VIRTUAL SCRIBES

• Manjula Sen had a peculiar problem. Not a very sociable person, she detested working in an ‘office environment’ where people surrounded her all day. So when she discovered the joys of a personal computer Sen made the most of it. She quit her full-time job as a journalist and began writing — this time for magazines on the Internet, from home.
• Subir Ghosh, journalist, too found himself dissatisfied with the way his career was shaping up and found him self floundering for a firm footing in the field. Things changed considerably for him the day he got himself an e mail account at his office, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in Delhi. The contacts that he succeeded in establishing through it, opened up unlimited opportunities to write for e-zines (magazines for which matter is sent through the e-mail) and Webzines (as in magazines on the Net) across the world. Ghosh now enjoys the luxury of working out of home and is busy giving shape to his dream of launching his own Website.
• For Richa Sambhy, a college-student, writing was a passion that had only met with disappointments. The publications that she sent her articles to took months and sometimes even years to reply to her or to publish her works. But the computer that her father brought home one day changed her life completely. Surfing the Internet, she found that it opened up a host of writing options for her Today, she is a busy woman, combining her college studies with writing commissioned pieces for innumerable foreign e-zines and Web zines.
Meet some early birds of the Information Technology revolution ushered in by the Internet. Even as the parameters of communication are being re-defied by the Net, people like Richa, Subir and Manjula are cashing in to make a place for themselves as ‘e lancers’. Which means that instead of newspapers and magazines, this new breed of journalists is writing for a host of electronic and Website magazines and raking in good money in the process. Money that is attractive enough for them to give full-time jobs a bypass.
For them a ‘dot corn’ address is not just a status symbol, but an essential tool to give birth to the SOHO concept - or the Small Office Home Office. Now their office is a compact amalgam of a study table, a computer, a modem and the all-important fax line.
Through countless hours of patient surfing on the Net these e-lancers have hit upon those sites and e-magazines that are looking for writer on a freelance basis. The magazines for their part save on establishment costs and working with e-lancers works out cheaper than hiring full-time employees.
For most of these writers the opportunity has come at the click of a button and they rarely ever meet the people that they write for. The entire process — the commissioning of articles, their submission and payment (by cheque) after an invoice form has been filled on the Website — is done on the Net.
Take Marijula Sen, for instance. She had worked as a journalist with Business Standard and The Times of India for some years, writing on such diverse topics as personal finance, media and lifestyle. However, she found working in an office situation too taxing.
So she bought a personal commuter and spared the word that she wanted to write on a freelance basis. Assignments came her way through her contacts and Sen got busy writing for a host of sites devoted to business, finance, films and lifestyle. “Most of the sites offered a certain sum for a fixed number of articles that they wanted. And I wrote for these sites, putting all trust in such interactions through the Web,” she says.
Writing for the Net, she feels, gives one more freedom. “Even if you are not an expert in a field, you can write about it. It’s like a physics student interested in literature, being able to Write on it,” Sen explains.
Not keen to disclose the names of the establishments she writes for, Sen says that foreign Websites are more Professional and better paymasters, most in terms of money earned and how promptly payments come. Sen had enrolled with a major Indian portal as a writer, but quit after six months, “as they were very bad pay masters.
Sen points out that while Indian Websites barely pay a rupee a word, foreign sites on the other hand are more generous and can pay anything from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 for a piece. Not just that, they are also very prompt in payments. “The cheque reaches you just a couple of days after your write up appears on the Net,” Sen adds.
Sen now plans to launch her own editorial site called Indiawrite.com, which she wants to peg as a feature service. “It would be a site that pro vides features and articles to Webzines.”
“In the print media, I could never have imagined setting up my own magazine or feature service, given the over heads, the establishment and manpower costs. But on the Net, all you need is a creative mind and, of course, a computer,” she adds.
For Subir Ghosh, a journalist with a Calcutta daily and then with the CSE, the e-mail account that his office gave him opened up new frontiers. It helped him reach across to sites he could I write for. His addiction of surfing the Net brought him to a site, Inkspot.com, a bi-monthly e-zine that was looking for writers. Subir wrote for them and his article was accepted.
Encouraged, he began surfing for more such sites. Though not all offered payment for stories submitted, Ghosh was more interested in the exposure that he got. “I began writing a column on trade events under a pseudonym for a Calcutta-based Web fortnightly, Cirrusweb.com. And it suited both of us — the site got a columnist and I got the exposure, so money was not important.”
