How is business lately??

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Just wanted to check in with everyone and see if things have started to pick up?  This has been a good year for me so far, but I'm in the Silicon Valley and maybe that area gets more lawsuits, especially the patent stuff.

How about the rest of you?  Is work getting any better?

[Kerry F]

I've been slammed since February.  Love it!

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

That's great to hear.  I thought things seemed to be picking up this year.

[Martha R]

I have been busy since January.  I live in Northern California, too.    

[Deborah M.]

So strange:  I can tell you exactly when it got bad -- November of 2010, my work totally dried up.  I had a terrible year, and almost exactly a year later, it picked up again!  Nov of 2011 was great, and I've been pretty busy since then.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed it stays this way all year.

[Cody Knacke]

Hopefully soon business will start! Not pick up, but just start haha.
Agencies are telling me to make the move to LA to start getting the work.
Nobody wants a reporter that has to drive 2 hours to get downtown on a good day :/
But the office talk is that it is definitely in recovery mode.

[Rosalie DeLeonardis]

I will be busy for a week or two working almost every day, 90 percent of the time they turn into expedites, then I will sit for two to three weeks.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Rosalie, do you work for more than one agency?  I work for about four or five.  That always helps when picking up work to have your foot in the door a few places.

[Rosalie DeLeonardis]

Kelli, I have about four agencies that I e-mail every week, but one I put first, since they have given me the most work in the last year and a half, to make sure they don't have anything.  The problem I have is once I have booked my work for the following week, I start getting the calls from the other firms, but I have to decline because I'm already scheduled.  Another problem I seem to have is I will get an e-mail three weeks in advance to see if I can work, but the jobs are about 120 miles round trip, so I tell them call me two days before, and if I'm not scheduled, I will take, but with gas prices and page rates identical, I will take the local job first. 

[Keith Rowan II]

Sounds just like what I do, Rosalie.  Agree with you and Kelli.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Makes sense.  I won't go to Sacramento, that's too far.  I seem to get asked to go there a lot.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Sherry, have you joined the Cover Depo group for Sacramento on this website?  Job offers from agencies go out to that group all the time.  I assume you haven't if you're asking me this question. 

You need to hit on the "Cover Depos" tab at the top of the page.  A map will appear with red dots on it.  There are thousands of reporters all over the country in those groups taking work every day from this website.  Some days 30 job offers go out a day.  It gets crazy. 

Anyway, once you hit on the red dot for Sacramento, hit on the tab that says "Join the Sacramento Cover depos group."  Once you join the group, your email address will be stored and you will get a email blast of all jobs that need covered in your area.  I know of at least six that went out in the last two weeks.

[Debbie Taggart]

Kelli,  How far out do you book your jobs?  I have two main firms that I work with, but both of them want to book me a month ahead of time.  If I don't schedule with them then, they cover it with someone else.  There's no "call me two days ahead of time."  Half the time (no much exaggeration there) the jobs cancel.  It's really making me crazy to be constantly turning down jobs for jobs that are probably going to cancel.  Then invariably, the days I have a job, three of four people will call offering a job, not to mention jobs flying all over the place from CSR Nation.    

As crazy as the scheduling makes me, I will say that I have been pretty steady this year -- a welcome relief!