I guess the answer is obvious: if we were in it for the money, most of us would be in a different trade. Still, it is rather worrying when you can earn more delivering newspapers than cranking out the copy that makes them worthwhile reading.
In Norway, the best paid newspaper delivery folks at Aftenposten, earn about £65 – 75K – that's much more than your average journalist in this country. Apparently you have to work hard for that money, but even in a normal full time job you earn about £30 – 35K delivering morning and afternoon editions of the paper– still more than what many a journalist can bring home each year.
The demand for newspaper delivery folks here up north has become such that, not only has the editor-in-chief of Tönsbergs Blad succumbed to delivering the newspaper himself, but Edda Media, Mecom's Norwegian arm, is contemplating offering free company cars and Saturdays off – in addition to setting up its own recruitment firm in Latvia (via Dagens Medier).
When I want to hedge against late and unpredictable payments from media organisations, I normally translate and copy edit manuscripts, but newspaper delivery – perhaps that's something to consider...
hey, is not looking bad! when may i start? i'm not from poland but from romania, any problem :)?
Posted by: iann | October 02, 2007 at 11:35 AM
Nationality doesn't make a difference as far as I know. Jobs for Aftenposten in the Oslo-area would probably be filled, but, according to the article I quote, Mecom's Edda Media is very short of delivery staff in Vestfold, a lovely county on the south coast - and I guess a company car wouldn't hurt:-) ?
Posted by: Kristine | October 02, 2007 at 10:02 PM
On the other hand, writing is indoor work with no heavy lifting. On the other other hand, paper delivery isn't subject to constant rejection by morons.
Posted by: Acad Ronin | October 17, 2007 at 03:08 PM
Ha,ha.. constant rejection by mororons! Who are you pitching? I've luckily never had to face that: my editors may be running around themselves at times, momentarily forgetting which planet they are on, but other than that they've been star quality.
Can't imagine that newspaper delivery would entail too heavy lifting, but in the cities it would mean running up and down endless flights of stairs. However, there's always the option of delivering newspapers to subsidise a flourishing blogging career:-)
Posted by: Kristine | October 18, 2007 at 11:05 AM