Rock's Backpages: Writers Blogs

Tough Times for Freelancers?

March 7, 2009 @ 6:41 pm

As a very old hack who always resisted self-employment but often envied those more talented writers than I getting their by-lines in esteemed publications, I hear times are currently pretty tough for you…lower rates, some publications even looking for copy for free. Me? After six years as a journalist I switched to Press & PR and the relative comfort of an EMI pension scheme.

However, there is one music journalist asset that’s still holding up against the credit crunch – your collections of records, books, magazines, ephemera etc. Having been bullied by my wife in the mid 70′s to sell the batch of singles kept in a tea chest in the garage – memories of the days when I was privileged to follow the late and much missed Penny Valentine as singles reviewer on the also missed (by me at any rate) Disc & Music Echo. That innocent pastime has led to a 33-year hobby of auctioning such items on behalf of a now huge number of ex-collectors, ex-journalists or just people who have stuff they don’t want any more.

One truism is – the rare records get rarer but the junk remains worthless. If I can help you then just check out the web site, collectorsvinyl.co.uk or contact me at collectorsvinyl@aol.com.

Plug over!

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Comments (2)

2 Comments »

Thanks for the offer, David. I can objectively see the sense in getting rid of the junk, but when it comes to it, I’m attached to my junk; it’s part of my history. I sold a few of my early new wave records in the old Record and Tape Exchange in Camden Town in the early ’80s, and now, despite a flat full of hoarded stuff, I kinda wish I’d held onto them.

I still love the nostalgia that surrounds looking at garish coloured vinyl records – it brings back that teenage rush of being one of the relative few to have discovered a band before they hit the big time.

I know I’m just being stubborn. I can barely even access my piles of records and cassettes as the creeping accumulation of more junk has wedged them against the wall, and if I attempt to flick through them, all hell (and 20 years of dust, and several precariously balanced paintings) will break loose.

Call me an impractical old git. But I’m a contended impractical old git

Comment by Leyla Sanai — March 7, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
Leyla: I totally agree with you. The first thing I always says to folk thinking of clearing their dusty corners is – do you really want to be rid of all this stuff…..it will a lot more expensive to get any of it back again (especially if you took R&T Exchange prices!!) On the other hand, as we all get unstoppably older, we should also ask the question – what will our dependents do with all this stuff once we’re gone. If the answer is – junk it at the tip, then there may a case for enjoying its profits now, especially if, like so many freelancers I’ve come across, there is no lucrative pension scheme awaiting when the work runs out.

All that said, your ‘contended’ presumably should have been contented, and if you’re contented, do nothing to alter that blissful state!

Comment by David Hughes — March 11, 2009 @ 7:02 am