Great blog – and this is coming from someone who has had to cut a client out of the loop for the very reasons you cite (and another even more important reason: actually getting paid at all).

I’m pretty sure that the ‘certain Irish newspaper’ you refer to is the one I have in mind when I say that some formerly reliable outlets have basically stopped paying – and that it is time freelancers named and shamed it (OK I’m not doing so here but I will elsewhere).

I have written c. 15 features for this Irish national daily over the past 18 months and, to date, have only been paid for six of them. One of the out standing invoices dates all the way back to Jan 2009.

I’ve found that editors in this paper were once sympathetic to this issue but, for obvious reasons, now ignore invoice-related emails (but still commissioned my pitches).

Obviously I’ve stopped writing for this paper but getting money I’m owed is proving nigh-on impossible. This is an awful way to treat freelance staff, it would be great if, as a group, freelancers could agree not to work for non-paying clients (I know from an insider that I’m not the only freelancer not getting paid in full).

I have in the past written off a publication because they do not pay well enough to make writing for them a profitable enterprise. Though it’s been a while since I’ve done that, largely because I’m now writing for the same circle of publications (though it’s a bigger one than it would have been in the past).

As for new areas of work, I’m completely feeling the same on that. In the last year or so I’ve found myself squarely in ‘tech’, which I’m happy with. But I would like to write in other areas too; for example I’ve let my media writing go out the window.

I’d love to do some more general features too but truth be told the ideas just aren’t coming to me.

The fact that I’m kept busying doing what I’m known for means that’s not a big deal, so it’s kind of a cycle.

What I have done is not bother pitching some contacts any more because I know that even if they do say yes, the amount they pay will be so small its not worth my time – indeed I’d end up making a loss to do the piece.

My main problem at the moment is generating new areas of work. I tend to get pigeon holed, and that in turns limits what I’m known for. Working on it.

It was a fairly straight-forward process, to be honest, complicated only by myself.

I’d be happy to blog soon if that’s what you mean.