For tips on designing websites for a whole range of browsers, including the love-it-hate-it Internet Explorer, see my book Web Design in Easy Steps.

Labels: journalism, webdesign, writing

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Do we need warning labels for journalism?

14 August 2010

Tom Scott has come up with a brilliant idea: labels that can be stuck on to newspaper articles to warn readers that the contents might be bad for them. We have warning labels on just about everything else, so why not on newspapers, he reasons?

He's created a sheet of stickers you can print out that covers the most common problems with news media today, including PR surveys masquerading as news, unverified tip-offs reported as facts, unverified plagiarism from other publications, and the publication of almost unedited press releases. My favourite one is 'Warning: Journalist does not understand the subject they're writing about'.

I've written about bad journalism in the past, including the Daily Mail and the Sun's publication of unverified claims of a ghost sighting, and the Daily Telegraph's poor research on a medical story. It would be wonderful to see people sticking warnings on stories such as these.

Tom Scott says that he's been putting the labels onto free newspapers on the underground, but it would be an interesting exercise to take a paid-for daily newspaper, and see how many articles do not deserve any of the labels. For a lot of the dailies, I'm guessing few stories will escape unscathed. That's one reason why newspapers will struggle to charge for online content: they're not doing their job well enough for people to be willing to pay.

All of the labels concern the reporting and not the material selection, so I did suggest that one missing label might be: "This is trivia. It doesn't matter. Read a book." Tom Scott replied that "one person's trivia is another person's vital information", which is true enough and puts my suggestion outside the scope of his project. Even so, I think poor story selection is also an important constraint on newspaper quality today. If there were fewer Paris Hilton stories, there would be more space for real news, and more need to generate real news too.

You can download the labels at Tom's website.

Labels: journalism

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Should music journalists accept payment to listen to new bands?

25 March 2010

I had an approach recently from a new PR service called The Men From The Press, which was offering to pay me to write short reviews of new bands. The idea was that they'd send me an MP3, I'd listen to the track and provide feedback using an online form, and then they would pay me £5.

I can see where the idea came from: it's hard for new bands to get feedback from journalists, let alone coverage. One reason is that it takes time to review music. I know bands think it's only a 3 minute song, but it takes time to download, cue up, play, think about, and then write any kind of meaningful email response. It's probably a 20 minute job to provide any useful feedback. It takes much longer to write a review good enough for publication. I'm not reviewing music for magazines at the moment, so I ask bands not to send me stuff and ignore people who send me stuff anyway.

Getting paid to review music from new bands isn't something I'd be keen to do at the moment. But I don't think there's a problem with music journalists who work independently providing feedback to bands that are just starting out. And I don't think there's a problem with them being paid for their time when they do that.

Where it gets murky is if those journalists have an association with a publication, because the scheme could be seen a bribing journalists to take an interest in one band over another. Even if it didn't consciously influence them, the fact they've been paid to even listen to one band must improve its chances of coverage. Indeed, The Men From The Press seem to be using the publication's reputation (rather than the journalist's) as the basis for their pricing and publications have come out to deny they have any relationship.

Drowned in Sound (link no longer available) refuted any implication that payments might influence their editorial coverage, and the NME wrote a blog post (link no longer available) saying that what bands (and readers) need is journalists driven by passion to discover new music, not someone taking a few hard-earned pounds off new bands.

Ethically, it's all a bit grey. Nearly all journalism has been touched by PR at some stage. Many successful bands employ PR teams, and pay them much more than The Men in the Press were asking. Journalists routinely get higher value freebies in CDs, promotional merchandise and gig tickets. And some new bands do need feedback from experienced music journalists who understand what gets coverage and what's likely to succeed.

When new ideas like this come up, journalists need to ask whether it creates a conflict of interest for them. In my case this idea wouldn't create any conflict, because I'm not writing for music magazines. For someone who was, it would create a conflict because they're being paid by the editor to discover and write about new music purely on its merit, and paid by the band to discover them first. You can't work both sides of the deal at the same time.

The Men From the Press has now closed down as a result of the criticism it's received. A statement on its homepage says: "The whole point of themenfromthepress.com was to provide PR in a 'brand new way' so bands, artists and small labels who simply haven't got the funds would be given a chance! Certain publications and some traditional PR companies (who I will not name) have made it impossible for us to carry on through their constant slanderous remarks and activities which have damaged our reputation to the point where we have lost all heart with the project. I tried to make a difference but sorry guys... they wont let us."

