Jo Ind

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the public relations industry and I certainly don’t hate people who work in it. Some of my best friends…..(Jayne Howarth, Ros Dodd etc). Unlike some journalists I actually feel grateful to good PR firms. Let’s be honest, in recent years working on a newspaper would have been far harder without them.

What I hate is doing PR. That’s all.

I feel the need to say this because since I’ve been a self-employed writer, at least once a week I get a call from somone I’ve featured in the Birmingham Post in the past, who wants me to write about them again. They suppose that now I’m freelance I’m only to happy to tout my work round a range of publications and, they imagine, earn a multiple fee from them.

To which I can only say that I would sooner pickle my head. In fact I DID say exactly that to one hopeful – he still didn’t understand I didn’t want the job. (more…)