January 12, 2006
I'm on a number of lists that offer me job postings for freelance writing, and I received one today that read like this:

"Queries. We are in the market for articles that have depth, emotional impact and take-away value for the reader, complemented by striking photos." Pays $0.20/word


Well, gee, I can't help it, but, your payrate sucks. Tell you what, I'll give you 20 cents a word worth of depth, emotional impact and take-away value, and since you're so cheap you don't pay for photography, you're on your own, you cheapskate.

Somewhere in your writing career, whether nonfiction or fiction, you're going to work for peanuts. The problem with paying peanuts, of course, is you tend to get monkeys. A fulltime writer who routinely works for 20 cents a word has a problem--it's called starvation and pretty soon they're not going to be a professional writer, they're going to be clerking at 7-Eleven or waiting tables at Big Boy.

Do I sometimes work at this payrate still? Yeah, at least one client. But if at all possible, this is my last year working with them. I can't afford it. And at one time or another, you as a writer, if you're trying to pay bills, have to look at your clients and say, I can spend 5 hours on this article and make $100, which is still $20 an hour, or I can spend those 5 hours writing queries to clients who may potentially pay me $1000 for the same article. It's simple economics, in most cases. Do you want to make $20 an hour or $200?

And before you go, I can't justify $200 an hour, and I'm not saying I routinely make that kind of hourly rate, I probably never do. But I do have a client that pays $1 per word and several that pay 40 cents a word and 75 cents a word and 85 cents a word and others that pay flat rates that probably rank in the $50 to $80 per hour range.

And it's partly because I have placed a value on the services I provide. I've also set a goal of how much money I intend to make a year, and believe me, it's not really all that much. But I've got overhead.

Mostly what I'm trying to say here is, if you want to be a professional writer and make money off it, at some point you need to get away from the idea of the starving writer living in a garrett eating Alpo for dinner (unless that turns you on, in which case, well, bon appetit). You have to say, really, although there are lawyers who think nothing of charging anywhere from $100 an hour to $1500 an hour, and consultants who charge similarly, and physicians, and all sorts of other businesses from hair dressers to personal trainers, why the hell do writers and/or editors/publishers think it's justifiable to be paid $10 an hour?

Inside freelance writing there are a number of us who frown at the notion of writing on spec (nonfiction) and for very low pay, because it damages the overall market for writers. Yes, many, many magazines operate on a shoestring, although I find it rather annoying that the publishers and editors on-staff wouldn't dream of doing their jobs for the payrate they offer freelancers.

Ah well, my rant for the day.

Best,
Mark Terry