I quit my monthly Guardian column yesterday. I thought I should explain a bit here about why, in case anyone who reads the column regularly is wondering where it’s got to. The column, which was called The 21st Century Yokel, covered nature, country customs, folklore, landscape, family and my small adventures in rural Norfolk and Devon and the North East Midlands, and had been a fixture of the paper’s Life And Style section since spring 2011. It ran online-only because only a fool would hope that something so utterly separate from the zeitgeist or news or celebrity, containing such a dearth of controversy, soul-bearing confession or shit-stirring opinion would run in the print version of a modern newspaper. It was easily the most poorly paid of all the work I do, I received no travel expenses for the research trips I did for it, and I put a huge amount of time and love into it. I accepted all this and enjoyed it a lot, though, because it was a space in a newspaper where I had a fair bit of freedom to write about subjects you don’t tend find in newspapers, in a very non-newspapery sort of way. It also provided a complimentary portal to my last few books: a way of showing people who would typically be apprehensive about reading cat books (people, in other words, like me) that what they would get in my cat books was often not the sort of stuff you normally find in cat books.
At the same time – while I hope the end result was more or less the same – I approached the writing of the column with slightly more trepidation than the way I’d approach writing about the same subjects for my own blog or one of my books or even a magazine that didn’t appear online. Although I’d long since stopped reading the comments beneath the columns, and those I had read had been broadly positive, as far as the murky world of Below The Line went, the voice of a certain kind of London-based Guardian reader echoed in my head as I wrote: someone with absolutely zero interest in badgers or firewood, who might approach one of my columns with the exclamation “You call this news?” then read it anyway, because getting high on their outrage was one of few joys they still had left in life. I don’t, of course, call what I write “news”. I’d be hard pushed to even call what I write “something you might find standing on the other side of a ravine, waving to news”, and I understand that this has been a slight problem for the Guardian’s Life And Style section. I had come to dread their clickbait headlines which, in an attempt to get the attention of the kind of people who wouldn’t enjoy my columns anyway, were often somewhat misleading. When I wrote a column about the notion of belonging and being local and my deficiencies as a proper rural Norfolk person (easily my worst 21st Century Yokel piece, incidentally), the headline presented it as a feature about a London person trying and failing to fit into country life. I lived in London many years ago, for two years and four months, and never felt truly at home there. For almost the entire remainder of my life, on either side, I have lived in the countryside.
We live in a world of technological pond skimming and this is not something likely to change any time soon. Amongst other new and surprising facts I’ve been told about myself on the Internet in the last couple of years by total strangers are that I write picture books about cats (I don’t; I write some books about golf and slightly more books about my life through the prism of what can be loosely termed cat ownership which also serve as a veiled way for me to write about place and rural eccentricity and tell stories about my dad and toads) and that I’m a typical middle class Guardian-writing Oxbridge graduate (I don’t even have any A-levels, let alone a degree; I spent most of my childhood living in a North Nottinghamshire mining village and my parents grew up on council estates in Liverpool and Nottingham). But there are people out there making far more wildly inaccurate knee-jerk online judgements about writers than they make about me. A fact that writers, or any kind of creative spreading their work in the online sphere, are having to learn to accept about the strange new world we live in is that getting your work to reach its intended audience means sending it on a sometimes thorny journey past its unintended one. It’s a tariff for this mindblowing new way we have of getting our writing out to the world, and the odd misleading headline could be viewed as part of that tarriff. The kind of people who’d only read the headline of one of my pieces then sound off or a make a quickfire judgement are typically not the kind of people who’d enjoy my books.
So I was aware that I was a difficult proposition for Guardian headline writers, even had some sympathy for them occasionally. I hope my columns cohere, but I do like to be a little discursive, and I don’t attempt to have a very simple hard-hitting agenda. I’ve found, in fact, that being more discursive and not attempting to have a very simple hard-hitting agenda are two of the bedrocks of my improvement as a writer over the last few years. This approach can still be packaged in a book by a publisher’s marketing team, but it’s difficult with an online article where there’s pressure to get traffic, and I have felt for the Guardian’s subs. On the one hand, you’ve got “Been With Boyfriend Three Years But He’s Only Made Me Climax A Few Times.” Easy! On the other hand, you’ve got me, writing about the time a cow licked my foot then segueing into a story about a sunshine pop duo and a moorland river legend. Less easy. The one rare time that clickbait and a genuinely representative headline for one of my articles coincided was with August 2014’s ‘Has That Cat Got Semen On Its Back?’, for my column about the time the stray cat I’d adopted spunked on my other cat’s back.
