Jobs: Maxim Ilyahov - founder of "Glavred"

"At the beginning I was totally financially unstable"

- The school hours are you engaged in design, and then studied at the Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​at Moscow State University. As education and design expertise to help you in the editor?

- In high school, I went to preparatory courses in Krasnodar Art and Industry Academy, and was sure that then will do to the design department. A place of power I found a site Lebedev Studio. It seemed to me that design - this is my future work.

Then I went to the Olympics in English, I came to nationwide tour and took second place. This allowed to enter the Moscow State University without exams. So instead design a foreign language has appeared in my life and I was able to move from Krasnodar to Moscow. And in the fifth year, I met with Artem Gorbunov and started editing.

Now design greatly helps me in my work, because the editing - is also designBut only text. When we started to develop an information Artyom style, it became clear that a large part of the design principles on the broadcast editing.

Researcher Edward Tufte, who is engaged in methods of presentation, talked about the signal and noise. The design is very nice get rid of the noise like clumsy schemes or dirty tables and leave only the signal, but the same is done in the editing. Remove unnecessary - the basis of the method.

- Before the end of the university you are compiling a list of dream employers. Who was there and who do you choose?

- There were the standard options, which I could have dreamed. Starting from the third year, I spent several years in a row doing the test tasks in "Yandex", but I did not respond. I send print jobs to the studio Art Lebedev, but also to no avail. But Artem Gorbunov said.

- You took to the Bureau Gorbunova first time?

- No, it all happened differently. I wrote that I can edit Bureau of text - to make it shorter. I was told, but did not accept even as a trainee. Some time later, I was offered to do the dirty work in one of the projects, it was necessary to rewrite and translate small pieces of text on the site about movies. Then I started to throw ideas on the development of this resource - to think what features you can add.

Artyom probably saw that I was interested and invited to participate in the project "Infogrammy". It was the flash widgets with infographics for news sites. Around the same time, I began to write tips on the website of the Bureau, and after a short time there was a course.

- What are the main insights you have received through the work of Artyom?

- Artem about five years ahead of me in terms of professional development. What I realized only now, he told me three years ago. It all started with efficiency and understanding of the problem. When you work on a project, you can spend some time to understand how to implement it, and to understand, to aspire to.

I remember when we first started working with Tom, he gave understanding of the task template. I have always been a huge dissatisfaction and internal resistance of filling this document. It seemed to me that this is a formality, and I'm clever, young and can do anything cool. Today, I savor the moment when I make an understanding of the problem, because it is the most difficult part of the project, in which lies his decision. More audio letters are written, no pixel is not delivered, but one made by a text document, wherein the problem is solved. Artyom every time helps to make it better and better.

Another important point - communication with the customer. When we come to the customer Artyom, I saw that he was able to set up a dialogue so that it never looks like a struggle. It is always a collaboration. It seemed to me that the case in the client, but when I went to the same person myself, I could not get to an agreement. I study it until now.

- How much can make the editor and what does it depend?

- In companies like «Yandex», Google and Mail.ru normal editor would earn from 80 to 180 thousand rubles. As far as I know, if a person works on the position of chief editor - not only writing, but also a controlled Edited by - it is possible to agree on a 200 thousand rubles, and in the best scenario, even 250 thousands. Professionals with a salary above, I have not yet met, but seen in the telecom media managers who deal with more control than content, and receive about 500 thousand rubles a month.

I do not like the idea of ​​working in the same company because it limits you. You make a single product, and your outlook is gradually narrowed. This is very harmful. I often wrote about zakisaniya brain: A person gets off a landmark that indicates what is good and what is bad.

The second negative point - the ceiling on earnings. If you agreed to 250 thousand in the "Yandex", that essentially no longer unlikely to get - is that going to the next level of management. When there is an opportunity to work in several places on different projects, you do not limit yourself to money. All that earned yours. For example, if you take 100 thousand for the project and make the overlap of these four a month, it is easy to calculate how many will turn out.

- You're so much you take?

- I try not to take the projects in which the client is not willing to pay more than 100 thousand of text. This indicates to me that the text he needed as a residual, ie it will be some unimportant, secondary project.

But the price of 100 thousand - this is only a guideline. I try to take larger projects: more than one text, and a series, a website, something big and long. Such projects are worth several hundred thousand, depending on the scope and duration.

Separate Landing promostranitsy and try not to do, but I know people who are 30 or 50 thousand are engaged in this. They perform two orders per week and receive 100 thousand. A month goes quite normal salary for the average editor.

Only it is necessary to understand that this is all plowed. To earn 400 thousand per month, it is necessary to make eight projects for 50 thousand - it's hard. Those who think that the editing is now the money will float in your pocket, deeply mistaken.

- What is the maximum you are receiving a single text?