Labels: journalism, music promotion, writing

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The Sun and Daily Mail hoaxed by ghostly iPhone app

05 March 2010

Here's a photo I took at Gloucester Cathedral last year:

Photo of Gloucester Cathedral stained glass windows, with a ghost of a small girl in the foreground

But wait! What's that figure in the foreground? Is it the ghost of a small girl in Victorian clothing, perhaps risen from its burial place beneath the cold stone floor, and destined to walk the corridors in search of rest?

Or have I tampered with the picture?

The answer to that should be obvious, but both The Sun and the Daily Mail were hoodwinked by a similar picture. If you're quick you can read the full Daily Mail article here, and The Sun's story is here. The photo is credited to Hull News & Picture, which says it does "editorial digital photography".

The photographer John Fores is a builder, and took his photo at a school he was demolishing. He claimed that he took photos to record the demolition work, but that the apparent ghost of a boy in a flat cap in one image made "the hairs on the back of [his] neck stick up". He said: "I didn't believe in ghosts, but since I got this picture, I am not so sure."

Fores has clearly been deceptive here: The Mail says that he insists he has not edited the photo, which means they asked him and he denied it. The Sun's picture of him on the building site with his mobile phone shows him with a beaten up old camera phone, and not the iPhone he used to create the image. Derren Brown would be proud of such an artful misdirection.

But surely the press should use more common sense than that? Just because a member of the public says they have a picture of a ghost, that doesn't mean it's true. Even if the story were included as a bit of fluff, its tone could be different. The Sun opens with "A builder demolishing an old school discovered this eerie image of a young boy in a mobile phone picture taken of the site", which effectively endorses the builder's story. The Daily Mail said: "The ghostly image of a young boy was captured on camera as builders demolished an old school building. John Fores, 47, insists the spectral figure was not present when he took the picture..." To use the picture as some light entertainment and keep their credibility, the papers could have taken a more sceptical angle, or even softened their reporting by saying the photographer claims he took the photo normally, rather than just reporting that he did. (There's a guide to handling of uncorroborated statements in the context of press releases, here).

One reason this reflects badly on the newspapers is that many of their readers know exactly how the pictures were taken. Although a lot of people immediately suspected Photoshop had been used, it took just three hours for someone to comment on the Daily Mail that the shot was created using an iPhone app. That app is called Ghost Capture, which costs 59p and enables you to add ghosts to your pictures. It can also be used on the iPod Touch to edit photos loaded on the device. I used the free lite version to make the picture above.

At the time of writing, neither newspaper has corrected their story to make clear that it's fake, which sends a strong signal that they don't care about accuracy or truth. Next time you read a story in those papers, ask yourself whether you are being lied to.

Labels: apps, humour, iPhone, iPod, journalism, photography

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Should writers study for an MA?

21 January 2010

Andrew Motion has come out in support of creating writing courses, according to a story in The Times (link no longer available). He said: "People who had no qualms about RADA, or the Royal Ballet School, or the Royal Academy, were wont to say that writing couldn't be taught ... and implied that this sort of tutoring was a form of cheating, like taking steroids if you were an athlete."

His quote is in the context of prize-winning authors. The Times expresses concern that publishers might go fishing for writers on creative writing courses instead of seeking out talent in the wider writing community.

On the one hand, perhaps it's reasonable to expect authors to make an investment in their future and to take their profession seriously. If you want to talk to major publishers about your novel, you need to have a good answer for why they should talk to you. How do you stand out among the thousands of people trying to get their attention? Many of these are wasting their time, so how do you prove you're not? Having an MA shows a level of commitment to your craft that goes above and beyond what most people have invested.

There is a risk, though, that publishing becomes increasingly elitist. It can cost over £7,000 to study for an MA in creative writing, which effectively excludes that option for most writers. And while an MA might show that you've applied yourself to the study, it's no indication of the initial talent you're building on, or the consistency or originality of your ideas. The time required to study for an MA also excludes many people who could write (or indeed have written) a novel.