2012 and 2013 were terrible years for a lot of people who made their living writing for newspapers and I was one of them. I lost my two main forms of journalistic income, got dropped by my then publisher and had to sell my house. Next to this, The Guardian telling me that I could only continue writing the 21st Century Yokel column if they cut my pay in half was a fairly minor set back. I agreed to the pay cut because I didn’t seem to have any other options available to me, but also because I was getting a lot of positive reader tweets and emails about the column, and I increasingly enjoyed writing it. One sign I increasingly enjoyed writing it was that what my first drafts were getting longer and longer. I assumed this would not be a problem: it wasn’t for the print version of the paper, so it did not have a specifically allocated finite space on a page. By getting more off me, it could be argued the Guardian were just getting more for their money, but I knew that wasn’t how it worked. My editor asked me to keep the word count down: because it would “take longer to sub-edit” and because of the perceived diminished attention span of the modern online reader. Typically, after writing the column, I would spend another hour or two editing around four hundreds words out of it whilst trying to keep the general thrust of it together. This was more unpaid work but I felt it was ultimately worthwhile. I was becoming more widely read and there was more of a sense that much of this writing would have a future life in my books, which might actually even find a willing publisher.
From autumn 2013, my working life took a distinct turn for the better. I had a top ten bestselling memoir published, got out of debt and, in spring the following year, moved to my favourite part of Devon: a county I’d long yearned to write about. The previous winter I’d wondered if I would even be able to carry on making my living the same way I had since 1996, but now I got two more books commissioned and offers of other writing work started to come in thick and fast: all of which, while no route to early retirement, were at least marginally more remunerative than my Guardian column. From any purely financial standpoint the logical move would have been to quit writing it. But that wasn’t the way I looked at things. I have yearned, for years, like many writers, not to be well-off, but for creative freedom: to be able to write the numerous books that buzz around my head every day without the terror of whether I’ll be able to pay next month’s rent or mortgage, or at least with only a manageable amount of terror, rather than the terror that keeps you awake all night, staring at the ceiling, because, let’s face it, a bit of terror is very important to the creative process. Now, with the terror briefly diminished, my Guardian column seemed a part of my new freedom, as, over the last year or so, it had contained some of my best writing. Devon, too – its wildlife, its folklore, its people, the diversity of its terrain – had made the column more colourful. I continued. I did not ask for the pay to be returned to its original level. I did not point out that I was bringing more readers to their page via over half a million followers on Facebook and over a quarter of a million on Twitter. I considered asking if The Guardian might make my column fortnightly, instead of monthly, as I had so much new material for it.