- My biggest fee is a single text, not the project or design, was "Tinkoff magazine." I was paid 15 thousand rubles for an article of particular importance.

- You do not want to be constrained by a single company and stands for independence, but in fact, this approach completely kills the stability that is essential for many.

- I agree, it's scary. Especially in the first years after university, when you need to move out of the dormitory and rent an apartment. At first I struggled to gain clear predictable performance - for example, English teacher.

I knew that to pay for an apartment you need to spend a certain number of activities throughout the week. If on Sunday in the calendar were scored the required number of lessons, I felt calm. At the same time, if I notice that students fall off, then I went to the site for tutors and took new ones.

As I live, and now I look, in which months is not enough load, and negotiate new projects. Ways to find a job lot - especially when you're a competent and can bring people favor.

In the beginning, I was totally financially unstable. At first I was credit card to 100 thousand, then 150, then 200 and 420 thousand. Only today I closed the last, because we realize that it is already a lot of years is not the case, and I'm still paying for service. In the very beginning, this meant the credit card that I have a buffer in case you fall off all the disciples.

"The main and the only mistake: editor persuades the reader. And it is necessary that the reader convinced myself "

- What are the trends in the relevant editing right now?

- There are trends, and have the right direction. The main trend of today - the promotion of personal brand in Instagram, dull storytelling, exaltation, and other such crap. Open the tape, but there is one in two women with nothing to do, begins to heal about copywriting and creating magical texts.

Hatched another wave of courses and students are trying to earn the same, a little before earning their teachers on what. I do not criticize these people, but do not agree with delusional principles of editing, of which they speak. However, the monopoly on editorial courses are not required. Let there be a lot of dirt and slag. Each person fills the cones.

- What good is a pile of dirt and slag?

- These courses make one very useful thing: pumped their funnels people in our industry. A man gets on the webinar dreamy woman Anastasia Magic, and it explains how to raise a child with one hand on a mythical Bali and the other earns a million rubles.

Between times she mentions that there is a book, "Write, cut", because this edition is the best assists in the promotion of its services. Someone from the audience read, know about me and our editors School, and then goes into it and become a competent specialist.

Let organized a huge field of people who are interested in our profession. This is better than in the early 2000s, when the editor was marginalized incomprehensible being who humbly sits in a closet and the rule text.

- What about the right direction that you mentioned?

- Right Direction - a visual narrative. Our obsession with the text originated in the beginning of zero, when the Internet was very slow. Put on the page picture turned out expensive and write the text - cheap. Now there is no difference: everything is equally cheap.

In the struggle to win the attention of people who master the art of working with an image, serving, drama - with everything that I call visual storytelling. This is the real power, and even the future, and is already present. While the crowds are non-professionals to learn to write magical texts, the professionals have long been master scheme, visualization, infographics and pictures. Recently, we even started on this separate course "Write, tempt."

- What mistakes editors make most often?

- The main and the only mistake: editor persuades the reader. And it is necessary that he found himself. In advertising, they talk about the product, and do not show it, and the people who use it. Do not give to touch and feel the item. For example, in an article about the health they are talking about medicine, and do not draw examples, scenarios and stories of people. They nazidatelstvuyut and become the top. In general, try to teach you life as an old man. It's right bad.

- And what do you think your own text worst?

- I can not be very successful tips when I and my maximalist views climbed in fact what is not so well versed. I often open my old tips in search primerchik and see that they are poorly written. In this case, at the time I believed in his words.

Perhaps the worst was not the text, and statement. On their first course, I said that discounts, timers, and other aggressive methods of sale of the category of "buy now" do not work. I remember that said this phrase, but could not answer why: effaced, and went to another topic. It was a subjective feeling without proof.

In the same year I began to sell their courses at a discount and a time limit. Then I saw with my own eyes that the method works. It outlined a shift in my perception of the world, and I began to study it more closely.

- Let's return to productivity. I heard that you're working 14 hours a day and occasionally even forgo sleep in favor of editing and projects. From the side it looks like in your vshili perpetual motion. How do you do this?

- usually it happens like this: I worked, and then I think that we should make music. In this case, I really will not sleep, but do track. All my things are delivered to me unreal buzz, because in each of them I have been doing the same - navozhu order.

After cleaning the apartment you have certainly a very good feeling, and I'm in it all the time. I give a heavy, poorly written text, and I'm doing something out of it beautiful. Bringing order and the creation of meaning - very cool.

"People who criticize infostil of stop words, and the impoverishment of the language - just a very lousy editors"

- Did you have a moment when you realized, "Yes, I'm cool editor"?

- Yes, in the first year of operation. I called himself the chief editor of the Russian Internet, and then see how many earn Glavred normal glossy magazines, and was stunned. At that moment I realized that not the chief editor of the Russian Internet, until I have enough money in the account. My ambition is gone, and I began to focus on your well-being, and not on the Pontus.