While an MA will certainly be of intellectual and creative value, does it make good business sense? The Bookseller reported last year that mid-list authors are having their advances cut (link no longer available). Are publishers offering higher advances to authors with an MA? That seems unlikely. It might take two or more novels before the investment in the MA is repaid, unless the first book turns out to be a massive hit.

Labels: journalism, training, writing

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How much will people pay for journalism work experience?

17 December 2009

The Evening Standard carried out an auction of unique experiences in aid of a children's charity, with the winning bids reported in yesterday's paper. What surprised me is how much people are willing to bid to have a taste of work as a writer, photographer or other media professional. Below are the media-related bids (in bold), together with a selection of other bids to give you an idea of how they compare.

£14,600 - Dinner for 12 cooked by Gordon Ramsay (highest bid for any lot)
£14,000 - A day with Richard Branson
£8,100 - Two tickets for the 2010 final of Strictly Come Dancing
£7,153 - A week on the Evening Standard's "fast-paced, hectic" newsdesk
£5,600 - Tea with Elton John
£5,450 - A two-week internship at Island Records, mentored by Duncan Beese who signed Amy Winehouse
£5,300 - Dinner with the Evening Standard's editor at his favourite Notting Hill restaurant
£3,958 - A two-hour art class with Tracey Emin
£3,600 - Dance lesson with Anton du Beke
£3,115 - Afternoon tea with TV and radio presenter Claudia Winkleman
£3,100 - Artworks by Gilbert and George
£2,801 - Take part in a Vogue fashion photo shoot (not clear whether this is as a model or helping to shoot it)
£2,550 - A week's work experience on ES magazine
£2,550 - Mentoring with James Caan from Dragon's Den
£2,070 - Join BBC Five Live in the media centre at Lord's for the Test against Bangladesh
£1,982 - Caroline Michel, boss of literary agency PFD, will critique your manuscript and give you guidance on publishing
£1,470 - Two guests have "unprecedented access" to the Match of the Day studio
£1,200 - A springtime stroll around the park with Bob Geldof
£1,100 - Four people chauffeured to work by Rowan Atkinson in a Rolls Royce

Is it becoming that difficult to break into media that people are willing to pay £1,430 per day to work on the Evening Standard's news desk? Is it so hard to get the attention of an agent that somebody would rather pay £1,982 than go the long way around? Will work experience in the media deliver a better return on investment than artworks by Gilbert & George?

Of course, people don't really think like that. If they want something, they bid what they can afford to try to win it. They don't compare the lots. But I'm surprised that mentoring from James Caan (which I can see really helping a lot of businesses to reinvent themselves) is considered less valuable than a week's work experience on the ES Magazine. I'm surprised that dinner with a newspaper editor is more highly prized than time with Bob Geldof, Sebastian Coe, Jonathan Ross, Sophie Dahl, the Duchess of York, Stephen Fry and the QI team, footballer Harry Redknapp, director Guy Ritchie, Graham Norton and artist Anish Kapoor (who all featured in lower ranking bids).

Labels: business, journalism, publishing, writing

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Greatest story of my life ever!

20 November 2009

From time to time, I get emails from people who tell me they have the greatest story ever that they need help breaking. Sometimes it's a crime story, and other times it's a big political story. Occasionally, it's a campaigning-style story.

I know what you're thinking because I think it too: why me? My journalism experience hasn't yet stirred national newspapers, and my specialist subjects to date have been technology, business and music.

I never know how to respond to these people. Some of them are genuine people, trying to help others out, and struggling to draw attention to something the world should know about. Some of them are just trying to help themselves out, and use the press as a weapon against their opponents. Some of them might actually be insane.

For those who have uncovered a genuine injustice, I usually feel there are others far better placed to break the story. There are people who understand their way around parliament, who have friendly lawyers to advise them, and who know how to get stories of that type into print. I would face a steep learning curve. I do sympathise with many of these stories, but I don't have the time, experience or energy to help. Although I might admire those who are campaigning for justice, I can't give more than a one-time friendly email offering support.

Those who are using the press as a weapon against their opponents often appear to have a valid case, or at least a right to be heard. Sometimes they're being oppressed. After all, the most powerful people have easy access to the media, and it's the less powerful people who can struggle to get heard. But again I don't have the right experience to make these stories fly. Nor do I have the time to really vet the stories so that I can blog about them with confidence in their accuracy. I don't believe that journalists must be impartial, but I do believe that they must base their opinions on facts, which means a lot of independent research.

