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Motorsport Illustrated News

Freddie's Girl

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This is a new publication, online and in print.

The publisher, Rick Bradham, makes a lot of promises that he doesn't deliver on. To date, I believe I am the only writer to be paid --- and that was a royal battle!

Here's his MO: Tells writers it's a start-up and funds are short. (Technically, it is a start-up, but it's more of a change of name from his former publication, Speed Weekly. And he had a nice chunk of money from Kickstarter.) Dickers everyone down on their pay rate "for now." I foolishly agreed to a lower pay rate (with the promise of it going up as sales took off) as part of a package deal for editing. However, after editing his marketing materials (for which he never paid me), he never used me to edit again. Thus, he got my writing for a discount and I lost out on the extra income.

Having spoken to several other writers, none of whom have been paid, it appears that he simply moves on once a writer begins pressing him for money. He ducks the issue, changes the subject and says things like "But the font of the byline is so big!" and then cries about the costs of publishing.

He has also tried to rope all the writers into selling subscriptions and marketing his magazine through their personal social media accounts.

Bottom line: he expects everyone to work for free. He used to phone me several times a week for advice, ideas, suggestions and most of all, reassurance that he was putting out a good magazine and doing all the right things. When I gave honest feedback that wasn't what he wanted to hear, he ignored it ... and eventually stopped calling when he wasn't getting what he wanted.

Unless you want to write for free, this is one to avoid.
 

CaoPaux

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Ceased publication after June '14. Website was: motorsportin.com