Money question

Is working in a big city the only way to make any good money in this business or can there be good money made in a smaller market?

 

I'm tired of this dirty old city.
Entirely too much work and never enough play.
And I'm tired of these dirty old sidewalks.
Think I'll walk off my steady job today.

Turn me loose, set me free, somewhere in the middle of Montanna.
And gimme all I got comin' to me,
And keep your retirement and your so called social security.
Big City turn me loose and set me free.

 

It's all relative. If you make 100K in New York, that might be the same as making 50K in Birmingham because the cost of living is so different.

 

I'm in a small town, but making decent coin. But I am left with the feeling if had I stayed at the major metro, I'd be doing a lot better.

 

I'm in a small market, too. OK, a really small market. Presumably smaller than the one even Riddick is in because no one would come here, a weekly in a small town in the upper Midwest from a major metro.

I'm making $30K doing only sports and doing it the way I feel it needs to be done - features, notebooks, a column when I have time. Even when I screw up I don't hear from the publisher. On the down side, it has priced me out of other markets. I've had interest from some bigger papers, including the region's daily, but I would have to take a substantial paycut. With a wife, who is in school, and kids, that's just not possible.

 

What's money?

I don't think unless you get to a big paper or freelance like a madman, you can make real good money in a smaller market, unless it's a union paper.

I don;t consider $30K real good money.

 

I don't think $30K is real good money either, but it has been my experience that when most writers think about small shops they think of the low 20s. That's not always the case. $30K also goes a lot farther here because it's dirt cheap to live. Even so, I agree that it's not real good money.

 

Someone on here once posted that you're doing well if you're making about 10k more than your age. But that also depends on where you live.

 

Suddenly, $30K seems even worse.

 

[blue]There is no such thing as good money in journalism![/blue]

 

Moving is the best way to make money. Not a lot of newspapers are going to give you random pay raises. If you want to make more money and you're good at what you do, find another job that pays more. Then, find another job that pays more. I had an ME tell me once after somebody asked for a pay raise, "I hired them at X dollars and I expect them to make X dollars. If they leave to take more money, I'll just hire somebody to work for X dollars." Everybody has a replacement. A cheaper person can always be found. Going to a bigger paper helps, but there are also smaller papers or towns that may give you more (both financially and socially). I'll always remember when I worked at a 45K daily making $22.5K a year as the chief sports copy editor and interim sports editor. I applied at an 8K daily and thought there was no way they'd offer me a lot more money. They offered me $5K more on the spot. Was it a whole lot of money? No. But $27K in that town was like making $45K. It sure beat my first job, a 16K daily, where I made $21K in a town that made it seem like $15K.

 

SEC is right, the cost of living really changes what you make. A paycut in the right location could actually mean less financial pressure to deal with.