I noticed, however, that my Guardian column was becoming more time consuming, in an unanticipated way. There was the time it took to research, the time it took to write, the time it took to edit and the time it took to share online, all of which I was fine with. Less enjoyable were the corrections I had to send to my editor after it had been uploaded. Some of these were my own typos that I’d missed and the subs had missed too. Others were chunks that had been taken out of the copy rendering a joke or observation virtually meaningless. Then there were glaring errors that editors or subs had inserted themselves. After the column I wrote this February about assisting with a pony drift on Dartmoor was published, I had to correct a photo caption which referred to a Dartmoor hill pony as a Dartmoor pony. No big deal, although an important distinction for those knowledgeable about the subject, and one equine pedants who read the column would be sure to point out. But in the headline Haytor was referred to as “the Devon town of Haytor”. When I pointed out that Haytor was a tor, not a town, this was changed clumsily to “the Devon tor of Haytor”. This is the kind of stuff that reinforces the sense of The Guardian office as an island in King’s Cross full of people who have never seen a cow, but it also associates me with the errors: not everyone who reads a newspaper column knows its author is not responsible for its captions and headlines. The Grauniad has long had a reputation for typos and I’d fallen victim to it many times years ago, when I wrote about music for them: the time a copytaker changed my spelling of “Tom Waits” to “Tom Waites” in a headline, for example, or the time a sub decided that I was wrong to state that Waylon Jennings wrote and sang the Dukes Of Hazzard theme song and changed its composer and singer to Willie Nelson. But now there was sometimes the sense that, if I’d sent my friend’s three year-old poodle in to sub-edit my copy on a monthly basis, it would come out in a more finely honed state. Nonetheless, because I’m not Giles Coren, and because I know the Guardian is criminally understaffed, and because I’m grateful for the fact I no longer work in Tesco or a factory, I did not complain. I just politely and meekly sent my changes each month. I ignored some subbing errors, as not to bombard them – for example, the bit where they changed “southern wanker” to “southern moron” (does anyone actually use the phrase “southern moron”?).
A decision I made during my struggling spell from 2011 to 2013 was that journalism wasn’t for me any more. My focus would be books and, if I couldn’t make those work, I’d swallow my pride and find another career. With my fortieth birthday looming, I gave it one more big push and, fortunately, happened to write a bestselling book that has been translated into several languages. I’d always wanted to be an author, not a journalist, and my writing style had become less and less suited to newspapers. If a newspaper or magazine asked me to write a piece, and I liked the sound of it, I’d still do it, perhaps, but I would never again do anything at the expense of the time I would devote to my future books. Books, I have always believed, are where you’ll find the best writing, not newspapers, and in a world where newspapers are fighting for their lives with desperate clickbait and sub buzzfeed crud, this is more true than ever. Despite the 21st Century Yokel being published by the Guardian, I do not view myself as a Guardian writer. I do not even read The Guardian. If I read, I want to read something that’s great fun or likely to improve me as a writer or, better still, happens to be both, so I read books or The New Yorker magazine. I am a book writer who happened, until a couple of days ago, to also write a column for The Guardian. Saying this probably won’t do me any favours as far as getting my future books covered in the paper, but, what the hell, people aren’t honest about this sort of thing often enough, because they’re too terrified about not getting work.
On Monday morning, I filed my latest column, which was about visiting my local Owl Club and going to look for cuckoos on Dartmoor with a National Park ecologist. It was a little late, but my editor has always made it clear that tardiness doesn’t matter, in the case of the 21st Century Yokel. Actually, I got the sense that if I failed to file a column for two or three months, she would have been too busy with more important stuff to notice. For the last five months, she also forgot to pay me, every month, and would surely not have done at all if I hadn’t eventually reminded her, a month after each column was published. I originally wrote this latest column at just over 2000 words, then edited it down to 1600: around 100 words more than my previous column. I was excited about what I’d written, and didn’t want to edit anything else out, as I felt like the piece would become a lot less entertaining, and I’d miss out some crucial facts and humour. My editor, however, was adamant that it could not be over 1200. “It’s not just the average attention span of the reader but also the subbing time,” she explained. I thought again about the subbing on the pony column but refrained from mentioning it. I asked if she could run just this one at full length and that I’d make sure the subsequent month’s column did not stray over 1200. She refused, then added that the column had “had a good run” and she was “going to suggest maybe another three then call it quits”. At this point, keeping in mind everything else I’ve detailed above, it took me approximately 0.1 seconds to decide to quit on the spot. I then uploaded my owls and cuckoos column to this blog. If you’d like to read it, you can do so by clicking here.