Over time, he too came upon sites, mainly foreign ones, that wanted information on India. “And there are a whole lot of them that require well-researched pieces and not just material flicked from here and there,” Ghosh explains.
The subjects that he wrote on varied from the floods in Bihar to business events to gemology and environment. He also wrote for a content provider site, America On-line (AOL) and pro vided updates on political developments in India. The money, he says, was good and came on time.
Equipped with the necessary exposure, he decided to set up his own sites. One of them, northeastvigil.com provides updates on the happenings in the North-east and is currently being re-vamped. His other site, jaalmag.com is devoted to book reviews.
Ghosh, however, feels that Web journalism is still in its nascent stage. “Even the government is not yet ready to acknowledge or recognise those who write for the Web as journalists,” he laments.
Ghosh was recently refused a press card by the government on the grounds that it does not ‘recognise’ Web writers.
With Osama Manza a former print media journalist, it has been much the same story He got his initial grounding by working for a fortnightly computer magazine, IS Computerworld. He then got together with friends to launch a Web designing company, 4Cplus.com.
And today, alongside managing his own company, Manzar is also busy writing for a host of magazines on the Net. As Manzar puts it, the Internet helped him realise his dream of writing for foreign publications.
“When I was with the print media, I had no idea where to access these publications and how to approach them. But the Internet made it all too simple and easy. All I had to do was to explore the sites. And eventually my patience and perseverance paid off,” he says.
Manzai now covers information strategy activities in India for a Singapore-based monthly called MIS Asia.
The job entails a monthly feed of views briefs and case studies. Manzar is also the con tributing writer for The Industry Standard (www.thestandard.net), a weekly news magazine about the Internet economy and is the con tributing writer for an Internet- based German news agency.
“Money-wise, writing for them is very rewarding, no doubt. But what is more, one is able to access these people and magazines with just a few clicks on the computer,” Manzar says.
Kajal Basu, a seasoned print media journalist, agrees. He feels that the Net is godsend for this incapable pf adjusting -even- where it is sensibly demanded - to authority. “Which is why, after chucking up so many jobs, I got marked in the journalistic community as a serial malcontent. I just closed my eyes and walked into the Web,” he says.
And sometimes, he feels, it pays to be among the first of the ‘foolhardy’. “When I hit upon the Net, it was barely two years old in India. Cyberspace for me become the ultimate escape route. Theoretically, at least, I can work in the thick of the Net and yet live where I wish to — on the edge of a mountain in a cave with stalactites and an iMac for company — and still be more aware about the world than your average resident editor,” he says. Today, Basu holes himself up in his SOHO domestic workstation and trots through the globe.
Of course, like all freelance writing, writing for magazines on the Net, too, has its down side. Adds Basu, “Occasionally, you may have to surf for a few months, riffling through magazines on the Web that will take articles sourced from India.”
A daily Net column - India 2.0 in The Hindustan Times on line — and weekly contributions in the print daily and 4Cplus.com add to his income. According to him, the difference between the print media and the Net lies contrarily in their similarity: print journalists down load information - copy or visual - from the Web to the printed page. As an e-lancer, he just transfers digital information from the source to the repository. That it might also appear in print is an entirely unintended bonus.
For Richa Sambhy, a second year sociology student, the computer her father had got for his office work gave her an opportunity to surf the Net. Once familiar with the medium, she began logging on to various search engines (search sites on the Internet) such as Yahoo and Excite. From here it was on to a host of sites such as ‘Freelancers Update,’ and ‘Writers Weekly’ that gave her information on sites that one could write for.
Armed with such information, Richa started writing art! des, features, essays, short stories and even poems for various sites.
“I wrote my first article some two years ago on Punjabi marriages for a US-based site that wanted information on Indian culture.” This was followed by articles on women-related issues for another site, womensinternational.net. “I wrote a piece on karva chauth and questioned why women should fast when their men were feasting?” she says.
Richa, who has written for magazines such as Woman’s Era - compares the experience writing for Indian publications, “At times, it takes months and even a year before the publications that you have sent your articles to, revert to you with a reply On the Net, on the other hand, the reply comes to you within a day while the money, too, is better.” She manages to make about Rs 11,000 to Rs 12,0Q0 just three to four articles,
But what she finds more satisfying is the gamut of subjects that she can now write on.
“Most Indian publications want only a limited range of articles. But on the Net I was able to come across sites that accepted short, romance stories, poetry and even recipes,” she says. So, the Internet has offered her many more opportunities than she would perhaps have got when writing for the print media.
But that may be true not just of Richa, but many of her ilk who have made e-zines and Webzines, a money-making enterprise.