by Sue Poremba
Last summer I was at a party, talking to a freelance graphic artist.
One of the things we talked about was how tough freelancing can be. He
said that non-freelancers don’t realize that you have to take what you
can get, that this isn’t a career where you have the luxury to say no
to assignments.
Once upon a time, I used to agree with that. I was so desparate for
money I would take any job, no matter how miniscule the pay. To me
the important thing was showing my husband the paycheck and prove that
yes, I can earn some income. Then I began to pay attention to what my
more experienced (and sometimes wiser) co-horts say: The time you
spend on jobs for little pay is time you lose to pursue better paying
jobs.
At first I thought, well, at least I’m still earning money. That’s
better than not earning money, right?
Then came an incident that changed my thinking. I had a client that
had the potential to be steady and long term. It wasn’t very high
paying, but I thought regular work was more important. The first piece
I did was quick and easy and an incredible per hour rate. It was short
and paid $X. The second piece, however, was another story. They
wanted me to write a piece twice as long with three times as much
research. There were a lot of other conflicts along the way, like the
editor complaining about me not making her article my priority. When
they offered another assignment, I looked at my calendar and saw all
the empty spaces, meaning no deadlines. I remembered my frustration
and how much I complained to my friends and family. I also remember
what my writing friends said about wasting my time on low paying jobs.
I took a deep breath and said, "No thanks."
And started to worry about what I did.
The time I would have spent on that next assignment I instead spent
marketing. Within two days I had a new assignment that not only paid
more money, but also provided more work.
I got a little bolder. When one of my editors began changing the
deadline dates and the article lengths of a monthly feature, without
adjusting the pay, I said, no, this is eating up my time. I can do
better. I dropped the column. A week or two later, I found a nice
replacement — less work, fewer words, triple the income. The time I
would have spent researching and writing that column I spent
marketing.
Now I am a little pickier about my client list. But it isn’t always
easy. May has been a very slow month so far. I was offered a
low-paying, quick-turnaround assignment the other day, one I know I
wouldn’t have enjoyed, and I almost accepted it. But then I thought
no, I’d rather spend that time on other things, like working on my
website and marketing. Two days later, I got an email from another
editor with a fantastic, quick-turnaround assignment offer, and I
snapped it up.
So I disagree with my freelance artist friend. Saying no is a luxury
we do have, and sometimes it is the best thing we can do for our
career.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Thank you!
May 20th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I completely agree, Susan!
I occasionally get emails from aspiring freelancers asking for advice, and the one thing they all assume is that it’s a given they’ll be taking the low-paying, undesirable assignments at first, as if it’s part of the process of becoming a successful writer. I couldn’t disagree more. I mean, if you’re not doing this for yourself, then who ARE you doing it for?
Thanks for the great post!
May 20th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I’m sorry Sue, my mother-in-law’s name is Susan, so it slipped.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Agreed.
I’ve had projects that by the time they were over, I would have gladly paid someone else to take them.
I’ve posted several times here that the opportunity cost is too high to take low-paying assignments because you’re forced to not spend time looking for higher paying ones, or don’t have the time to take them on.
It’s also prudent to say no when a client is too delinquent (definition is different for everyone) with payment.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Thank you Sue, although I’m still a part time freelance writer, I agree with what you said. It’s so true that many of us may feel that we have to start at the bottom and work our way up, including taking the lesser paying jobs but in reality we don’t have to go that route.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
@Amanda — forgiven. But you’ve also given me an idea for a post over on my own blog today.
@Phil — The definition of what is a good job is different for everyone, and I respect that, too. I think re-evaluating your client list periodically makes good business sense. Almost without fail, every time I say no, something falls into place with a better replacement.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes it’s hard to say no especially when you have a pile of bills sitting right on your desk. Every freelancer needs to do a cost/benefit analyis before taking on a new job. Kudos for a great post.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Yes. And how you say no, and why you say no, makes all the difference. No is an integral part of being a happy freelance writer. Learn to say it and say it well.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Amen dammit!!
May 20th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Good advice. You’ve inspired me to increase my rates!
May 20th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
You said it, Sue. Learning how to and when to say “no” is probably one of the hardest things we have to learn as freelancers. Great post!
May 20th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Thank you for this! In my case, it couldn’t have been more timely. Earlier today I walked away from a steady but incredibly low-paying long-term gig. I’ve had numerous problems with this client, and the project has been eating up all of my time, taking it away from other things I would rather do.
I was very nervous about making the decision, but on reading this, I think it was the right one.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Susan, a raw deal is the best teacher — as you learned first-hand. In spite of this many freelancers continue to stay with low-paying assignments.
I’ve been a freelancer since 1993, and one thing time has taught me is that if you don’t put a premium on your work, no one else is going to. And, premium doesn’t necessarily mean getting the highest rate, but one you can feel good inside about. I call it getting a “warm fuzzy,” as opposed to a “cold prickly.”