There was a time, many years ago, when I nurtured an optimistic belief that working very hard on improving as a writer would bring you more success and stability. I’m glad I believed this, even though it’s not true, as it made me work harder at the time. The reality is more complex: working very hard on improving as a writer can on ever-diminishing occasions bring you more success and stability but it very much depends who you’re writing for, and who you’re relying on. In the late 90s and early 2000s I had offers of work for magazines and newspapers coming out of my ears. Was it because I was a bit younger and prettier than I am now? Because it was a more fruitful time for journalists? Because it happened to be the exact short period I was living in London? Because someone needing to make a quick commission vaguely remembered me from a launch party they’d been to? A bit of all four? It can’t have been much to do with my skill as a writer because, though I was probably passable for my callow years and knew a fair bit about my subjects, I know for a fact that I’m about five times better at what I do now. Yet there’s no correlation between that improvement and the amount of newspaper work I’ve been offered in recent years. When, during my conversation with my editor about the owls and cuckoos column, I finally, after many years of not mentioning it, alluded to the fact that she paid me less than anyone else I worked for, she countered with the argument that, for the same length column, she’d pay most other people £90, as opposed to the £150 she paid me. I found scant consolation in this, in much the same way I’d find scant consolation if someone handed me an almost whole eight week old KitKat from a shed, then told me that everyone else was only getting one finger of an almost whole eight week old KitKat from a shed.
I know how lucky I am right now. I know that getting the chance to write for a living is a rare privilege in a world where endless people want to write for a living and can’t. But I’m 40 now. Since March 1996, when my first piece of paid work was published, I’ve worked fucking hard, written hard, read hard, been through some difficult times, and been entirely devoted – especially devoted, perhaps, as someone with very little proper education – to making myself better and what I do. Even looking at my first 21st Century Yokel columns, from 2011 and 2012, I can see stuff that annoys me, that I’d change if I had chance to write them again. But, for that twenty years of struggle and improvement, modern journalism’s award is “You get paid £60 more for a week’s work than some other people we’re totally ripping off.” My editor has told me that all The Guardian’s headlines are put together in collaboration with their SEO team. I didn’t know what SEO stood for, since I’m allergic to acronyms, so I looked it up. It stands for Search Engine Optimization. Essentially, in a world of Search Engine Optimization, if you want to write a humorous, honest, tender article about walking in Derbyshire where your granddad’s ashes are scattered, and looking at bracket fungus, you’re bollocksed. You would be far better not working on your writing at all but writing something short and quick which would suit a headline such as “Should I stop eating quinoa?” or “Is my online dating profile photo putting people off?” Then, when you’ve done it, you can churn out another, for another £90. Another acronym often used on the Internet is TLDR. It means “Too Long; Didn’t Read”. It’s thought to be a phrase favoured by adolescents with an electronically compromised attention span but it also sums up what The Guardian’s attitude to comic life writing has become.
When I started out as a writer, I viewed myself as intrinsically inferior to the newspaper editors I worked for: I came from a very different world from most of them, felt incredibly honoured that they’d give little me the chance to work for them, and believed everything they told me more or less unquestioningly. Some of them were great and taught me a lot; some of them weren’t and didn’t. Editors have been breaking the facts of how things are to me for years and it’s often been bad news. But another fact of how things are is you don’t have to work for free, you can retrain as a plumber or a forester or a gardener and be paid something reasonable for what you do. If not for the success of my last book, I feel almost certain this is what I would have decided to do. Maybe I still will have to, one day. But I no longer view newspaper editors as superior overlords who wield important power and keep me afloat. Many of them are just struggling, compromised employees of a struggling, compromised industry.
What I’ve felt in the twenty four hours since quitting my Guardian column is mostly a feeling of immense gratitude to the people who’ve read my books and supported them via Twitter or Facebook over the last few years. If you’re one of them, thank you. You have helped made me realise that, as a self-employed writer in the modern age, you don’t have to view the old-fashioned media – people you’ve often never met, who live far away, in a different world – as a boss to kowtow to. There is sometimes another route. For all its headaches and trolls and pond skimmers, social media – my @MYSADCAT profile and my Facebook page, especially – has allowed me to gain an international readership, far more than the Guardian ever could have. It has also directed a lot of people to my Guardian pieces, although I’m sure the paper view that as barely a few more grains of sand on the beach. I’d be pleased if another publication took my pieces about my life in the countryside but if not, I’m happy to publish them on this blog. They will perhaps not be as widely read, and might contain a few typos, but they hopefully still will be read. Subsequently, a lot of the material in them will end up in one of my books, where it will be edited properly, by talented people who care – who still have the opportunity to care – about the quality of a piece of writing. I am pissed off that I’ve not been treated better by the Guardian, or valued by them, but I sort of understand. It must be hugely difficult being a newspaper editor in 2015, with the pressure of SEO, the need to constantly up advertising revenue and ever-diminishing budgets and staff. To the few in that job – and I want to believe you’re still out there – who still prioritise a nice piece of writing in such an environment over a quick and easy attention-grabbing one, I salute you.
