Addressing Your Comment Questions About Finding Higher Paying Freelance Writing Work
February 23, 2009 by Deb Ng
Filed under Freelance Writing
We’ve had some terrific discussions on this blog lately. However, there were some questions put forth by some of our community members that I don’t want to get lost in the comment graveyard. So, I’m going to repost them here so we can all offer our thoughts.
I’m not an expert and my answers are mostly just my opinion. I’d love to learn others’ thoughts as well.
From our post about empowering newer writers to accept higher paying jobs:
Maybe we need to ask a hard question, too – are some of the people working for no or low pay, just as good as the people who are working for regular rates? In a recession, markets will pay as little as they can. Why do the “regulars” have the right to expect to get high rates?
There are plenty of people writing for less than a livable wage for any number of reasons. I think everyone should have the right to expect higher rates, if they’re deserving. Clients may not want to pay money in a recession, but we also have to deal with the same recession, so why should we settle for less than what we’re worth. Surely there’s a happy medium? Is the recession a good excuse to work for less than minimum wage- if there’s a choice? If folks can’t afford to pay writers during a recession, they shouldn’t be hiring…right?
For those of us that are simply writing for the enjoyment of writing, why can’t we take the lower paying jobs? Sure I would love a great paying gig, but if I’m given the opportunity to write about something I care about, well then money will not get in the way of that.
Payment is in the eye of the beholder. If you’re happy with what you’re paid or not being paid, rock on. Writers set their own rates. Just about every day folks comment here complaining about the low paying jobs and wondering if higher pay jobs exist. However, if you’re writing for the glory, there’s nothing wrong with that either. The only problem with that is how when writers do accept a non-paying or very low paying job, it makes it harder for the folks who want to be paid more.
Here’s my question/problem. I don’t see a lot of jobs out there paying too much (online). Now, maybe it’s just the field that I want to break into is the problem, and if you want to be a copyeditor or something else, maybe it’s easier to find more jobs.
But for me, mostly what I see is either “we don’t pay anything” or “come write for us for maybe $15 or $20 per article.”
Now maybe I’m not searching in the right places or often enough–I don’t know. I’m also thinking to myself, “OK, what’s the NEXT step from here.” If I’d like to be a freelance writer for a magazine instead of a cheap website, how do I realistically make that happen. I’ve heard you pitch to magazines or publishers–is that the only way?
I think it depends on where you’re looking for, what you want to write, your comfort level, etc. There ARE higher paying jobs because we post them here every day. There are higher paying web jobs, there are higher paying business/copywriting jobs, there are magazines. You just have to know where to look.
Everyone knocks Craigslist but I found my highest paying gigs there – including the job I have now. When I freelanced I spent two hours a day trolling for leads (and now I’m doing so again for you). I mean, we try to bring all the best gigs to you here, but I can’t find them all. Look for corporate freelancing opportunties or cold call businesses.
There are so many ways to find high paying freelance writing jobs. I think a lot of people are comfortable with the instant gratification of low paying web jobs. Your byline appears quickly, the pay is in your paypal a week later, why give that up for magazines that pay months later or a business that cuts checks 30 days after reciept of your invoice? The jobs are there, you just have to be willing to make the job hunt part of the job.
I am new to the freelance world and I have to say it’s not all about education. I have a B.A. in English, but I have never been published. Most of the jobs I see want clips and if you don’t have them don’t apply. Of course there are plenty of jobs out there that don’t ask for clips, but those jobs are usually the lower paying jobs. So what does a person like me do?
I don’t have a college degree, though a dozen years in publishing helped. Many “clips” don’t need to be published. They can be something you wrote on your own or a blog post on your personal blog. Unless the potential client specifies it must be a “published” clip, I would just send in my best piece of writing, even if it’s never been published anywhere. Clients mostly want to know you’re a good writer, that’s why they want clips or writing samples.
I’d love your thoughts on these questions as well. What do you think, FWJ community?
