Before you hit the festivities

For all freelancers out there,the Xmas break is the time to get those ideas in to editors

it's a doddle to get your ideas commissioned over the festive season

says James Brown,chief executive of media consultancy Black Ops writting at Media Guardian

In addition to being drunk and impressionable there's a good chance the heads of department will have already gone off on holidays and younger, more open-minded, staff looking to make an impression and recruit a new name might be in charge of commissioning. The start of the year is a great time to come up with some spurious "new trends" idea. If you've walked in off the street and are claiming that urban pole-vaulting is becoming massive and that balaclavas are going to be the look of 2010 then it's more likely to receive a receptive ear at this time of year.

Freelancers asked to pay for being paid promptly

If true,Gawker have discovered that Time have opened up a fantastic new market: charging its freelancers for the privilege of being paid for their work in a timely fashion.

According to the US site

A tipster forwarded us an e-mail that Time Inc. freelancers got this week from JPMorgan, which administers the company's invoicing. Under the cheery subject heading "Time Inc - Accelerate payments at year end!", it outlined the company's PayMeNow program, whereby you can speed up payment of your invoice for a fee, kind of like when you get a payday loan at the check cashing place down on the corner so you can afford to buy lottery tickets for the week.

Launching your own independent journalism site

Mashable's How to launch your own indie journalism site is getting a fair amount of tweeting and sharing since its publication on Thursday.

Maria Schneider left mainstream publishing behind last year to start Editor Unleashed, a site covering writing, publishing and social media and shares some top tips from journalists who have been forced into going along.

This is on getting an audience

for hyper-local journalists, face-to-face community building is also crucial to the mission. “When you’re ready to launch, make contact with community members you trust and respect as well as the local leaders who you’ll be covering to introduce your site,” says Larson. “Community support for your effort is critical, and having the respect and response from your sources will help you lead the pack.”

Branding for journalists

Tips for the new breed of online journalist come from Adam Westbrook who kicks off a series of 6 blog postings by reminding us of Andrew Neil's comments from back in 2006

The journalist of the future…will have more than one employer and become a brand in his own right” he wrote. With full time jobs in well staffed newsrooms becoming more sparse, but opportunities outside traditional/mainstream journalism becoming more plenty, this prediction is coming true. So, what can you do to boost your brand?

So to boost your brand you must

1. try and own your domain name (www.yourname.com or www.yourname.net or www.yourname.co.uk).

2.define your own niche-you need to be able to give someone the elevator pitch about yourself too. A niche will give you a vital advantage over general-news journalists.

3.have a great website and blog

4.have a fresh CV and showreel

5.spread yourself across as many social networks as possible but make sure that the message is consistent

6.promote yourself at networking events, conferences and other shindigs.

I look forward to Adam's next installment