Thank you for raising the blinds here on what being a writer in the 21st C looks like because I have been deeply envying your ability to make a living out of life the Bear & friends. I once tried to make a series of short films about my cats and even tho the working title quickly became, "Cats who don't do tricks," I couldn't even get them to cooperate that far. Thwarted, I wrote a book on drone warfare instead. A royalty cheque for 476 quid arrived last week, which I have to split with my co-author, who at least is my husband, so it stays in the same pot. It took two years to research & write. I don't even want to do the math on this.
I did a happy dance last year when the New Statesman took an article from me, but then they said they wouldn't pay me because they were already doing me a big fat favour by letting me 'promote' myself through said article. Amazon sells my books more cheaply than I can buy them at cost from my publisher. My publisher asks its writers to donate their royalties if they can afford to, so they can keep publishing. WTF is going on here?
So – thank you for writing your column at all, which I've thought is super-cool, and worth having in the world. And congratulations for jumping ship. Take that, Guardian! Pow, bash, SEO. Writers of the world unite. Buy books, everybody, from bookstores, even tho you can find them as illegal PDFs by Googling them.
Very well said Tom. And not at all too long LOL. Social Media being what it is the Guardian is the loser here as your profile is high enough not to need them. Best of luck with the new book, I've got it on pre-order already. And thanks for the previous ones, they are a joy to read.
Not TLDR, more like RLRT (Right Length, Read Twice)
As someone who has never had any dealings with the publishing industry, I am shocked at how shittily writers are treated. Those of us with no discernible talents like to imagine that those with talent are prized, cherished and appropriately rewarded. It seems not.
I loved your 21st Century Yokel columns and am pleased they will continue on here.
I've often expressed a wish for you to write a book about my two great loves: cats and cricket. I've changed my mind, as it would probably cause my head to spontaneously explode.
*Smooches* to all the cats, especially The Bear and LovelyShipley.
Tom, can't tell you how very much I enjoy all of the things you write….and comically, most things are TLDR for me, on line, with your articles being the sole exception…..while reading a book, to be held in hand, will occupy for hours on end, computer screens present a bit of difficulty. Could not be more delighted for you. Thanks again
Cheryl Thacker, Atlantic Beach, FL, USA
I'm sad you have been treated so shabbily. It puts me in mind of another of my favourite writers, the brilliant Simon Barnes, who no longer writes for the Times. However, if it means both of you write more books and can express yourselves more openly then perhaps it's not such a bad thing. I wish you every success for the future.
Thanks, Tom. You are a terrific writer. Keep writing those books. We buy all of them here in the States. Keep at those Devon pieces, too. I visited the West Country years ago and your writing keeps it alive for me. Fondly, and with profound thanks for what you do. Mary Jacobsen Iturrioz in rural California
Very much enjoy reading your work, Tom. Completely understand your decision re. The Grauniad
Very much enjoy reading your work, Tom. Entirely understand your decision re. The Grauniad
To my mind it's all good…even if it doesn't feel like justice. Having your work hacked about by disinterested and inexpert staffers compromises you, as do piece rates that undervalue you.
having a crutch removed is always daunting.
However a writer of your talent has little to fear. As a loving observer of nature, of animals, and of people, and of course, a special friend to cats, you have ability to express what millions of others feel…that's much more than what you called 'comic writing'.
Add to that your mastery of the internet age, and your fans all over the world can be assured that you will be with us with an ever increasing following.
ps re fickle cat behaviour "I am fire and the wind – do not try to know me" – bullseye sir!