For the people who show signs of paranoia and instability, I've tried to bow out gracefully and wish them the best with their story. They inevitably won't stop emailing.

I've never broken a national news story before, but if I were planning to, this is what I'd do:

Try to identify a named journalist with a professional interest in my story. That might be somebody working on a national newspaper, local newspaper, trade magazine, or website with a significant relevant audience. Ideally somebody with a history of breaking stories, but that would probably be quite hard to find. Private Eye is a fine news publication, and if the story were relevant for one of their columnists, they'd be near the top of my list. I wouldn't automatically go to the Sunday Times or email everybody that Google says is a journalist.
If it is possible to get proof using my skills, I'd make sure I do that before approaching anyone. I often receive emails that say I'd need to do a lot of work digging up proof, which means I'm being offered a rumour to investigate, and some of the rumours are too outlandish to justify investigation without more to go on.
Prepare my pitch: a short description of the story, how it can be proven to be true, how I came across it, and who I am in relation to the story. Ideally, my pitch would be something like 'I have proof that [this person] has [done this]'. My own credibility is important here too.
Telephone the journalist. Check first whether they're on deadline, if not, start to tell them about the story. Let them lead the conversation. They will know the right questions to ask to work out whether the story has legs for them or not. I think the stuff I've prepared for my pitch will answer their top four questions.
Send them what they need, or arrange to meet if that's what they need.
If I couldn't break the story using the conventional press, I'd research it and write it myself and put it on the internet. I'd then run a PR campaign online to draw attention to the story from other websites, attract links and embed the story in social networks (Facebook etc). I'd see if once the story had been broken, I could get the press to pick up on that: eg '[name] has published evidence that proves that...'
If I wanted to try to make money from the story, I'd research it thoroughly, write it up, and then pitch it as a freelance contribution to relevant publications. Alternatively, I'd try to sell it as a tip-off. The difficulty with both approaches is that tabloids in particular have a track record of not paying up, and sometimes it's hard to negotiate the value of the story without giving it away. If the story warrants it, I'd consider writing a book and trying to get the book published, including serialisation in the press. I have assumed, though, that most people emailing me aren't looking to make money from their stories.

As I said, I've never done it before, so it might not work. But since people sometimes approach me for help on this subject, this is the best I can do. I'll respond to comments left here, but I won't be answering any more emails that I believe are covered by this post. I would welcome any advice or tips from others (in the comments) about other ways to break news stories.

(To clarify: I am still happy to receive emails from people who are approaching me because they know their idea is relevant to my interests, perhaps based on what they've read on this website. Personally addressed emails get more attention, and emails that explain why I'm being approached will almost always get a personal reply).

Labels: journalism, writing

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Does Google help avert dementia? Or did the papers make that up?

24 October 2009

I was interested to see a story in The Telegraph (link no longer available) (and other newspapers) last week claiming that using Google can help to delay dementia. It's based on research from UCLA (link no longer available), presented at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, and announced in a press release. I thought this might be a nice piece of trivia to include in my next book Social Networking for the Older and Wiser.

When I studied the press release, though, I was surprised to see that there was no mention of dementia. I asked UCLA whether the dementia angle is something that has come through UCLA interviews, is in the full research report, or is something that the media have added to spin the story. UCLA kindly replied with a copy of the poster (which is what was presented at the event), the abstract and press release. The researchers confirmed that the information presented at the meeting followed the content of those, which make no mention of dementia.

The research is fascinating, and did find first-time internet users experienced more brain activity in the areas associated with working memory and decision making. "The results suggest that searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults," said Teena D. Moody, the study's first author and a senior research associate at the Semel Institute at UCLA. But there's no speculation regarding dementia in the released materials.

There's a gap here between what the study appeared to discover, and what the headlines screamed (at about 20 publications, including the Daily Mail). I'm no scientist, but if the dementia angle were true, I would have expected to see it in the press release. Apart from how much easier it would make it to promote the research, tapping into a major health concern helps research bodies to attract funding.

If the source isn't UCLA, how did so many outlets get the same angle? It's possible they pulled it from the same syndicated content which is how several newspapers came to quote a fake David Milliband Twitter feed when Michael Jackson died. It's also possible that they're watching each others' websites all day, and one over-eager sub bigged up the story, and all the others followed suit. Maybe they have an alternative source (including other scientific publications), although it's odd they haven't mentioned it. I can't trace a credible source using the dementia angle.

