Negotiating your Salary

[c hristian]

Maybe the only book you'll ever need for this life-defining moment:

- Jack Chapman, "Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1,000 a Minute"

[joel]

Alternatively this

[Gordon Moore]

Ah yes, excellent. (the link to Down and Out that is) I learnt how to sleep rough when I ran out of money in Greece and had to hitchhike my way home back to the UK.

Most important lesson is when finding somewhere to sleep is to make sure that what appears to be a roof is actually a roof and when it thunders double check that it is still a roof or you'll end up sleeping in the toilet cubicle of a French service station trying to dry off - that has to be the lowest point of my life!

Second lesson to learn is that generally although you are scared of other people seeing you and that they will want to murder you and steal all that you have (probably not a worry if they do murder you though), actuallly they are more scared of you.

And I must tell you about the time when I had to sleep rough on an Israeli beach near Tel Aviv. (This was when my money was running low). I had parked myself under a sun stand about 100 yards from the promenade. It seemed ideal until at dusk thousands of rats came scurrying out to scavenge around the beach (the beach further up was basically a rubbish tip. Funnily enough they didn't come too close to me, in fact they just seemed to ignore me. Then at about 1am a huge group of lads turned up on the promenade. How they couldn't see me and my bike I don't know. But the scariest was when I suddenly knew that someone was near me and woke up with a start to find a figure hunched over me. He just went shhhh. It tuned out that he was warning me that I would probably be seen from any passing Israeli Defence Force patrol boats off shore and mistaken for a terrorist. he suggested I move closer to the beach rocks where I wouldn't be so easily spotted.


Also: Laurie Lee - As I walked out one midummer morning.

[Charlie]

I realised from early on that if I was to try to make a living by doing what I liked, I would have to accept low pay. And so it turned out, apart from an eleven-year run on London's leading commercial station, Capital Radio, where I was paid a living wage for doing one two-hour show a week.

As time went by, I would occasionally get calls from TV programme researchers asking if I would talk about this or that. As they never mentioned a fee, it was always down to me to raise the subject. And I never ceased to be shocked at their offers of £50 or £100. For this, I was expected to go to the BBC TV studios, giving up half a day. I would negotiate a slightly larger fee, but only agreeing to take part if they brought their camera crew to my basement (using my electricity for the lights, for which I eventually realised I could charge a bit more).

When Ray Charles died, I was invited to take part in a tribute programme. This time they were insistent that it had to be done in the BBC's studio at Maida Vale, and offered £100. I said that I would have expected £500 but as that was clearly more than they could consider, £300 was the least I could accept. The director called back to report in triumph that he had managed to persuade his bosses that I could be paid £200. I told him that he had not understood. They should ask somebody else; £300 was my bottom figure. He called back to say OK, and after I had done my bit said how happy he was.

A few days later somebody called from BBC 4 to ask if would agree to come to the studio and be a sort of reporter as the Ray Charles funeral cortege drove through Los Angeles. I suppose they thought I might recognise a few of the people in the crowd. When I asked about the fee, they offered £50. This time I didn't negotiate, just told them I thought it was very insulting to think I would go all that way for so little. They said they could send a car to pick me up and take me back. Different budget, I suppose. I didn't argue, just didn't do that one.

A week or so later, somebody new called, having been recommended by the director of the Ray Charles tribute programme. Would I talk about Bill Haley and Buddy Holly in a programme they were doing about Rock 'n' Roll Legends? We went through the same negotiation dance again, starting with £100 for me to come to their studio and winding up with them coming to my basement for £250, including what they call a facility fee for using my electricity.

When I grumbled to somebody quite high up in the BBC about the low fees, she said that in the US most people do TV and radio interviews for no fee at all, taking the line that the exposure is good for them professionally.

The trouble for me is, there is no upside to the exposure. It's not as if radio is suddenly going to agree to pay me more, just because I've been on TV. Far from it, radio continues to pay its self-directing presenters (ie those of us who choose our own music) about the same hourly rate as they pay their security staff.

[Gordon Moore]

That's disgraceful pay. I thought you were rich! (hehe)

Do you need a handout or a sub?

[c hristian]

Charlie, are you past this emotionally? B/c lord knows, I couldn't be, if it were me with all those experiences, writing those paragraphs.

I feel for you, probably even projecting a bit. b/c I wish to be nobody's fool.

But if you follow the book, it may still help you. It is almost guarranteed to help anyone who is negotiating their salary.

[Jonathan E.]

Those aren't salaries Charlie's negotiating for. They're appearance or performance fees — different kettle of fishy money. But it was a bloody good grumble.

And, Gordon, with those experiences why are you worried about your job? You're a survivor! Write a book or something about your travels.

[Charlie]

Do you need a handout or a sub?

I did worry if it might look like I was feeling a bit sorry for myself.

It's not really that, so much as resenting the presumption on the broadcasters' part that the proposed 'talking head' is making a living some other way.

If you are a full-time free-lance journalist-cum-broadcaster, it is getting harder and harder to make that living, as several contributors to this forum could confirm.

I'm lucky, having been involved in running a record label and music publishing company that has helped to pay the bills.

But it doesn't seem right that the broadcasters should depend on their guests being independently self-sufficient.

I did try to deal with the problem by asking an agent to do my negotiating for me. But the work was so rare and the fees so low even after he had raised them a bit, he was embarrassed to ask me for his share of the take. Which inhibited me from asking him to represent me the next time. So I'm back to doing it myself...

[Jonathan E.]

It's not really that, so much as resenting the presumption on the broadcasters' part that the proposed 'talking head' is making a living some other way.

Well, so many of them are. I used to work with someone frequently employed (or not) as a talking head. Mostly he wrote books about the impact of technology, blah, blah, blah — and he'd just always ask first thing, "What's your budget?" If it was a talking-head gig, it was likely to be nothing as this was in the US, but for conferences and such the fees were enormous. He could ask for those fees because of all the times he'd been seen on television as "the expert." Of course, this was in Silicon Valley in the 1990s and the field was the effects of technology, not world music in the UK in 2008. Perhaps it's time to unionize talking heads.