It all started when the entertainment newspaper supplements started selling editorial space to big production houses to help them promote films.

What started as a much-criticised move by one newspaper about 20 years back, has now become a standard practice for all newspapers supplements today. As things stand now, there’s hardly any content on newspaper supplements which is worth reading.

Even in the online space, most websites that cover the entertainment space is filled with gossip, promotional and complimentary pieces aimed at growing business, getting friendly with cine stars and bringing in more revenue from the production houses either through sold content or through barter.

This has resulted in most experienced writers getting phased out (I am one of them) because the kind of content ‘we’ produce doesn’t seem to have a ‘market’. At least this is what the media houses would like us to believe.

The reality is different.

The newspapers and gossip websites don’t have the guts or the inclination to carry the pieces that journalists of our generation follow and produce. 

We all lost out on our jobs and were virtually forced out of reckoning in an entertainment space which now relies heavily on content churned out by young ‘journalists’ who scourge social media for news rather than take a step out of their office.

This is the sole reason, Bollywood Journalist came into being — to give space to well-researched and serious content based on Indian Cinema.

However much has changed since then. The journalists who were termed ‘outdated’ over the period of the last two decades, are now the most sought-after breed. It is because the internet is hungry for what they call ‘unique’ and long-form content. The rapid changes in content consumption pattern and SEO has resulted in long-form journalism and opinion pieces come back with a vengeance which is a quality that you only acquire with years of experience and not overnight.

Today the internet is filled up with content pieces that is produced simply by embedding social media posts of celebrities or the same ‘journalists’ typing out their opinions by looking at ‘something exciting’ on the internet.

Has the demand for traditional content died down? Actually, it is just the opposite.

The demand for traditional content is at an all-time high today.

As the online content — mostly produced by Millenial Desktop Journalists (MDJ) — has become repetitive and boring, more and more media houses are intensely scouting for experienced writers to write for them. 

Well-researched blogs, write-ups, interviews and good opinions are hard to come by, hence media houses are buying these content at a premium.

There are some media houses which are paying as high as Rs 10 – Rs 20 per word for an article. This is quite a jump when you consider that the same media houses paid only Re 1 per word about a decade back.

The demand for well-researched and exclusive content are at an all-time high, all thanks to the new breed of millennial journalists who think that news flows in only from PRs and social media updates of stars.

The demand for a good interview is at an all-time high because newbie journalists are more busy clicking selfies at an interview and too eager to please a star with complimentary questions during an interview.

Things have come to such a point that the one-on-one interviews have become a huge promotional exercise for production houses because the journalists are too grateful to see a star sitting in front of them.

This has opened up a new demand-supply curve for experienced journalists, bloggers and expert writers as suddenly they are in demand all over again.

Remember, all leading websites care for page-views. Thanks to the new breed of MDJs, their articles and blogs aren’t bringing in the page-views because the content is becoming repetitive and more importantly, nothing is going viral.

Dear experienced Bollywood Journalists. This is the time to get back in business.

What are you waiting for? Send the links of your published (only online) writing samples to Editor@BollywoodJournalist.com and we will get back to you. 

How we are going to work together

Bollywood Journalist is a common platform for writers/bloggers/journalists who specialise in writing on Indian cinema (including Bollywood). If you contribute for us, we will ensure that all your needs are taken care of.

This is how we work.

1. You got a news or an idea for a blog? We will sell it for you:
We know how difficult it is to sell your blog/news idea/interview to editors, some of whom don’t even have five years of experience of writing on Indian Cinema. Just mail the idea to us and we will negotiate with the editors for your story. Once the idea is approved by a news website (who are our clients), we will come back to you and ask you to file the copy.

2. We will edit and package your copy:
You don’t need to worry about the packaging or editing. We will edit it and send the final copy to you for approval. Once you approve of it, the copy will be sent to the news website for publication. We will ensure that all your conditions (regarding headline, editing, word-count etc) are met by the website. This is our responsibility.

3. No running around for payments:
The worst part of being a freelancer is pending payments and the constant follow ups (for payments). We will give you an immediate upfront payment from Bollywood Journalist for your article. We will collect the payment from the media house later. There are many media houses who don’t pay in the end. That risk is ours too. If a media house ultimately doesn’t pay for an article, we will inform you about it but you don’t need to give any money back to us. So, come what may, you will always get paid for your article and within 10 working days of the article going online.

(We usually charge between 10% to 20% per article depending on the amount of effort that goes into your article. The same will be told to you in advance before you send the article to us)

4. We will keep a small fee:
We will only keep a small fee for editing, packaging and negotiating on your behalf. The fee will be standard and will such that both you and us are comfortable with. That fee structure will never change unless we both approve of it. We will not do anything that makes you uncomfortable as a content producer. 

5. We only work with experienced bloggers/journalists/writers:
If you are new in journalism and believe in writing articles by scanning social media profiles of actors, don’t bother contacting us. We are not for you.
However, if you are working somewhere and you are really depressed because there is no space for your kind of work, we are here for you. Your identity will be kept secret if you want, because everybody cares for the content and not who has written it. It’s our responsibility to ensure that you get your creative satisfaction is met.

Do you need to be a journalist to work with us? Of course NOT. Here is an article about why a blogger need not be a journalist and what are the articles that he could write for us.

So, come on, hop onboard Bollywood Journalist.

Happy writing!

What are you waiting for? Send the links of your published (only online) writing samples to Editor@BollywoodJournalist.com and we will get back to you.