I took some of those low-paying gigs to get myself started late last year, but I am far beyond that now. My day job pays ~13/hr. I can write and earn ~25/hr. When the day comes that I am able to find enough to write about that I can quit my “real job,” I will!
If you’re sticking with the low-payers to get started, then I don’t have a problem with that. It’s the people that do it for months on end and expect to become wealthy by working for scraps that I can’t stand to listen to. I only recently learned just how much I love to write, but it quickly became a focus of my life. Now, I’m learning and doing things that I never would have dreamed of before I started this journey!
Keep up the great work, Deb. I come here every day to see what you have to say.
I’ve been published nationally and have two guide books coming out, so the idea of taking $4 article writing jobs seems very counter-productive. That being said, I do think ego can get in the way. I know nationally published writers who scoff at the idea of being published in a regional newspaper or with “lower paying” markets. I have a national piece come out in a woman’s magazine that they offered $50 for it. That was considerably less than I expected them to offer, but I took it. I wanted the clip and the connection.
I also think many writers need a stepping off point. So $4 article writing jobs may put them at the confidence level to seek out the $10 job and then the regional magazine job that pays $25, and then the national market that might pay a few hundred. I think it’s about perspective and where you’re going with your career.
When I first started out writing online, I wasn’t making money. I was writing for fun and exposure. Until I discovered some job -boards and thought writing $ 5.00 articles was going to get me out of debt. (LOL). I was grateful for writing for low-pay, because my writing skills needed to be brushed up. The feedback that the editors gave me were invaluable. I was able to gain more confidence in my ability to write. I don’t market as much as I should, since I have 2 Jobs. So the low-paying or no paying gigs that I do take, I look at them as an exchange for services. I supply them with my writing and then they tell me proper grammar, sentence structure, leads and hooks, etc, etc. I discovered Bob Bly’s book : How to start your career as a freelance writer. And so my focus is on corporate clients since they have the budgets to pay higher rates.
I’m a beginner and recently unemployed, so I need any income right now. I can appreciate the more seasoned writers concern about newbies undercutting their payscale by accepting cheaper assignments, but I can also relate to those of us who are new and just getting our feet wet, so to speak.
I have already landed one assignment for a travel magazine, but I had to wait a couple of weeks past the promised payment deadline on that one, making me leary about writing for that publication again.
Thanks for this article, Deb!
I believe my writing is worth more than the $5 or $10 rate for blog posts. I am very fortunate to work with people who like my writing and recognize my talent. They also believe in me as a writer. I’ve learned so much about SEO and affiliate marketing that I can write an eBook. Oh wait, I already wrote an eBook
Blogs are a great way to get started. I began my blog back in 2008. I did cringe at some of my posts and deleted them. But, it was and is great practice. I stretch myself as a write each time I write. I am always striving to top my latest blog post.
Everyone has to start somewhere. If the $5 or $10 posts are where you begin, so be it. You never know who you’ll be working for and the connections those people have. You could rise to the top over night…if you believe it!
The reason that there are so many low-paying “opportunities” is that freelance writing is almost unique in having no barriers to entry. All you really need is a computer, an Internet connection, and the willingness to do the job. (You don’t even need the Internet connection.) Virtually every household in the United States has those — and many households outside the country.
This means that there are always more workers chasing work than there is work. Guess what Econ 101 says about that? And since the Internet provides a perfect marketplace, when there is an oversupply of labor, the cost of labor sinks. And payments stink.
What most newbies do not realize is that there is a market outside the penny-a-word (or fraction-of-penny-a-word) content mills. Pick up a copy of Writer’s Guide and look through the magazine section. You will find hundreds of markets pay $0.25 a word or more. A lot of them are not easy to crack, but it is not impossible.
