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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

My first post on Planet Green!

So this is a short little post y'all, but I am excited.

As of today, I'm officially a Planet Green blogger!

My first post is about getting your craft on, and turning one of your old coats into stocking stuffers, such as button rings, wrist cuffs, tea clutches and the like.

If you fancy this post.....wink wink.....you can click on "Was this article helpful?" at the bottom and it will turn into a vote. Imagine me hugging you if do that.

Anyway, I will be writing lots of these little green / eco-friendly articles for Planet Green, so if you have any ideas for posts I'd love to hear about them. Thoughts?

8 comments:

LKR said...

Hey gal, it's Lacy K. Rohre. Got any tips for writing posts on websites like this? I notice you have contributed to several different sites and was just curious. Hope you're doing well!

Austin Eavesdropper said...

Hey Lacy!!! Good to see you, woman! How is your little family? Anyway, I shall email you about writing for the interwebs. We will chat.

Amanda said...

I second Lacy's question. I've danced around wanting to write for websites ever since I realized I didn't like waking up in the morning to teach. Writing for companies/web sites has always seemed impossible to get into - so congratulations (!!) - and I want to ask Lacy's same question, too (and her's a few extra: !!)

Austin Eavesdropper said...

Well I am happy to answer that question publicly, then.

(First though, I do want to say though Amanda that I admire you for waking up to teach every morning. :) I used to do that too, and I know it takes a LOT of energy / preparation / working from home during your off-hours. Hats off.)

Alright, so while I do write for a few other websites (Austinist for example), I spent a long time writing for various mags/websites for free just to build up my clips. The Deli for example (www.thedelimagazine.com/austin) - I have a monthly column about DJs there, and that is unpaid. My cool editor kicks me concert tickets and other goodies sometimes, but anyway, it's not like a paycheck situation.

The two recent website gigs that have paid pretty well, for me at least, are this current one and Decider.com. I don't write for Decider a lot anymore but used to somewhat regularly. Anyway, that grew out of a restaurant review gig I found on Craigslist 2 years ago, for The Onion AV Club. I submitted some clips from a recent (unpaid) magazine staff writer position, and they hired me. When The Onion AV Club started up Decider.com, the Austin-centric Decider.com I mean, they invited their current writers to contribute. So, I did.

The Planet Green opportunity came about due to a wonderful, amazing friend. My buddy Rene Geneva was showing her line at Fashion Week last Sept. in NYC, and while there, met the editor of TreeHugger.com (sister site of Planet Green). The editor told Rene she was actually looking for a fashion writer, so Rene gave her my name and info. I emailed the editor the same day with my clips, and they were kind enough to hire me.

So, as you can see, for me at least each route to paid website writing was kind of circuitous. But I think the key is paying your dues with some unpaid writing gigs first, so that you have clips to send editors. For me, I found that I could best report on local arts and culture type stuff, so when I moved back to Austin in 2007, I immediately contacted editors at various pubs/sites I liked (Austinist and Rare Magazine) and asked if I could write for free.

Hope that sheds some light on the process, Amanda and Lacy. :) Am happy to answer anymore questions on this topic if anyone has them!

That Chelsea Girl™ said...

Wow, that's all very awesome! Take care lady.

Amanda said...

Thank you thank you!! You taught too? Did you leave for similar reasons?

Jessica Meyer said...

Congrats! :)

Austin Eavesdropper said...

Jessica - Thanks lady. :)

Amanda - I originally left teaching to go to grad school. That was wild. I went from teaching yoga to little kids, to teaching composition to college freshmen. Some days while giving my lectures, I was like...hey I'm not bad at this! And other days I was like, I AM AN IMPOSTER GET ME OUT OF HERE.

Anyway I left college teaching when I, eh, finished grad school :) But when I moved back to Austin, I just decided....what the hell, let's give this media thing a shot. I had been working with a magazine while in grad school, and caught the bug then. So it was sort of a happy accident, this freelance writing.

Good luck for you and your career path. :) I still think teachers are heroes, and miss it sometimes. My husband is a teacher.