Uncompromising positions

The job Magazine writer

The status: According to the Magazine Publishers of America, the magazine is the only nondigital form of media to increase its advertising share since this time last year. You also happen to live in the home base of 350 glossies, all in desperate need of your Shakespearean knack for prose and Woodsteinian tenacity. One problem: The business isn’t where the growth is. “The magazine industry is challenged, just as the newspaper industry is, because of the shift into digital media,” says Laurel Touby, founder and senior VP of mediabistro.com, a community and job site for media hounds just like you. “The advertising dollars that have traditionally paid salaries for magazines are increasingly going to websites. A magazine needs to have a presence on the Web.” (For more info, go to timeoutnewyork.com, wink, wink.)

The game plan: As the industry goes, so shall you. “You should reorient your résumé to the Web,” says Touby. “Magazines are more likely to hire a young, inexperienced person to work on their website. Learn Photoshop, InDesign, basic HTML—they’re not hard. Just teach yourself this stuff and put it on your résumé. You’ll rise above.”

Even with those skills, though, differentiating yourself can be a challenge. “Work a second job waitressing while you do a free internship,” Touby says, adding that it’s the quickest way to generate a published article. In exchange for free labor, you gain valuable experience and meet the right people, even if you aren’t David Remnick’s third cousin.

The hookup: Fortunately, we know some people in the magazine business. Time Out New York editor-in-chief Brian Farnham would love to meet an aspiring writer or editor who has “a feverish fixation on New York; a distinctive style of writing; a tendency to spit out great ideas with Tourrettic regularity. And a ‘please give me more to do’ attitude.” In other words, a slave—his own, personal slave. To send your résumé and clips, go to timeoutnewyork.com/jobhookup.—Molly B. Eichel