If a job leaves you feeling taken advantage of, this finish your commitment and move on — unless you can renegotiate.
This is one of the hardest lessons for freelancers — experienced and inexperienced — to learn. But boy, once you do learn how to say nom it can really start a snowball effect. It’s a form of taking your power back.
Excellent post.
Yuwanda
May 21st, 2008 at 12:07 am
@Yuwanda — Thanks for the comments (thanks to everybody for the comments, in fact), but my name isn’t Susan.
Not to be picky or anything . . .
May 21st, 2008 at 12:44 am
Oh no, I’ve started something! So sorry… But I’m glad I could give you some blog material!
May 21st, 2008 at 5:42 am
Great advice. I’m more of PT freelancer, which means I have even less time to write about what I want. I was recently offered a second gig with a client who didn’t pay very well the first go around, and her project took MUCH too long to complete. I told her the truth about my normal rates and time and she emailed back saying they’d gladly pay my rate.
I was happily surprised!
May 21st, 2008 at 7:58 am
I think it totally depends on the situation. One of my bigger clients has gone AWOL owing me money. She emailed me a month ago saying her father had had a massive heart attack and that she’d be out of touch for a couple weeks. Now her email is bouncing and I’m due $40 for the last article I did and another $40 for one I turned in and didn’t hear back to make sure she received it.
I’m training for two other jobs, but the training is not paid. However, one is with a major magazine and too good an option to pass up, the other opens the door to a whole new career for me once I’m through the court room reporting courses.
Meanwhile, that leaves me with three clients. One was having computer issues and hasn’t been in touch for three days or paid the last invoice and the other two have work available but I’m still out money from the two that owe me and desperate to make that money up. For that reason, I’ll take a few lower paying jobs to make up for it or the bills don’t get paid. Try telling your electric company that you can’t pay them until your client pays you - it doesn’t wash around here. If you are more than 10 days late with our power company, they send you a disconnection notice and tack on an additional $2 fee for every day you are late. And in this area, you don’t get to choose your electric company - you get whoever covers your area.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:49 am
Sue, this is a really excellent article!
I feel the same too, and will research until I find something worth my while. I have had long-term gigs. Okay the pay wasn’t great but the client was very flexible and I could choose my work regime. This gave me enough scope to build my portfolio and take on other work.
Like you too, I have written articles and spent ages researching a topic for little pay. I found this okay on a part-time basis, whilst in between gigs. And of course, whilst I was looking for something better.
Thank you for writing this, it is a very valuable piece of information.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:54 am
Ann, you also make a good point. I was lucky with the long-term client because she never ever missed a payment. If there was any hiccups then the writers would get paid just a day late, and this very rarely happened. Like I said, she never owed us anything and that’s one of the reasons I stayed long-term.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am
Sue, Thanks for the advice. You’ve inspired me to re-evaluate some of what I’m working on, and say no to clients so I can get some jobs that pay better and are more satisfying.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:24 am
Great post. I’ve only recently realized that I am able to say no to a couple of low-paying potential clients.
I still have one client who I’ve worked with since I started freelancing. He’s a great client, but it’s a lot of work and not much money. I may be a big chicken, but I don’t know how to tell him that I need a better rate without losing the relationship.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
@ Ann G: You’re right, when it comes down to paying the bills in hard times, sometimes “no” isn’t a luxury you can afford. I guess you have to weigh your options closely. In some cases, saying no might be the wrong thing to do.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:54 am
Right now, both of my late/non-payers are long term clients and it is frustrating. I need a copy of Morson’s English Guide and they don’t come cheap! So IF I get the money I’m owed, I still have to take care of bills first and then need to see what I can find online for the best deal for Morson’s.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:02 am
I do feel for you, Ann.
Especially since they are long-term clients! You know, after time you should be able to build up some trust without worrying where your next pay check is coming from.
Keep on the look out for some quality gigs… even if they help you out on a temporary basis.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:18 am
I agree 110 percent. Getting a high paying gig makes it so much easier to say “no.” Once you know the potential, it’s hard to go backwards.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:21 am
@Ann — I’m curious. What kind of training are you doing for nothing with a major magazine? Not knowing anything about it raises a few red flags for me. If you are doing any writing at all for them, you should either be getting paid or a letter grade toward a college degree.
And something else that I learned along the way — you can do better than $40 an article! Trust me, I’ve been in that boat where I felt the need to take any job that came along just because it paid. I had bills to pay, too, and I didn’t want to go back to an office job. But it really was a light bulb moment to realize that I could be spending just as much time earning $200 for an article as I did $15.
This is a business, and you have to treat it like one. Rather than wait for clients with money problems to send work your way, use the time to make a real market push.