Great article Tom. Having been a trade journalist I've seen how the industry has changed over the past 15 years, sometimes for the good, other times to its detriment. You've found a niche that resonates with many people. Top work 🙂
Yay Tom. Follow your principles and your heart. The Guardian is the loser (in more ways than one).
I've only recently discovered you via Twitter and haven't yet read your columns, but I loved this piece, it is brilliant. Excellent writing is too precious to be squashed and manipulated by those only concerned with catering for readers with the attention spans of gnats!Good on you 🙂
All power to you Tom – please just keep writing as I love hearing about what's happening (or not) in Devon! All the best x
I for one love your column and read it all the way through – in fact it is the only one I do read completely.
I will miss it loads but I will continue to read your books and follow you on twitter.
The Guardian doesn't realise what it is losing.
Keep going as you are – you're doing great!
Well said. An objective piece and quite restrained considering the content. I would have used more swear words, but maybe you did and then edited it to length…
Looking forward to your new book.
Kirrily
Well said. An objective and restrained piece given the nature of the content. I may have used a few more swear words, but maybe you did, and then decided to edit it for length…
Looking forward to your next book.
Kirrily
Hi Tom
Seems like you did the right thing quitting. The new editor looks as if she's from the same submoron cliche as the other brain dead columnists who write self absorbed cack – you described it better. The football sections gone that way too (bar Owen, Daniel and David Conn), which I why I'm going to stop wasting my time reading the bloody thing anymore.
God luck with the future. I'm sure one day a newspaper will stop being run by wankers who think their readers don't have an attention span and will take you back on and treat you decently.
Stuart
Tom! As a freelance journalist myself I totally sympathise with your plight, and often find myself wondering why, as a skilled person working hard doing a skilled job, one is paid so badly for it. Increasingly I'm tempted by the idea of writing a book and you are an inspiration: I love your writing, and your 21st Century Yokel column is genuinely one of my favourite things to read. Also it makes a life in Devon even more appealing to a country person stuck in London – I'm living a little vicariously through you 🙂 here's to many more great books, and I'll follow your progress with interest, and with encouragement.
Thanks for sharing such an honest piece 🙂
I love your books, your writing is in a unique style that I enjoy very much.
Please keep writing, after all, we need to know why your cat is sad
xxxx
Magnificent
I (used to) read the Guardian because you wrote for them… 🙂
Tom, just found you yesterday on Twitter. Guardian not a pinnacle of your success thankfully., like your writing which brings a smile and prompts thoughtful reflection.,stay true.
Please keep writing. Love your books, columns and twitter feeds, keeping up with The Bear and feline friends and stories from Norfolk/Devon. Never normally post comments online but felt moved to do so. Sorry you have been treated so crappily.
Oh Tom, NTLDR!! Hope you get that acronym… If you can be persuaded to come to Cardiff please let me buy you a beer. Empathising truly madly and deeply! #fellowauthor
It's the Guardian's loss. I'll continue to read your columns on your own blog and your Twitter feed, and buy your books (and listen to your great, eclectic show on MixCloud.
At least I can get rid of the Guardian link on my desktop now. Good luck for the future Tom, I look forward to reading your FB feeds, columns here and your next book whenever it is published. Thanks very much for all the laughs you give me 🙂
Your books saw me through a hip replacement op, many thanks to you!
I do hope that someone else might pick up your articles – I'm reasonably new to 21st Century Yokel, but I've enjoyed catching up on past entries as and when I feel like it. It's sad that the Guardian experience has not ended well, but I guess this might be representative of where things are going media-wise. Sod 'em. I'll certainly be getting the new book as soon as that's out, and look forward to reading much more, whatever the format, and regardless of cat content (though I do love the cats). Oh, and of course – the radio show too. Good luck with them all.
I spent the whole blog entry mourning the fact that I would never read one of your articles on Devon life ever again, right until I got to the bit where you said you may continue to post them on your blog. Your column was the only reason I visited the Grauniad, so now I will gladly never go back and will instead wait for your blog posts. I loved your Owl Club column so much that I not only posted it on Facebook (as I often do with your column) but I got so angry that no-one 'Liked' it that I reposted it with an angry comment.