My first sales were to model-making magazines back in the 1990s. I was getting between $0.07 to $0.10 a word with these hobby publications, and basically I was writing about my hobby. The first “professional” sale I made — in terms of writing for money rather than about my hobby was to Boy’s Life — $0.75 a word. And I had literally NOTHING published before then. What I had was a good query letter about a subject that interested them.
Since then, I have had hundreds of articles published. While some were for less than $0.10/word, those are all for hobby publications — describing stuff I was doing in my spare time, and were plain fun to write about. Everything else has had that $0.10 floor. A lot of it has been for $0.25 to $0.75 per word. And guess what folks — I’ll never have to work as a greeter at Wal-Mart, because even writing part-time (I have a day job), I make more than minimum wage with my writing. And I am spending a lot less than 20 hrs/wk writing.
Everyone has to start somewhere, but you don’t have to start at $5.00 or $10.00 a pop. You are better off spending your time shotgunning queries to magazines that pay a reasonable amount than churning out $4.00 1000-word pieces that get published anonymously.
I average one response for every 15 queries I send out, and I average a lot more than $60.00 for the one piece I write due to that successful query (assuming I would have earned $60 by writing 15 articles at $4.00 each). And at the end of that, I have a clip I can use for my next query.
And — if you do a *good* job for that legitimate publication who picked up your query you can likely get another piece from them pretty easily. Deliver high-quality work, on time and within word count, and they will be thrilled. Develop a working relationship with an editor and they will actually SEND you work.
Don’t like the idea of sending out 15 letters (or e-mails) and getting only four responses — three of which were rejection? Get over it. It’s not about you — it’s business.
And — remember — leave the penny work for chumps. You are better than that. It doesn’t matter whether your are 18 or 60, male or female, housewife or CEO, English major or rocket scientist, or even if you haven’t published anything in your life. Aim high and at very least — you won’t shoot your toes off.
Good post, Mark. Thanks.
In fact, let’s see this part again:
>And — if you do a *good* job for that legitimate publication who picked up your query you can likely get another piece from them pretty easily. Deliver high-quality work, on time and within word count, and they will be thrilled. Develop a working relationship with an editor and they will actually SEND you work.
Don’t like the idea of sending out 15 letters (or e-mails) and getting only four responses — three of which were rejection? Get over it. It’s not about you — it’s business.
As Jennifer L says, “It’s business.” It doesn’t make business sense to me to spend an hour writing something I will get paid $5 for. I could make more working at Burger King (and I wouldn’t need my college degree or my 10+ years of professional experience).
As a work-at-home mom to 2 kids that are in daycare/nursery school for only 15 hours a week, every hour counts. I’d rather spend my time searching for meaningful jobs that pay well and/or give me a good connection.
I’ve taken a hit with the recession and still remind myself that my time would be better spent…hell…doing the LAUNDRY than selling myself short with a $4 gig. I don’t mind getting dirty and taking lower-paying gigs but always I have to ask, “Is this worthy of my time?”
I’m somewhat middle of the road. I have a couple of low paying gigs, but I stick with them because I think they’re either giving me very valuable experience or I just enjoy doing them (like my blog). But I’ve also snagged a few nice paying gigs, which tells me that I can do it if I’m patient and persistent. Right now I’m in a patient/persistent phase and it will pay off eventually. Hopefully before the savings run out again.
Here I would also like to ask you one question… I am a freelance writer and have been in this field for quite some time now. I have tried conventional ways like finding freelance jobs through old trusted network and contemporary sources like online freelance job websites. There are many available like Elance.com, Odesk.com, Guru.com and LimeExchange.com, they offer great features and services but writing projects here are also very less paying. Now what you suggest, which is the best source to get freelance writing jobs, online or old trusted network?
Hi, all.
I am just starting in web copywriting, though I have been published in hard copy press previously. For me a combination of what are comparatively low pay spots that are regular are allowing me to stabilize my income, and Lordy-me did it need stabilizing. Twenty dollars for an article may not seem like much once you are making more, but if I sell even five of those little, low pay fellas in a week I have four hundred dollars more in a month and that four hundred holds the survival line while I look for better spots.
