Financial crisis
Ok – things not going too well financially this year so far. Two of the magazines I write for have gone through complete re-designs. This has lead to in one case nobody knowing if the magazine is to survive and in the other the reviews section (a major part of my work) being replaced.

Another magazine (Imagine FX) has decided to take its reviews section in-house. Added to this, George’s arrival has meant I have had to take lots of time off. Now, the poster I’ve been doing of the human body has been abandoned.


So – needing to get some work in I’ve spent today phoning round and finding out what’s going on with all the magazines, invoicing for the work I’ve already done and not yet got paid for and trying to come up with ideas for features and articles to try to get things going again.

It’s not easy since the re-designs of the magazines mean that nobody – even the editors – are entirely sure what kind of articles they want right now.

Still, I’ve made a good stab at it and I’ll have to see what the response is over the next few days.

I’m not as concerned this evening as I was this morning, but I’m a bit worried that I need to start doing more commissioned work in order to pay for the documentary projects I’m working on (the first one looks like it’s heading for completion – which means I’ll have to find 1500 for dubbing and narration…. Then there’s the rest of the documentaries I’ve got planned for this year which I don’t even want to think about.

It’ll be a while before any money starts to appear from any of this work – typically 3 months between having an idea and getting paid after it’s published… still, if I can get through to next month, the regular cheque from my royalties on science photo library should come in (I hope it’s a good one) and that should keep me going for a bit.

It’s not all bad though….
One of the manufacturers of domestic digital video stuff has come to me asking if I can write them a regular newsletter – this will bring in 500 a month and unlike most of my work, I’ll actually have the people making the products actively involved without having to pester them.

In addition, I’ve now got somebody renting my property in Manchester, so that’s another £400 per month coming in.