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.

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.

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.

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.

$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 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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was happily surprised!

Not to be picky or anything . . .

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

I was very nervous about making the decision, but on reading this, I think it was the right one.