About WGP
Writers Getting Paid is a site all about the tips, tricks, secrets, and strengths of writers who've figured out how to make a living doing what they love. I interview my friends and colleagues who get paid to write; and I share all of their insights here with you. [More...]
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I'm a writer and photographer based in San Francisco. Check out my work at MattBaume.com.
Latest Headlines
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NewsTilt: A Brand New Market for Journalism
Posted on April 7, 2010 | View CommentsTHE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM!!! Reporters will work for themselves! In a crowded market, niche-journalists will thrive! Publications will get out of the content-generation game, and will instead bid on each story in a sort of daily news-auction! Is NewsTilt on to something? Maybe. Who knows?... -
The Future of Comic Books, Publishers, and the iPad: Interview with Justin Hall, Part 3 of 3
Posted on April 2, 2010 | View CommentsIn Part 1, we chatted about writing a book; in Part 2, we talked about selling your comic book; and here in Part 3, award-winning comic book author Justin Hall talks about the changes faced by the publishing industry in the Internet age, as well... -
How to Sell Your Comic Book: An Interview with Justin Hall, Part 2 of 3
Posted on March 31, 2010 | View CommentsThis is part 2 of my interview with Justin Hall, the fantastic author and illustrator of “True Travel Tales,” “Glamazonia,” and “Hard to Swallow” among other titles. Last time, we talked about his background, and how his world travels shaped his work. In this installment,... -
How to Write Comics from the Mekong River to San Francisco: Interview with Justin Hall, Part 1 of 3
Posted on March 29, 2010 | View CommentsNot so long ago, Justin Hall was living on the Mekong River near the Cambodian/Laotian border with just a bristol board and pencils in his backpack. These days, he’s a successful comic book writer and illustrator in San Francisco; but when we chatted last week... -
New Book-Trailer for Prequel (!?!?!) to “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”
Posted on March 26, 2010 | View CommentsWatch this crazy thing: Entertaining, right? And not only does it create viralility for the book, it also makes it a lot easier to imagine a movie option. I bet this would be a lot harder to do if your book was about, say, the... -
How TJ DeGroat Escaped the Blog-Post Ghetto for Social News Networking
Posted on March 25, 2010 | View Comments“I would have stayed in journalism, but I just didn’t find it a good job.” My friend TJ DeGroat is explaining how he went from writing for the Christian Science Monitor to managing online community for a social news website. Not too long ago, he... -
The New Yorker’s John McPhee: Reporting Must Lead to Books
Posted on March 24, 2010 | View CommentsThis is required listening: narrative non-fiction author John McPhee, one of those amazing old-timer-reporters (he started at the New Yorker in 1963) discusses his writing process in a recent podcast. The whole interview is a delight — he talks about, among other things, when he... -
Lit Agent Ted Weinstein: Successful Authors do More Than Just Write
Posted on March 23, 2010 | View CommentsTed Weinstein has some scary things to say about writing. “There’s less pay,” he warned me when I reached him by phone last week to talk about making a living as a writer. “People’s attention is divided. And per-column inches, the revenues are dropping.” The... -
Don’t Fall For Free: Harlan Ellison and How Unpaid Amateurs Mess Things Up
Posted on March 22, 2010 | View CommentsJust a quick post about delightful curmudgeon Harlan Ellison. This video, in which he tears someone’s request for a free interview to shreds, is required viewing: “I don’t take a piss without getting paid for it.” Oh, that Harlan. He seems fun. I kind of... -
How Blogs Forced a Rethinking of the News Industry — and its (temporary) Death
Posted on March 19, 2010 | View CommentsSome great comments appeared on my post about the changing nature of the news industry. JC Hewitt pointed out that a radical rethinking is called for, and I absolutely agree — provided that there’s still an industry left to rethink. JC suggested, “look at the...