I haven't read the Guardan, or indeed any other newspaper (but specially the Guardian which I've made a point of most definitely not reading) for years now. Your honest and very moving piece confirms that decision of mine. You are better off out of it Tom, and not just because you're a wonderful writer with that rare quality of being able to write with pathos, humour, intelligence and romance. I look forward to many more books and blogs written from the heart and your magical life in the country. With love and thanks to you and all your cats, most especially the Bear with whom I'm totally in love! 🙂 xx
Tom
I applaud your stance and feel the pain of your situation. Your writing is a joy and I have read your books with relish and widely and enthusiastically promoted them to friends and family. @MaccKittySue xxx
Good luck with your future projects I for one will support you.
Brilliant blog by a brilliant writer.
21st Century Yokel was one of the few consistently great columns in The Guardian. Its absence is yet another reason not to read the paper.
Onwards and upwards, Tom.
Cheers,
Jon Wilde, Hove
Well written, (there's only one typo I could find on first read), well thought out, and prescient comments on the state of the industry from a fine writer with much more in his body of work to come, I feel. Thanks Tom for the fun columns which I will miss laughing out loud at on my subs work desk. I'll still be reading you tho! Oh no, that's a typo…)
IRTATWTALI — is acronym I've just invented for I Read This All the Way Through And Loved It. A pox on SEO, and more power to The Mighty Cox!
I'm appalled that freelance rates have fallen so low. When I used to write for New Statesman and Society (as it then was) I was getting £90/1000, which with inflation would be £150/1000 now. Impossible to live on – but it sounds as if the Graun is offering writers half that, while the New Statesman offers them nothing at all.
Here's to writing for people who care!
Very much enjoyed your articles in the Guardian simply for how different they were and how they imparted a sense of vitality and exposure to parts of the world I might not usually see. I've loved all of your books and I'm looking forward to anything else you'll be putting out!
Bravo. You are a great influence in my own writings. Kiss the Bear for me.
I'll read anything you write, wherever I can find it. I love the way you make the English language work for you, communicating your wry observations and brilliant creative connections. Truly very sad that 'my' newspaper has been so goddam stupid as not to realise your worth. Just keep writing, and make sure you post links, and 'ads' – I would happily pay to subscribe to your blog, though I know that's not how it's done. Now I know how brilliantly you talk about, and make me see anew, cats, things about rural life (for me it's the other end of England, the North Pennines), not to mention owls….. I really am not going to be affected by the fact that the Grauniad doesn't publish you any more. And if they write a naff review of your next book, there will be a letter to The Editor (that's her in charge, Kath Viner). May everything continue well for you, with Devon, your writing, the cats, etc etc. I look forward to many, many more years of it.
Good for you, Tom, that you kept to the helm for so many pieces. If you have time, write for yourself and your readers in your self-owned blog. That is what I did after losing my in-print newspaper column of 25 years. We columnists must continue to carry the banner for the unusual, for that is humanity itself.
A Yank in the USA
Thecolumnrule.com
Oh gosh, I really feel for you and for all those in your position. Why did I think The Guardian would be different?! What does that leave as the ethical and decent newspaper? But then they're all competing for advertising revenue so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. It's the same in all industries to an extent. What people don't realise (speaking from experience) is how exploited people can be, even when it looks as though they have a decent steady income. Best of luck to you Tom and thank you for writing that piece.
I'm one of those millennial twitter followers who clicked on the link to this out of curiosity. I read it to the end, without skimming.
TLDR is not an issue when the writing has personality.
Journalist on a local paper here. I feel your pain.
And love your stuff.
Clearing out my office the other day I found an old (printed) invoice from 1991 boasting a word-rate that I would be bowled over to receive today. It all seemed so easy and relatively well paid back then. Cutting corners and dashing-off are fast becoming the only options. A shame, that. Best wishes, a fellow freelancer.
I'm a tl;dr kind of guy. I don't have time for newspapers and most of the articles I read are very specific to my work or my hobby. But I read this article. Many moons ago I thought journalism might be a nice job – I'm glad I didn't bother given its state. Thanks for an honest article – perhaps some of the papers might take notice.
hip
Well done for writing that – extremely honest – and good luck for the future. I suspect a lot of us will be choosing you over the Guardian in the future.
