Writers, Reviewers & Editors VACANCIES Page 5

Quote: Mick Green @ March 12 2009, 6:59 PM GMT

Has anyone subitted reviews to MF and received any kind of response? There's a small link to them in the new edition of Writers News - I've got 2 reviews ready to go but, having read other forums in addition to this, I'm very dubious now.

What have you got to lose? Are they suddenly asking for £10 in order to read your submission? :)

Reading some other writer's forums, you'd be led to believe they'll strap you to a chair and rub a cheesegrater over your knob!

Fair point though (yours Aaron - not the cheesegrater/knob scenario).

Money wasn't enough to tempt me. £19 for a 500 word review.

RE: MF PUBLISHING LONDON.

Gud evening. I wonder if there is anyone still awake on the subject of MF Publishing London. It is a little late in the year concerning the submission of examples and CVs (CV, what's that again?), indeed, it is an entire year since MF Publishing first issued its recruitment blog. It is amazing what you find when you Goggle a name. (Typo deliberate). Didn't really occur to me to do this with the MF item till just today - which is a little unusual. This forum is the second I've read that relay the presumed must-have paranoia of this publishing outfit, and all such posts, I note, were posted no later than March, 2009. Oh well. Better late than never.

Speaking as one in the 'have submitted to them' camp. Submitted, somewhat hurriedly, last March, after desperately surfing the depths of the sofa for the special offer few quid to pay the brief month's subscription of UK Music Jobs in order to be able to contact bloody MF. Yes, MF were advertising on a music jobs board, too. Assuming I'd hear the result by the fabled May, 2009, website launch date. Not quite. And still waiting. The Wordpress blog - which, agreed, is pretty peculiar - was last updated, June, 2009. I updated my email with MF back in late summer, 2009 and got a brief reply a few days later telling me 'Hi, all updated, thanks', or words to this effect. Nothing since.

So, it looks like this May is the new May date of launch? Although I'm no longer holding my breath, I'm also open to the incredible possibility that MF Publishing might just be a badly misunderstood genuine article and it is all yet to magically unfold itself. £19 for an A4 page isn't brilliant, but - with 2+ pages per day - is still an easy wage for a home/beach/toilet-based job. MF needs 700 writers. If each writer did average at £200-250 per week, that is a grand a month. Just for the freelance writers this company would have to find around a quarter of a million quid every month to suffice, then there's the rest of the show. If this thing is actually a real life reality, actually, really, then whomever is backing it must be backing it well and in it for the latteral long hawl, with much love and positive thought in stock.

I do wish people would finish websites and projects completely before bleeting out the half-baked cake. Sure you need to recruit and prepare, and if you do that, please put some effort into presentation. At least do an impression of someone who is professional, just for the sake of being convincing - which is kind of what you need to fulfil the bold request that you've made. Maybe wait until much later on in the project construction day before creating any kind of staff-gathering press release momentum. Anyway, I'z do ramble.

Now, to the Paul of MF Publishing; I bid you hello and would like to know how things are going and, a bit oddly, perhaps, to what the M and F in the company title stand for, for reasons of curiosity, due to the other MF Publishing Limited existence - maybe a more unique name Christening here would have been appropriate, unless you were first? Also, do you know personally, or impersonally, or have knowledge of UK-US (or US-UK) Reviews, as their pitch and concept of recruitment seem to be a dead ringer to yours? Even down to the mail forwarding address area of London. I believe I have emailed the MF address recently enquiring at what stage is the website at and is everything still going ahead.

Being the Concept Guy in life is a tough mistress. I am one, also, so know how it feels. But a don't plan to recruit alot of real people and offer them money.

Shame that it takes the more publicly-inclined web forum to get certain people to reply, when emailing them directly falls on predictably deaf ears, concerning the same issues. Here's hoping.

Great to generate any replies from anyone on this.

All the best, folks.

J.

(I'll now leave you with the poignant and heart-felt strains of George Orwell quoting himself, and I quote: During times of universal deceipt, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.) Now, sweet dreams, children everywhere.

Did anyone get anything out of this project?

I tend to steer clear of these...

Because they're bullshit - I've written for sites before for free and get nothing out of it, who cares if I wrote some topical shite for a site that get 20 hits a year?

Quote: Paul W @ January 14 2010, 10:11 AM GMT

who cares if I wrote some shite for a site that get 20 hits a year?

That's a line for your writer's CV surely?

And, yep, your reviews are still live on the Slagg Brothers' site, Paul. :O :D

Quote: Paul W @ January 28 2009, 4:23 PM GMT

Regardless of what's been said, this Paul (like many pauls) seems to be a rather enthusiastic chap and I will be submitting some stuff (when I get the time).

More power to you my friend :)

Quote: Paul W @ January 14 2010, 10:11 AM GMT

I tend to steer clear of these...

Because they're bullshit - I've written for sites before for free and get nothing out of it, who cares if I wrote some topical shite for a site that get 20 hits a year?

You did submit something then.... :D

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ January 14 2010, 4:57 PM GMT

You did submit something then.... :D

Not for them but when I started out I was bitten :(