Further, I LIKE them, in an odd way. They are simple, quiet, low stress, bread-and-butter: I can count on them as my baseline. Mixed in with the range of other things I do I feel like they say I am not too proud to do the bread-and-butter work, too.
I’ve been paid, I’ve played real good for free, and I have occasionally been paid very well. Someday maybe the last will become my bread-and-butter baseline. But until it does, the small fry work allows me and my daughter some grace and some breathing room that pride and a refusal to work for so little would not give us.
For most of the $15 per post jobs I can crank out three to four of those an hour with no research and I can do them in short bursts without having to get deep into my writing head first. That means I can make $45 to $60 per hour on a very flexible schedule. And, it’s easy! Why not do it? Even better if your name is NOT on it.
The higher paying gigs are for longer, more specific, detail oriented, writing which often takes research. So that $100 per post sounds like a lot more, but chances are I’m making about the same. Of course, it is much more interesting, and I actually care about what I write.
Yes, you can make far more money cranking out dry, mind-numbing copy for some ad firm, but didn’t you become a freelancer to NOT work for the man? If I’m going to march to the beat tapped out on the drum by some sales exec in a suit, I’m darn sure going to get benefits and an expense account for it.
Don’t even get me started on print publications. Let’s see, I’m supposed to craft a personal letter or email to the editor with a well thought out pitch for an article. Then, I’m supposed to wait until they get back to me. Then once they say yes, I’m supposed to write it, do revisions and submit it (no pay yet). Then, once they accept it, I have to wait until it gets published (at least two months). Then, they will pay me within 60 days of it being published. All in all, 6 months to even see a dime. Even at $1 a word for a 4,500 word article, I’m going to starve to death. Oh, and I have to be doing this constantly in order to get enough Yes answers to make this worth my while. — Pass.
Very nice comments all the way through this post. One problem that many people breaking into freelance writing have is that they have this idealistic dream of sitting at the keyboard as they stare out a picture window with a warm mug of their favorite drink next to them, just typing away doing what they love… writing. Writing is just part of being a freelance writer. You need to network, market yourself, send out queries, and handle the administrative side of running your own business too. I think that there are many people who want to be a freelance writer simply because they want to write, reality says that is simply not enough to ensure that their new venture will be successful.
To those who contend the low-paying jobs are good for “exposure” or to “brush up on writing skills” — sorry, but you’re kidding yourselves.
What you’re really dealing with is people who want to get cheap or free content, quality be damned. No one’s going to stumble on some terrible web magazines hosted on a free blogger account, read your hastily slapped-together, 400-word article on your favorite sports team, and decide they want to hire you. Doesn’t happen.
In the meantime, it’s getting harder for the rest of us to live off of what we make in the writing market. I’m jobless after almost seven years working as a newspaper reporter and a magazine editor, and I have to sift through piles and piles of this “exposure” garbage on job boards every day to find paying assignments.
When I get an assignment from a legit magazine or newspaper I do real work. I pick up the phone and talk to sources or I meet them face-to-face. I do meticulous research, I verify my facts, I put effort into my writing, and I always file clean, accurate copy. I DO NOT sit at my computer for 15 minutes rehashing information from Wikipedia until I’ve hit 400 words. So when I spend hours, days or weeks on an assignment I do expect a living wage. The thing is, it’s getting harder to find those gigs.
The problem I have with the people who work for nothing (or next to nothing) is two-fold:
- They’re letting themselves be taken advantage of by (mostly) sleazy people
- By lowering expectations, they’re encouraging more sleazy “employers” who want the cheapest content possible
Like I said, these guys aren’t in it for the quality. They’re trying to drive hits to their websites so they can raise ad rates, or cramming their illegible weeklies with walls of text in between the ads. If you’re a new writer, or someone looking to break into the field, these people are not going to give you guidance or help shape your career. They’re going to take advantage of you.
