Even in ideal conditions, it is not easy making a living as a freelance writer. It is much harder when the places you write for don’t pay you promptly. That’s where we come in.

The original freelancer assigned to the revenge-motivated New York Observer takedown of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in an interview with the New York Times today that he was hired straight out of an ice cream shop and quit when he figured out all the paper wanted was a smear piece.

Forbes is seeking to put together a top-flight team of media bloggers! They offer bloggers the chance to write for "millions of Forbes readers." In return, bloggers get no money. Sound good?

Attention media hopefuls, an ad that may be useful to you has been found on Craigslist! "Freelance Writer Desired." Sounds good so far! "M4W." That seems odd to include. And why is this writing gig in "Casual Encounters?"

In your wintry Wednesday media column: More and more and more Dana Milbank, short is good, freelancing sucks, and just let the NYT sell its ads, you ungrateful bastards.

Journalism. It is not a lucrative profession. Maybe you could be a freelancer though? Easy gigs. Airline magazines! Travel pieces! The sad reality:

Laurel Touby, the millionaire founder of Mediabistro—which totally exists to give freelancers the false hope of getting media jobs—has been called upon to give a speech about "Best Practices in Freelancing." Except she's forgotten everything about freelancing, because she's a millionaire now! So she needs you freelancers to help:

Quick quick! If you respond to this ad in the next two-and-a-half minutes, you might be the lucky one chosen! The task? Hitting the streets to round up food carts for Thursday night's book launch of Michael Franzini's "One Hundred Young Americans," out a couple of weeks ago from HarperCollins, our favorite company that is currently being sued for $100-mil by Judith Regan.

From the mailbag: "When I pitched [Village Voice editor] Tony Ortega a piece (after he killed an article I spent months writing for [former Voice editor David] Blum), he replied, 'Ward [Harkavy; Voice senior editor] and I like this idea a lot. Think you could have something in to me by Thursday?' I asked him how many words he had in mind, and he wrote back, 'Sorry, I meant to send that reply to someone else. I actually don't like this idea.'"

Dana Vachon is parlaying his short-lived stint at J.P. Morgan and brief moment in the literary spotlight into a career writing about Wall Street for women's magazines. Take this month's effort, a 5-page spread in Marie Claire called "A Field Guide to Wall Street's Women": the Social Commando, the Ivy Beleaguered, the Nuptialista, and the Big Swinging Chick. What does each of these women tell us about Dana?

In the spirit of the new year, as well as utter brokeitude, we've taken stock of our outstanding invoices from '06. One offender appears to be the New York Observer, which still owes us money from ages ago. (Confidential to J.K.: When you switch to a tabloid, you still have to pay people. Love, Us.)