Job Opening At Blade Mag: Online Writer

Based on zip recruiter, the national median income of what they term a "creative writer" is $49,735. Based on 75th percentiles on both sides of this average, the would put the range between about $37,500 and $52,500. So the pay offer, while low, is within this average. All I could find for "content creators" was an hourly wage of $20-$25 an hour. Even at $20/hr, that would put you over the $40k mark.

I think my big questions about this position would be:

How much of this 40 hr work week is structured? Will you be punching a clock and on call the entire day regardless of your output, or are you just tasked with meeting a deadline. That is to say, for under $40 a year, I wouldn't want to be tied to a desk if my output requirements could be done in 1/3 the time.

How much of this content would be my responsibility to get fed into the Google machine? How much effort would be required of me to make my work tend, and why isn't there a third party company handling that? My personal business pays about $1,500 a month to handle all of our web and social. It's spendy, but I don't have the time or knowledge to make heads or tails of what needs to be done and thus hire professionals to do it for me.

What are the negotiation terms for experience? If I were applying for this job at my age of almost 41, I would recognize that I would be at a disadvantage regarding making sure my content influenced. I realize this is where a company or individual could actually monetize their output. However, I feel that after 30 years of collecting and almost 20 years learning from all you knuckleheads on this board, a long in tooth writer with real insight into the hobby as well as having a bit of history to dip into would make my writing worth a bit more if I could just hand it off to a 23 year intern to interwebz it up and put it on the Instant Pot or the Tic Tac or the Snappy Face or whatever.

Finally I would wonder how materials for review are to be procured. Do I just have to wing it, pick out a knife, and try to find a manufacturer or dealer to send it to me, or does the magazine handle that? Even if I am not planning on purchasing the knife to keep, am I required to spend out of pocket on something or is that handled by the magazine?

In short, if the duties/hours were negotiable and/or the pay was negotiable, then I could see this being a halfway viable job. I would say that if I were a journalism major, I'm not sure if I would jump at a chance to work for a knife rag unless I was planning on going into business for myself with a blog/podcast/channel and just needed to pick up some tricks of the trade before tripling my income.
 
This is an exciting offer to see here sadly I feel that much of this site is employed with better pay and benefits overall but we all may know someone who could use this opportunity who might have some interest in our hobby to build from. I do feel from the description it seems a lot of hats for one person and with so many hats the pay seems questionable but still reasonable for what appears to be a work from anywhere job. I am an IT person so the SEO and other web optimizations are one aspect that feels slightly out of alignment or as something only one who has been an amateur blogger would know enough about who isn't currently making enough off their own blog to make this offer worth while for them.

Steely_Gunz Steely_Gunz has hit a lot of the big questions I would have if I were an applicant for this. If you can't tell from my post I definitely lack the writing skills needed.
 
I guess it's just speculation on my part of what I would do, to be honest. I'm a swimming pool contractor in my 40s that isn't social media literate (by choice) and makes tons and tons of typing mistakes, grammatical errors, and has a writing style that sometimes reads like Turkish stereo instructions translated through babblefish.

This job obviously wasn't aimed at me.

But since the OP just did a drive by to drop the link and roll out, I guess this thread is all about the speculative. If anything, it's an interesting exercise to gauge what each of us deems is a fair wage for a job. IMHO, even in 2003 dollars when I was entry level, that would have been a lot of work for a niche magazine. Of course, social media reliance wouldn't have been a thing. I wonder if there are many springboard opportunities working for a rag like that. I would assume getting on at an even lower level at a major journalism hub would be a better investment than making a poor earning writing reviews about knives instead of just setting up a channel if that was the passion I wanted to mold into a lucrative position.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
Based on zip recruiter, the national median income of what they term a "creative writer" is $49,735. Based on 75th percentiles on both sides of this average, the would put the range between about $37,500 and $52,500. So the pay offer, while low, is within this average. All I could find for "content creators" was an hourly wage of $20-$25 an hour. Even at $20/hr, that would put you over the $40k mark.
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Exactly, and it's not like the job is looking for someone with a lot of experience or knowledge. One year of writing experience and an associate's degree preferred? That practically makes the job a full-time apprenticeship position, in which case the pay and bennies are quite good, I'd say. It seems the magazine is more focused on getting someone who's hip to getting maximum internet exposure, hence...

Steely_Gunz said:
How much of this content would be my responsibility to get fed into the Google machine? How much effort would be required of me to make my work tend, and why isn't there a third party company handling that?
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...this seems to be what they want. In the wanted ad, it even says that the "content," or writing assignments, will be based on keywords.

I think the editor of the magazine needs to consider hiring some sort of social media optimizer, as well as rethinking the entire structure of generating or aggregating content for each issue.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I guess it's just speculation on my part of what I would do, to be honest. I'm a swimming pool contractor in my 40s that isn't social media literate (by choice) and makes tons and tons of typing mistakes, grammatical errors, and has a writing style that sometimes reads like Turkish stereo instructions translated through babblefish.

This job obviously wasn't aimed at me.

But since the OP just did a drive by to drop the link and roll out, I guess this thread is all about the speculative. If anything, it's an interesting exercise to gauge what each of us deems is a fair wage for a job. IMHO, even in 2003 dollars when I was entry level, that would have been a lot of work for a niche magazine. Of course, social media reliance wouldn't have been a thing. I wonder if there are many springboard opportunities working for a rag like that. I would assume getting on at an even lower level at a major journalism hub would be a better investment than making a poor earning writing reviews about knives instead of just setting up a channel if that was the passion I wanted to mold into a lucrative position.
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I wouldn't sell yourself too short. Your writing is better than some of the articles I edit these days: The Queen's English! This isn't even Daisy Duke's English!
 
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