I'm a web editor from Singapore living in Tokyo. I'm building websites for a living as a writer on the go. I worked in print media for six years until I moved countries and used the Internet as a way to have a viable, mobile career. The Internet is a fascinating space and I never thought I would ever morph into a web chick - but here I am.
...The ups and downs of expat life, trailing partner issues, food, travel, and Japanese culture. It's a way to keep in touch with friends back home and all over the world, plus it's a corner for me to showcase my work. But really, I'm just a restless spirit looking for great adventures and fabulous food.
Inspired by my recent freelance stint, this blog entry focuses on advice to new journalists who wonder how to do their best in a round table interview. This also touches on issues to do with being a stringer for various magazines, but even if you are writing for just one publication, I think you would find these points relevant.
On rare occasions, I will do freelance writing gigs for the Singapore media. Last year, I interviewed Maroon 5 for two magazines. It was set up by Universal Music and these guys have always been on the ball when it comes to promoting their artistes. I’m glad that I managed to keep in touch with the staff there. The money is frankly not much but it’s something fun to do and I’d like to keep some connections open with work-related peeps back home.
Last weekend saw the MTV Japan Music Awards so a few of their artistes were in town. I was supposed to interview Nelly and Mariah Carey. The kangaroo was quite excited for me, too, “Wow, Mariah Carey?!”
Working by remote takes far more discipline than I expected. My Sydney trip was slightly easier because I worked from the office there.
One glich, though: Our hotel only had one LAN cable outlet so the kangaroo had priority because he had more pressing, time-sensitive matters to deal with.
What did I do? I just hung around and read my book. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work but I needed to be online to get any progress.
Heya, Lioness in Japan has moved to www.luiyuming.com. Yup, I finally got my own domain name. This idea has been incubating for awhile, and with the kangaroo’s help, I was able to update everything in just two days.
This morning in the train, I just thought about how web writing is so different from print journalism.
Let me quickly hash out the contrasts:
Editing. After six years in print, I came to realise what my strengths and weaknesses are and sub-editing or copy-editing (checking the content for errors and inconsistencies, plus sprucing it up to be more attractive and readable) is not one of them.
In my last job, I was an assistant editor so this was an essential part of my work. I remember having sleepless nights over an awkward phrase or a stray comma or a plain headline. Once it’s published, it’s there for posterity and a constant reminder of what went wrong if it did. It’s important and some people make a great living out of it but I don’t want to make it my career.
With the web, if there are any small mistakes, just dive back in, re-jig it, and press submit.
Headlines. In print media, headlines are very subjective. Sure, you should always follow the rule of thumb that it should be relevant to your body text. But the reality is, you are writing for your editors who have a certain style they approve. If you don’t get this, expect endless mocking and correction.
On the Internet, you need to optimize your headers for the search engines. What does this mean? You need to have direct headlines so the search engines can easily pick up on what your content is about. Most blogging platforms will use the words in your header to form the URL and search engines crawl content according to links. In other words, search engines “read” links and what’s in them.
But this brings in the debate of “Will SEO kill creative copy?” Check out The New York Times’ article on this issue. I think this is inevitable as things move so fast on the Internet — what’s this minute’s news is already yesterday’s news, you don’t have time to waffle over that snazzy one-liner. You’ve got to be clever and quick in creating eye-catching headlines in a search-engine friendly way.
News point. But, having said how fast the virtual world works, it’s easy to find news points (the news or trend your article is based on) — you read it in a news wire in the morning, and boom, your article can be out in the afternoon. In magazines, weeklies work at least two weeks ahead, monthlies three months in advance and dailies work on a weekly story roster. An ex-colleague who transitioned from a newspaper to a magazine said she found writing for a monthly rag the most stressful because you have to anticipate trends three months in advance.
Gone are the days of frantically leafing through foreign magazines from the U.S. and Europe (the trends there tend to take a few months to reach Asia) to steal ideas that will impress the editor.
For web writing, you’re writing for Google, a faceless, mysterious entity who is probably more predictable than certain editors (especially those fueled on caffeine and PMS).
For print, you work your ass off for one single paycheck per month but you get lovely rewards like a trip to the Maldives and designer perfume (but you have to write about it).
The perk in web writing? If you play your SEO cards right, your earnings can exponentially increase and the hell you went through would be more than worth it.
I rest my case.
I’m taking a punt and it’s an experiment, really. The past two weeks at work have been great — the learning curve is steep but I’m totally into it.
The reason for this title is, I’m joining my work and my personal life together. I was inspired by what Microsoft did with the making of their Vista software — they put up a blog to chart their software engineers’ progress in producing, tweaking and testing this new software. The public loved it because they could see the faces, the thought process, the challenges, and the emotions that went into making this product. Public relations companies often present corporate giants as faceless, inhuman entities that just pump out stuff for you to buy, but with Web 2.0, it’s all changing.
I’m not selling anything but being a little shameless in self-promotion. If you noticed, I put up a new sidebar section to display the links to the websites I’m working on. This blog has been used to chart my progress in Japan — sort of a travelogue and a space to talk about relocation/expat issues in my adopted country. But a big part of my journey has been about developing my career as a writer and I want to start blogging more about this.
Last year was full of stops and starts but now it’s taking off in a much more serious way. I was trying to continue my work in print journalism but found it too hard and the rewards pittance. The option to work with the kangaroo wasn’t an easy decision but it’s turning out to be just fine. Maybe I’ll even blog about tips on how to work well with your domestic partner. A lot of people ask me, “Don’t you just hate talking about work all the time?” Actually, not really. I like it that we have a common interest. The kangaroo is such a workaholic, he’ll talk about his work 24/7 anyway.
Going back to my experiment: why am I putting up links to my work websites? Social media. As mentioned, public relations and advertising just cannot ignore the possibilities of marketing campaigns on social media networks. A lot of successful webmasters, small business owners and the self-employed infuse their work with their personalities. So here I am, representing myself.
Watch this space, folks.
Yippee — my new name cards!
Finally, after debating whether or not to stick with my present Japanese mobile phone number, I decided to bite the bullet and print these out. I was going to upgrade from my current prepaid number to a regular one, but since we’re not sure of our movements for the next few months, the kangaroo advised it was best to stick with the status quo.
Thanks to ambien, my very talented and efficient art director girlfriend, my name cards look understated and classy. She designed the back of the card with lines of alphabets but they are so faint that they look like arty pin stripes zooming along the black surface. Thanks, babe!
That’s my new name card holder (AUD19). I got this from Sydney in February when I was there for the kangaroo’s kiwi friend’s nuptials. I spotted this pretty holder in a home interiors/accessories antique shop in Mosmon, while shopping with the kangaroo’s mum. She kindly paid for this together with the wedding present. After that I remember we feasted on some yummy sushi, which I insisted was my treat. She’s keen to visit Tokyo but we don’t have a spare room in our palace. We’ll see if we can find a nice hotel for her.
Anyway, I’m glad to have these to give out. People tend not to remember numbers and email addresses scribbled on scraps of paper.