- In your opinion, the degree of coolness is determined only by the amount in the account?

- No, but you want to measure themselves and with something to compare, to understand where you are. I do this through the money: for I have no other evaluations of their own work. Worldly fame - is very ephemeral, unstable and an unnecessary thing. Respect and Respect for bread you will not smear.

- Why at a certain point you think you can teach someone at the Bureau of courses?

- We had a set of knowledge that no one else possessed. We did a course in office, because we had something to say to people. I never thought that I have the right to teach. If my knowledge and experience interesting, I am ready to share them. You come, and I show what I can do. Maybe my skills will be useful, but maybe not.

- What do you teach in the courses and how much it has to pay?

- There are two full-time course that I am in the Office: "Information Style" and "Write, tempt," of which we have already spoken. The starting price of 39 to 49 thousand rubles per person.

The course "Information style" I help people to clean up the text. I told him how to write, without further ado, to choose a clear structure and make the kind of advertising that will sell.

Yet I have a newsletter called "Work with the client to the editor». There are about 40 letters in which I talk about the details of client operation, understanding problems and other important things. This is a strong exchange rate, and people love even more than my editorial sessions: it is much stronger effect on their lives.

- Some people criticize your courses and their graduates and yourself. They say that just will not take on the work of man, he studied with Ilyahova because all your alumni the same, and infostil generally deprives the text of the soul and impoverishes the Russian language. What do you think causes this reaction?

- As a rule, so say the former or current journalists. People, earnings and welfare depends on what happens with the text on the market. Imagine a class journalist who has grandiloquent architectural style. Suddenly there is a method that says you have to write simple, clear and accessible. At this point, your skills are impaired and you urgently need to change shoes. This is what happened: people liked the style information. Experts who are not engaged in editing, said: "Lord, this is what we need! Finally, I do not need to decipher these complex and kopirayterskie journalistic texts. " But the people who wrote otherwise, it hurts.

- And what about the text without a soul, and the impoverishment of the Russian language?

- It's always the reader decide. If he wants peace of text, is a classical or modern Russian literature. I prefer to in a letter from the management company or a commercial text on the product had no soul, but were clear and crisp.

People often confuse graphomania and editing. A man who loves epithets and comparisons of a school teacher, infostil bring a lot of pain. However, specialistsThat at least understand something in the text, are aware that the style - this is not specific phrases, and how you formulate and argumentiruesh idea of ​​how well you know life.

People who criticize infostil of stop words, and the impoverishment of the language - just a very lousy editors. You can say that the car Tesla is terrible, because it has no exhaust pipe, but is that a bad thing?

- Do infostil - a magic pill that suits everyone?

- In infostile have a beneficial effect - the purpose and objectives of the text. Very few people realize, because for many the understanding of information style ends in a stop-words - and it's probably 10% of all that infostile there.

If the task is to entertain, then you need to use elements of humor, and if the call to the barricades - propaganda tools. Infostil helps to ask yourself the question: "Why did you write this text?" Any talk about the text without an understanding of the problem - the inexperience or deliberate provocation.

The subjective view of the text can not be, but may be different tasks. I assure you, you do not want to read the credit agreement in the lyrical story format. There is no situation where the text is a pragmatic task to be metaphorical, spiritual or flirt.

At the same time the text that should entertain and help make aesthetic discoveries can not be simple and straightforward. His task - to create certain conditions, which is achieved due to the metaphors, comparisons, epithets and other literary garbage.

- Recently there were courses on editing and Luda Sarychev - co-author of "Write to decline" and "rules of business correspondence." You perceive it as a competitor?

- I see all the people who make the editorial courses as competitors. Competition helps to develop, provides new ideas. So I want to competitors was a lot. If in our country will be specialists who teach editing, and even more close to me are promoting the value is very good.

It is unlikely that, when choosing between courses Luda Sarychev and my man will go only to her, but I will ignore all. Let there be several options, each of which can be learned over time.

I'll go on editorial courses (and not only in the editorial). I want to look at this area from different angles, to see new ideas. Better to let everyone will rate than everyone would go to study to the same person.

- To be a good editor, be sure to finish some courses?

- No, not necessarily. Man becomes good in any case only through practice. People are mistaken when they think that some courses and become a professional, you can finish.

You can be a good editor, if you read my advice on the website "Glavred" and learn to apply them in everyday practice, but it requires an investment of time, discipline and schedules. Well, if you have a customer, and the deadline to which you just do the job, otherwise not get the money and will not pay the rent. So you quickly become a professional. But if the stimulus is not, you study topics in slow mode and nobody can force you to do it faster.

Need enforcement system - the thing that makes you repeatedly do the exercises, take materials to carry out actions that skill increased. To do this, and there School editors. Check out the courses are not mandatory, if you yourself can create a system of coercion. I, for example, does not work. I need a situation where I simply can not not learn or do not do the exercise.