What bothers me most, though, is this: I consume hundreds of news stories a week. When I take the time to actually dig into one of them (I've probably spent about an hour on this), it proves extremely difficult to back it up. None of us has time to check a tiny fraction of the stories out there.

Labels: journalism, social networking, technology

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Reuters publishes style guide

23 July 2009

Reuters has made its journalism handbook available for free download and reading online, for the first time. It provides an interesting overview of how Reuters sees the role of the journalist, and includes a comprehensive guide to Reuters style.

The style guide is vital for creating a consistent style and voice across the output of Reuters' whole workforce. Consistency is important to avoid distracting the reader, and style guides highlight many of the areas where discrepancies can occur which you probably hadn't thought of before.

The guide also highlights mistakes that writers often make, but shouldn't. There's guidance there on the difference between 'advice' and 'advise', and there's an entry on 'advance planning'. You should be able to guess their views on that, but it wouldn't be in the guide if nobody ever wrote it.

I'm a bit of a style guide collector. Every editor has his own pet peeves, and it's fun to spot the stuff that's only there because it drives the editor up the wall. If you haven't written to a style guide before, adopting one will make you a better writer. It will prompt you to think about the words you use, and the ideas they convey, and it will help make your writing invisible so your message can shine through.

Other online style guides include The Guardian style guide and The Times Style Guide. Please let me know if you're aware of any others.

Labels: journalism, writing

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Michael Jackson, David Miliband and me

27 June 2009

Most people who are into pop music have a Michael Jackson memory. Michael Jackson's "Bad" was one of the first tapes I had, and one of the albums I came back to when writing UoD. Back in 1987, I remember listening to the singles from it on the Radio 1 roadshow, while I was writing Amstrad games in the school holidays. I also remember myself and my brother being allowed to watch the then-new video for "Thriller" when a friend of my parents brought it around on a VHS.

I didn't expect Jackson to do his 50 gigs at the O2, but I didn't expect him to die either, so it's a bit of a shock to hear he's gone. In the same way that my parents' generation remember where they were when Kennedy and Lennon died, many in my generation will remember where they were when they heard that Jackson had died.

For the music industry, the passing of Michael Jackson must have been a day of mixed emotions. As a performer, he was electric. His dancing was so distinctive that many videos showed him in silhouette. Who else can get away with that? "Thriller" is the best selling album of all time (and probably always will be), and Jackson is one of a handful of performers who are cultural icons.

On the other hand, I'm willing to bet the Jackson records are on display prominently in every record shop this weekend. For a music business that's struggling to adapt to the new online economy, the sales boost that comes with a major star's death will be seen as welcome by some. Yesterday, Jackson had the top seven bestselling albums on iTunes, and held about 10-20% of the top 100 song downloads.

It's always struck me as odd the way record sales peak after a star's death. The fans already have the records, so these sales are driven by people who just never got around to buying the albums for the last twenty years or so, and then suddenly decide they quite liked some of them when the star dies.

Social networks played a big part in spreading the news of Jackson's death, and people's reactions to it. When Princess Diana died, online social networks weren't around as we know them today. Because most of my friends shared their views on Jackson's death, through status updates in Facebook and tweets on Twitter, it felt like a shared experience. As Jackson sang, "You are not alone".

Both The Times and The Telegraph leaped upon the Twitter feed of UK foreign secretary David Miliband, in which he said: "Never has one soared so high and yet dived so low. RIP Michael." Only, it wasn't the real foreign secretary. It can be difficult to validate celebrity Twitter feeds (Valebrity (link no longer available) attempts to fill that gap, and Twitter has started to validate some accounts itself). But a little common sense goes a long way. Some of the tweets from the fake Miliband include:

Another idea from Eyebrows, sack all the drivers and use McDonalds staff instead. He reckons Reagan would have done it. No Al!

Many of the other tweets are gently satirical, but there are enough clues there for a journalist to work out they're looking at a fake. Even with the complexity of identity today, and the way that many people will have a professional and informal persona in different places, journalists are supposed to be skilled at fact checking. It's one of the ways they can add value in a world where information is increasingly free. If they can't filter the fakers from our own government ministers, how can we trust anything else they write?