All the best to you and the cats,
J
Tom, I'm so sorry The Guardian has treated you so poorly. I love your writing. It's a good thing you found social media as that's how I came to find your work, through The Bear's Twitter account. You have the right to value your work. As you can see from the book sales, the reading public has found value in it.
I will continue to enjoy your writing. Looking forward to your next book. Here's to your continued success without the likes of The Guardian!
Well said, Tom! And…I read the whole post!! But, it's true: I'm an old fart, not one of those young, short attention span dudes that SEO aims at. Your writing is just what the world needs more of, so God bless the internet–and your writing future!! So grateful I get to follow your adventures–in spite of that editor's lack of vision!!
Good on you for standing up to them 🙂
Bloody hell – that's all you were getting paid??? Your writing is superb – it was one of my favourite things about the Guardian. It's such a shame they don't value you (or apparently many of their writers). It's made me reevaluate the paper.
But – your books are truly wonderful and I've bought all of those. Now I'll just make sure to buy them as gifts for everyone as well!
I initially discovered your writing when I spotted "Under the Paw" on the shelf in Waterstone's. I now follow you on Facebook and Twitter, and I've bought all of your subsequent cat books. I will continue to read your columns and books. I'm pleased you have been able to stand up for yourself and tell The Guardian to fuck off. Keep up the good work.
Dear Tom
Your blogpost made me sad for the way this newspaper has seemingly held you and your talent so cheap. I think your instincts are true and right- throw off the shackles of the word count and write for all of us who love your books and articles. What an insight into the world of journalism today and the way the editors assume they know what we want to read. Your own books and blog will continue to be a great platform for the 21st Century Yokel and his musings.
Tom, you are a brilliant writer, we love your work. We have two Siamese divas and because we read and enjoy your FB posts so much, we frequently start our own surreal conversations with 'My Cat Is Cross Because…' (Siamese are rarely sad, they're far too self-important for that).
I have shared your work with many people; they all think it's great.
I too still had vaguely idealistic views of The Guardian, but lately I've found the online version to be full of silly articles about such London-centric things that I can't be bothered with it any more.
Please keep writing and posting. I used to love the late Doreen Tovey's books about her cats and her life in Devon(still resent the fact that my mother NEVER let me have a donkey (in London, where thank goodness I have not lived for many years).) Your books are far wittier and funnier, but you both evoke rural life perfectly.
Good luck; you can see from these comments how much you are loved.
Rosemary
I'm very sorry about your experience with the Guardian – their loss. You're an engaging writer, full of warmth, gentleness, and humor. Looking forward to reading your books.
It’s really sad to hear about your experience with the Guardian… it’s their loss totally…It’s good that you have shared with us….
It’s really sad to hear about your experience with the Guardian… it’s their loss totally…It’s good that you have shared with us….
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Tom, I've come to this so late, and thanks to a former Times journalist who I follow on Twitter. You have voiced something about the adversity which hit all freelance writers in 2011/12, about which the newspaper-reading public knows nothing. I had to do the same as you, eventually, for exactly the same reason. Leaving so many loyal and true readers, high and dry, and with massive regret. Also, because of the nature of my column, I lost the opportunity to highlight small, independent accommodation businesses, about whom I cared passionately, and the wonderful stories of their locations. It had been a joy to celebrate so much of Britain in print and I am fortunate to have had a chance to do so but the new world of digital 'puff' is enjoying a brief period of growth. It will be brief and it will not be profitable, for any party.
I attended graduate school based on my interest in a subject and my skill for writing (and lack of other, more obviously monetizable aptitudes), and I discovered to my great mortification that academia, as a field and in practice, is as disinterested in ideas and the artful expression of those ideas as, say, newspapers. There are a lot of individuals who are discerning and for whom quality is the primary thing, but it just doesn't seem to be what sells on an institutional scale. Thankfully there's one exception: the "cat book" publishing industry!