"We need to make decisions, after which you will not hate yourself and your work"

- Graduates of your courses often continue to work already in the "F-T". What do you do in the publication?

- At the end of December we have organized decentralized editors, and chief editor of the position I held, was abolished. Now, each magazine has its direction of chef, and I hold the position of Dyer - it's our inside joke.

The first three months I was helping with the new headings, and then everything started to happen on its own, so now I almost do not do anything in the magazine. I can see and edit the news or advise on interactive special projects, but the article is already almost do not watch.

- Now you're doing and more about the project programming "code". What is included in your duties?

- IN "code"I just Glavred, that is included in the daily work, do a bit of news and articles. In general, the text of articles in the "Code" is now only takes two people - me and Mike Polyanin. At first, the courage, I also began to write material, but then realized that not cool enough for this. But it is competent to edit them. Besides us with Misha, a team that is engaged in promotion, design, illustration, news.

We make the media for people who have heard about programming, but are afraid to get into this world. It's really hard, because programmers are often snobs that bulge lip and explain things very complicated language. If you do not understand, you're told that you're a noob. We aim to remove the high barriers to entry to the profession, and therefore we write clear news. I hope it works gradually.

- How does your workplace?

- I'm sitting at home, in the room where one side stands musical equipment, and on the other - my computer. From the window of visible courtyard. I have two monitors: iMac and additional, which I have set vertically. It is more convenient to watch the mail and chatik. The rest of the standard: keyboard, charging for the iPhone, the trackpad.

- What are the applications you use to simplify the process work?

- I believe that we need to reduce the number of services and additional programs. Each new device or service creates more problems than it solves it. There is only one program that I drag from one computer to another: Alfred. This clipboard manager and a system to automate actions on the Mac. Clipboard to be a multi-step, and Alfred helps to solve this problem, until Apple developers themselves did not.

I also subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud, so do not care about how to download the new date Photoshop. I'm using licensed software, because Photoshop and InDesign - my main tools. All the files I keep in Dropbox, but not because it is a great service. Just at the very beginning, when the store just appeared, he was one of the best. Now the same can be done in the "Yandex. Drive "or« Google Drive. " Lists I'm in a text editor: just write them in a column and do until it is empty.

- You said that the abundance of work complains only one who does not know how to properly plan their time.

- Maybe once upon a time I really talked about planning time, but now I think that this is impossible: time does not depend on us. In the power of each person only decisions which it takes to be a single point. The question is not time management, and care management: what I'm wasting time right now.

The point is not to cram a thousand cases per minute. You need to properly assess the situation and make decisions, after which you will not hate yourself and your work. I think this is the key point. I try to move in this direction, and sometimes impossible.

- What do you do when some free time?

- Walking, cinema, travel, music festivals - the usual middle-class life. Nothing special.

- Are you keen on DJing. At what point did you realize that you are interested in music?

- As a child, still in high school. It was the age when he wanted to attract the attention of girls and boys they liked playing guitar. I went and learned to play well enough to complete the task. Then came the music program on the computer, and it turned out to be much more interesting to girls. Later there was a period when I did not touch these things due to work and graduate school, but now he returned to the music.

- You have recently released three songs dedicated to including editing. How they reacted your colleagues?

- Nothing. More precisely, they are likely to react, but to me personally no one said anything. Several people wrote that they liked, and the other passed. Haight from the category: "Here, let Ilyahov rap fu, late for three years," I have not heard. Most likely, someone says so, but not in my face.

- Passion for music does not interfere with your work?

- I'll decide how and what to combine. I bought a bunch of musical equipment, but absolutely do not use it, because I'm more important every day to sit on the book or editing text. This is normal. If I feel it is important to engage in the work, I will prefer it.

At the same time, there is a movie in which I get up at night near modular synthesizers and play long song. I felt that the most important thing at the moment - record a song, so went and did it. Making music does not interfere with anything I can devote as much time to it, as you see necessary.

Layfhakerstvo from Maxim Ilyahova

books

Any scientific and popular literature on the brain, man, society. In general, the importance of books in our culture greatly exaggerated: more good we can learn from the good bloggers.

Movies and Series

No do not inspire and certainly not motivated. What are you talking about, it's just entertainment.

podcasts

I watch popular science channels PBS Digital Studios publisher.

Blogs and Websites

I subscribe to everything, and when tired - unsubscribe. Now the longest lasted magazine The NewYorker.

Actually, I do not like the word "layfhakerstvo". I believe that the right thing layfhakerstvo - stop hacking your life and begin to be attentive to the quality of their decisions in the moment. Right now you're doing the right thing or not? You feel good from what you're doing? You are present in this moment, or do you think how nice it will look in Instagram?

I think this is the most important.