Labels: business, journalism, music, social networking, university of death

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How to train to be a journalist

15 December 2008

Over the years, I've received quite a few queries from website visitors asking me about whether a journalism course they're considering is any good or not. I've usually declined to comment because it's not fair to judge courses I haven't been on, but I've now uploaded some guidelines to help people pick the right educational path for their journalism career.

The article answers the following questions from readers:

I'm 14 years old and I'm picking my exam subjects. What will be useful in my chosen career as a journalist? Should I pick history or geography?
Should I take a course in journalism?
Should I study for a degree in journalism?
I'm thinking about quitting my degree studies to work as a journalist now. Is this a good idea?
What about correspondence courses in journalism?
Can you tell me if this [named] course is any good please?
What else do I need to do while I'm training?

The answers are just my own opinion, but I hope you'll find them useful. This journalism training article is part of my journalism resources section, which includes tips on novel writing, self-publishing, web writing and freelancing; and some exclusive proofreading and editing exercises.

Labels: journalism, writing

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Writing tip of the day

21 October 2008

Shorter sentences rock.

Labels: journalism, writing

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Amazon Kindle: an opportunity for self-publishers?

15 April 2008

I blogged about Amazon's Kindle, a new ebook reader, when it launched. But I didn't look at the opportunity for self-publishers then.

I've published a few ebooks in the past. My ebook 'Journalism Careers - Your questions answered' is sold as a PDF file designed for comfortable on-screen reading. I previously published a guide to putting sound in webpages and a Javascript tutorial through Fatbrain, which was an online ebook store. That folded years ago, and it looks like Barnes & Noble has bought the domain name.

So what's the opportunity at Kindle? Not much for me, it seems. You need to have a US postal address and US bank account details before they will let you publish any content. You can't even publish content for free and use Kindle as a promotional outlet (ebooks must be priced between $0.99 and $200, and you still need to be in the US). Given how slow Amazon's been in internationalising other features like Amazon Honor System, none of that is likely to change any time soon.

My friend John went through the motions of setting up a publication anyway, and has blogged about that experience.

There are a couple of terms that might worry some self-publishers. Firstly:

3. Digital Books; Marketing and Promotion. You agree that we may market and promote your Digital Books by making chapters or portions of your Titles available to prospective customers without charge, and permitting prospective customers to see excerpts of the Digital Book in response to search queries. Amazon will not owe you any fees for the marketing and promotional efforts described above. The Program may include features that allow users to print one or more pages of your Titles.

The short version of that is: Amazon can distribute content from the book and allow users to print it, without charging for it and without paying you for it.

The 'permission to print' seems to go beyond the deal Amazon's already struck for 'Search inside this book' for promoting printed books on its website. It's essential for authors to give away some preview content to demonstrate the value of their books. Indeed, similar terms are usually a part of a conventional publishing contract. But Amazon's a shop, not a publisher. Authors and publishers should decide what material is promotional, and what material is only available for sale. Amazon wants the right to give away whatever content it wants, albeit with the implied motive that it will try to pick content that will help the book sell.

For reference works, the value could be significantly eroded if Amazon allows excerpts to be printed without any payment. We can only hope that Amazon is working on a way of administering micropayments so that people can buy book excerpts and authors can be rewarded appropriately.

Also, Amazon will keep 65% of the retail price. By comparison, Lulu charges a fee of 25% of what you get (which is then added to the sale price, so it's actually less than 25% of the ebook price). If you're a self-publisher, 35% is probably not too bad a return given that there's no work to do with moving printed books and there's no cost to incur in creating them, but it's far from competitive. It also seems to overstate the costs incurred in operating the infrastructure and underestimate the costs involved in creating content.

10. Technology. You acknowledge that we will be entitled to utilize DRM technology in connection with the distribution of Digital Books but are not obligated to do so. Accordingly, there may be no technology or other limitation imposed by us on copying or transfer of any Digital Book we distribute.

Personally, I don't approve of digital rights management technology. But when publishers are selling ebooks, they'll want to know what rights they're licensing and what controls will be used to enforce them and this term seems somewhat vague. There 'might or might not be DRM' isn't really a good basis for making a decision about whether you want to sell through Amazon, particularly if piracy or consumer rights is something you feel strongly about.

