Forget about 15 minutes—Canadian visual artists want their five per cent
Imagine if, to sell your writing or other media work, you had to give up all re-sale rights, knowing full well that the person you were selling it to would earn far more than you had because of their access to a wider market. If what you’re producing is one-of-a-kind, nearly impossible to re-create, and […]
Why I wrote for the Huffington Post (and why I stopped)
By Emma Woolley The Huffington Post is evil, right? It makes a lot of money from content it doesn’t pay for. It exploits writers and undermines their right to earn livings. It contributes to the overall devaluation of writing and especially web writing. I knew all of this and I still wrote for the Huffington […]
CWG/CMG representing Toronto Star and The Grid freelancers in talks with senior management
Do you freelance at the Toronto Star or The Grid? There have been talks between the Canadian Writers Group/Canadian Media Guild and the Star‘s senior management about the new freelance agreement at the paper, which contains a couple of, in our view, unnecessary and troublesome clauses. The most recent meeting took place in late August, […]
Required reading: A look at freelance writers and collective organizing in Canada
Nicole S. Cohen, a PhD candidate in York University’s Communication and Culture graduate program, is working on a large project on historical and contemporary efforts to organize freelance writers. As part of that project, she’s written a paper entitled “Negotiating Writers’ Rights: Freelance Cultural Labour and the Challenge of Organizing,” recently published in Just Labour: […]
Show me the money: Invoicing tips from the Born Freelancer
Gather a bunch of freelance writers together and it’s almost always the number-one topic of conversation. The general public may expect us to be dissecting esoteric topics like the influence of Faustian legend on contemporary media, but for most of us it’s: “Got any new tips for getting paid faster?” Several posts ago Story Board […]
F*ck you. Pay me. Mike Monteiro’s advice for getting paid as a freelancer
If you’ve ever had trouble collecting payment from a client, this video is for you. Mike Monteiro, co-founder of Mule Design Studio gives his provocative (and sometimes profane) tips for protecting yourself as an independent contractor.
New Star freelance contracts raising eyebrows
The Toronto Star has been issuing new agreements to its freelancers that contain broader language than previous ones. According to some freelancers we heard from, there was less pressure to sign and return the contracts when they were first distributed, but after questions were raised about its wording, a hard deadline was set. There are […]
Final decision handed down in latest Robertson class action suit
For better or worse, the ongoing series of “Robertson v. _____” cases continues. On May 2, a final decision was handed down in the case of “Robertson v. Proquest, Cedrom, Toronto Star Newspapers, Rogers and Canwest.” (This decision comes after a tentative settlement reached this January.) Heather Robertson and Kirk Baert of the firm Koskie […]
CWG’s Derek Finkle on Nino Ricci’s letter to the Globe
We asked Derek Finkle, founder of the Canadian Writers Group, which represents independent writers, about typical compensation for freelance travel writing and whether it’s common for dailies to leave an invoice unpaid for six months, as the Globe did in Ricci’s case.
Nino Ricci gives the Globe a thrashing
In an open letter to the Globe posted on his own site, author Nino Ricci feigns concern for the paper’s financial situation while castigating them for failing to pay him for a travel story published six months ago.
