Money question

[budcrew08]

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?

 

[Ace]

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.

 

[John]

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.

 

[Riddick]

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.

 

[NX]

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.

 

[Bob Slydell]

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.

 

[NX]

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.

 

[Riddick]

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.

 

[NX]

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.

 

[chazp]

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

 

[SCEditor]

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.

 

[chazp]

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.

 

[RedSmithClone]

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?

You can make decent coin in management in small town.

 

[Riddick]

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.

Amen to that. A friend of mine, we're in the same market, doing very similar jobs. Both in management.
She's been at her paper for several years, I just made the leap to this one, third gig in, wow, three or four years.
One day she asked how much I was making, and she about **** when I told her.
Loyalty isn't worth **** in this business. You want to make decent money, then go someplace where they'll give it to you. Or else they'll **** on you, give you as little as possible with your 3 percent raise for as long as they can.

 

[Willie-Butch]

If making 10K more than your age is considered successful, I'm good to go. And all this time, I thought this place sucked.

 

[Walter Burns]

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?

You can make decent coin in management in small town.

I used to think that...I got a sports editor gig a 13K paper. Waay better money than I was making in the big, bad city working for a ****ty paper.
But with the hours I'm putting in due to understaffing and general cluster****ness, I might as well be making convict wages.
Of course, that might just be a sad consequence of working for a Gannett paper.

 

[aeroking]

The biggest raise you'll ever get is the one before you start. Look at it this way - you're offered a job for 30K. 90 percent of the time they're lowballing you and will have some flexibility. You counter with 33K. That's a 10 percent raise before you walk in the door. In this day and age of 3 and 4 percent raises, it'll take you 2 years of standard raises, and then some before reaching that same 33K. If there's one bit of advice I'll offer, it can't hurt to ask for a bit more than they offer. Bosses get emotionally attached to the people they want, and typically won't let 2 or 3K get in the way. And there's really no downside for asking for a bit more, so long as you're not an asshole about it.
The flip side of that, as it was stated earlier, is that a lot of places will budget for a given salary and really need to be sold on giving someone more than a 4-5 percent raise. So, sorry to say, moving is the only time you have a legit shot at making your own deal.
As for not being able to make big money in this job, that depends. If you're talking 200K, it's highly unlikely without moving to the biz side. But no reason someone who is ambitious and gets into the areas of scarcity (design, copy desk, web) can't be making 55K in a decent market within 10 years in the business. I've seen too many people do to think it's impossible. From 55K at 30 years old, you're on a pretty good path. Never gonna get rich, but combine that with a wife who has a decent job and that's a solid living in most cities/town across the country.

 

[HejiraHenry]

The biggest raise you'll ever get is the one before you start.

That's one of the smarter things I have read here lately. The logic is spot-on, too.

 

[jfs1000]

I make 29 1/2 at a medium sized paper in New England. I think I qualify for food stamps.

 

[Cansportschick]

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?

In Canada, that's how it works. You have to be really lucky to make money in the small markets, especially if there are no professional sports teams in the smaller markets.