The use of the words 'irrevocable licence' set off alarm bells, but it seems this is about protecting consumers and ensuring that they will be able to download content they've bought easily in future. The irrevocable licence does not extend to making the ebook available for sale (so you can withdraw it later).

If anyone's actually self-publishing through Amazon Kindle, I'd be interested in hearing about your results in the comments.

Labels: journalism, marketing, publishing, technology, writing

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Prince and the price of music

29 June 2007

Desperate times make for strange allies, which is why Prince is partnering with the Mail on Sunday. His new album 'Planet Earth' will be given away free as a covermount with the conservative tabloid on 15 July 2007, before the album has even been released in the shops. I can imagine the two million readers spluttering tea all over their croissants as they catch snippets of Prince's bad-boy lyrics. The paper has reportedly stumped up half a million pounds (no longer online) for the rights to the album and is encouraging Prince fans to pre-order the paper. The deal has royally teed-off distributor BMG, which has pulled out of its deal to distribute the album to UK shops as a result.

Prince has also made his new single 'Guitar' available as a free download [link no longer available] in a promotion with O2 for a limited period. And that's free as in 'no money' and free as in 'no controls' too - it's an MP3 with no restrictions on how you can use it. O2 took out a quarter page full colour advert in Metro to advertise the promotion.

For Prince, these are smart deals. It's a long time since he had anyone putting any serious money into promoting his work. The last couple of albums had great distribution, but that just made it easy for existing fans to buy it. They didn't reach out to many new listeners, even though they marked something of a return to form following a few years of patchy output (albeit touched by genius, at times).

Prince could just upload his music to the web and give it away, but then who's going to pay for the cost of producing an album and sustaining the artist during its creation?

With this deal, Prince can afford to give his album away to as many people as possible. To give an idea of scale, this deal will put at least 2 million copies of his album on the street on day one. His greatest creative achievement 'Lovesexy' has only sold 4.82 million in nearly 20 years, according to Wikipedia. (His bestselling album 'Purple Rain' shifted 22.8m units, according to the same source).

Does this devalue the music? Undoubtedly. Most free CDs end up in landfill unplayed, I suspect. It's hard to argue that people shouldn't copy music if you're giving it away with the telly pages. Since there's no distribution deal in the UK for the album at the moment, these free CDs will probably trade briskly on Ebay for a penny plus postage.

Does this deal devalue journalism? Yes, it probably does, also. The Mail on Sunday, in common with most newspapers, seems confused about what business it's in. Clearly, publications are in the business of distributing advertising and this could be seen as advertising. But increasingly, newspapers foist unwanted films and CDs onto listeners who have no choice but to bin them. With this move, the Mail on Sunday is basically conceding that it doesn't matter what their writers produce; what sells papers is a good covermount. While this deal might introduce some Daily Mail readers to Prince's music, it seems unlikely many who buy the paper for the CD will become regular subscribers.

But these are desperate times. At work, we're mourning the loss of our local Fopp, after the chain announced it was closing. It's becoming hard for record shops to survive. They can't compete with the range and pricing of Amazon, and the bargain basement of second hand back catalogue CDs on Ebay. I bought many albums in Fopp, including several that I heard for the first time in the store and wouldn't otherwise have considered buying. Without record shops, brand is likely to become even more important when it comes to shifting units online because you can only sell what people already want. People don't browse just to see what's there in the way they do in a store, and you can't force shoppers to listen to the lastest releases online.

Prince has shown he can build his brand in today's ailing music industry. He's taken a first step towards changing the economics of his business, earning money through concerts and giving away music to build demand for tickets. But he might just have burned some bridges along the way. It remains to be seen whether the record industry or Prince has the more sustainable model in the long run.

Labels: journalism, music, music promotion

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Slow news day?

22 June 2007

So in my BBC RSS feed this morning, sat between 'Stagecoach wins railway franchise' and 'Bomb strikes UK patrol in Basra', is the headline 'Shot kitten's leg was amputated'. The subheading reads: 'A kitten is recovering after its leg was amputated after being shot with a pellet gun in County Antrim.'

This heart-rending story is so important, it is also in the third place on the Northern Ireland news homepage at the time of writing, with a photo.

It is a distressing story, but what's going to keep me awake at night is that the reporter didn't find out the name of the cat.

Labels: journalism, writing

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