Re: commercial blogs and other commercial writing

**"* C* <d*@chilitech.net>**

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "MARY FRAN MCQUADE" <mfmcq@sympatico.ca>

> BUT I wonder, if I do writing projects for commercial interests like 
> these,
> would this be seen as a conflict of interest for me as an independent 
> garden
> writer? Would it jeopardize my credibility as a feature writer or 
> columnist,
> say?

Some thirty years ago I was writing a weekly column for a metro daily as a 
sideline. I realized I liked writing better than real work and looked for a 
way to make it pay more than pocket change. I approached Agway, a regional 
farm and garden chain with several hundred stores in the Northeast, with a 
proposition. They buy my column at a comfortable fee and make it available 
for free to newspapers in their retail area. They fell for it. About 150 
papers signed on.

It was a nightmare. It lasted three years, but it was a constant battle. The 
premise was that it was my job to get people more interested in gardening 
and it was their job to get them in the door. I would help to a reasonable 
extent, but was not a shill. I even offered to look over future sale 
schedules to see if there was anything there I could in good conscience 
promote in a timely fashion, but they informed me that information was 
"confidential." What they wanted was the word Agway at least every third 
paragraph -- literally -- even though the tag "gardening tips from Agway" 
appeared at the top. I refused and explained that my advice would carry more 
credibility if it weren't bludgeoned into the readers. To top it off, each 
column was vetted through seven different departments, including the dreaded 
legal department. I am surprised I lived through it.

While those first few years were dreadful, it was a beginning. Agway 
switched to a writer more amenable, which was such blatant advertising that 
most papers wouldn't carry it. In three years I had developed some 
following, including some individual store managers and even editors, so I 
went to the papers and offered to continue providing the column, sans 
sponsor, for a small fee. I lost only about 80 percent of the papers, but 
enough signed on, and signed checks, to make a go of it.

So that's my story. I see nothing inherently wrong with writing for a 
commercial enterprise. But you might want to make sure it is a more 
enlightened one than Agway.

D 

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