One of my favorite jokes of all time goes like this: A man prays every night to win the lottery, but he never does. Finally, he says to God, “God, I pray every night for you to let me win the lottery, but every night I go to bed just as poor as the night before. Why won’t you let me win?” To which God replies, “You have to buy a *(&^ ticket first!”
I think this joke applies to writing. You can’t expect the great jobs and the money to fall into your lap. You have to work at it. The more you work at it, the more likely you’ll hit the lottery.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:24 am
@Sue, sorry about butchering your name — and I completely understand as people have a tendency to want to shorten mine to “wanda,” which I hate.
So, my sincere apologices.
@Shawn, maybe you need to lose the relationship. My mother used to say how do you ever expect new and better clothes to fit in your closet if you won’t clean out all the old, ill-fitting ones. It’s an analogy for life, no?
Yuwanda
May 21st, 2008 at 11:40 am
Shawn, it’s great working for nice people but you have to consider the options here. I do know having steady work makes things more consistent but if you feel you are ‘over working’ for a pittance, then something has to change.
May be find the courage to negotiate a raise, or look for something more worth while. Just an option but at the end of the day it’s your decision
May 21st, 2008 at 11:42 am
Hey guys, I know I’ve said this before but I did see an article writing gig a few months back offering approx. $1,400 for one article a month. WOW! There are some good ones out there so don’t feel too discouraged yet.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
@Sue - Publisher’s Weekly, so it’s a very reputable magazine, but they require writers to learn their format first.
$40 an article for 500 word articles that take me less than an hour to do is very good pay. I’ve hadmany tell me that $40 is too little. It truly depends on the situation. I know travel inside and out and have access to insider information via friends that still work in travel, so it takes me very little to whip up an article on those lines. $40 is double what my husband earns an hour.
I’ve had higher paying jobs with magazines and lower. Oddly, it is usually the lower paying jobs that pay on time. Bottom line, and this is where I find most bickering comes into play, everyone has their own needs. Someone might be willing to spend hours looking for higher paying jobs while foregoing pay in the meantime. I need to put food on the table. I’ll take what I can get while I also spend time looking for higher paying clients. And, yes, I do both. I work half days working and half days sending out resumes and/or query letters.
And in the end for me, it is timely payments that matters most.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:12 pm
@Ann: I don’t think $40 an article is bad. I’ve written articles for most places on the pay scale. I find that it does in fact take far more time for me to write an article for $500 because of the expectation (from the editor and in my own mind)to research & interview more.
I can make more hourly for lower-paying articles, and I think that’s important to consider. There also are 2 magazines I’m trying to break into now. They both pay well, but even if they didn’t, they’re the top magazines for my niche area. It would be worth it career-wise to write articles for them, even for less pay, because I’m trying to build up the credentials to propose a non-fiction book in this area. So, sometimes the pay isn’t the primary factor in taking an assignment, and I’m glad I have the luxury to make that decision.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
@Ann — I don’t mean to sound negative. Your comment about Publisher’s Weekly has been bothering me since I read it. I write for a lot of trade publications, and maybe a couple have asked me to write on spec (these days I turn them down), I’ve never had one who wanted me to train to write for their specifications. I talked to some acquaintances who are regularly published in PW, and they, too, say they can’t recall any training beyond studying the magazine before submitting first articles. But I was also told that PW is cutting the amount it pays for book reviews.
Obviously, I don’t know what you are doing to train with PW, but your comments tossed up a bunch of red flags for me.
If you are interested in writing for trade publications, I’d be happy to share some of what I’ve learned. You can find trades that pay well, pay fairly fast, and that can open doors to more steady work.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:00 pm
@Brandi - I agree. For me, it isn’t so much about how much I get paid per article, it is about my hourly rate. $10 per article is a good rate if I can pump out 5 or more of them per hour.
I work as a freelance writer on a part time basis and make more than I do with my full time job. Yet, I take on $15 articles on a regular basis. Once you get familiar with some of the common niches for web writing, you don’t need to do research anymore and you can write a 500 word article with very little work. Like you said, while I know the $200 article projects are out there, they take much more time and effort to put together and my hourly rate would actually be less by the time all is said and done.
As we keep saying, freelance writing is a business, so I choose to work on the projects that are most cost effective for me.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
@Ann, hey Sue has offered some great advice there.
I expect your work with Publisher’s Weekly means an awful lot to you. All I can suggest is to keep your options open. I don’t know how long the training period extends to but if you feel time is passing without as much of a pay check, then it sounds like Sue would make an excellent resource of helpful information. This could lead to even more opportunities and, perhaps, even greater ones.
@Elizabeth, yes, if that works well for you then I totally understand. Especially if there is little research involved. So, if you’ve got a consistent paying client and lots of work too to boot, then this sounds an ideal situation for you.