Plan, may I ask what your suggestion would be for those of us starting out, then? As someone with very little published work and just trying to find enough income to support a few of my hobbies, at this point, my choices are very poor paying work, or no work. Everyone seems to tell me that I’m wrong about that, but that is all I’ve been able to find. And the only tip I seem to have picked up is to send out more query letters. Everything else that I’ve heard, I am trying/have tried to do.
You seem to be so against anyone taking work from these “sleazy” employers, but don’t seem to have a lot of suggestions of what else to do.
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, my best advice is not to go into the writing field at all. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the entire media industry is collapsing. That’s why you see magazines closing, huge newspapers laying off editorial staff en masse, and respected outlets like the Christian Science Monitor closing print operations altogether. Sure, you could argue that it’s all a byproduct of moving to the web, but outside of a very few niche publications, no company sees the same ad revenues from web as they did from print.
If you’re determined anyway, find those niche publications, make sure you’re on top of your game, and pitch to them. Work with legitimate publishers with phone numbers, street addresses and real products, not online content mills that serve the sleazy types who want 500-word articles for $5.
I can tell you from personal experience that the niche publications are among the few that are still doing well, and they’re your best shot at getting paid regularly and on time. Of the last two magazines I’ve contracted with, one was a national mag that folded and left me holding a couple kill fees, and the other is a highbrow regional lifestyle mag that set a deadline of May and didn’t pay me until November. It’s hard to pay your bills working for publications like that. Meanwhile, I’ve been doing regular work for a tiny niche publication, and it’s steady, reliable income.
Again, steer clear of the content mills run by people looking to take advantage of you for pennies or “exposure.”
And last but not least, READ. There are thousands of terrible articles produced by folks at content mills that start with, “I am an expert in XXX field, and in this article I will tell you how blah blah blah.” Hear that? It’s the sound of people snoring or clicking over to the next site. Sure, we may be an industry of people who get paid to push words around, but a good product still requires hard work, research, attention to detail, and pride in our writing. Read good sites and publications, and make it your priority to produce work at the same level.
Personally, I’m not planning on sticking around this industry too much longer. It’s a sinking ship. But best of luck to you if you dream of making a living as a writer. You’ll need it.
“Don’t even get me started on print publications. Let’s see, I’m supposed to craft a personal letter or email to the editor with a well thought out pitch for an article. Then, I’m supposed to wait until they get back to me. Then once they say yes, I’m supposed to write it, do revisions and submit it (no pay yet). Then, once they accept it, I have to wait until it gets published (at least two months). Then, they will pay me within 60 days of it being published. All in all, 6 months to even see a dime. Even at $1 a word for a 4,500 word article, I’m going to starve to death. Oh, and I have to be doing this constantly in order to get enough Yes answers to make this worth my while. — Pass.”
Then enjoy your tenure as a bottom-feeding “writer” who allows himself to be exploited by content mills.
Your claim of three or four articles an hour, at $15 a piece, with no research required, is a lie. Either you’re copying off Wikipedia or similar sites without attributing the information, or you’re slapping together such garbage that you’ll never be able to include the work on your resume. The $15 claim is almost certainly a stretch as well, since the highest rates at content mills top out at about $4.
Most likely, you’re promoting your own site with anecdotes about inflated rates that don’t exist. Save it, man.
Jenn — if you follow the link to Nelson’s site (which he certainly wants us to do) you’ll find the guy is writing about credit scores, automated blogging and traffic flow.
The posts are poorly written, light on information, and devoid of attribution. In other words, hastily slapped-together junk copied from other websites with a few words switched around so the posts don’t fall into the plagiarism category. (Although I’m sure if you snipped the right sentence fragments, Google would make the whole copy job transparent.)
So unless Mr. Nelson is omnipotent and drawing from his vast and deep well of knowledge about everything credit score-related, he’s doing exactly what I said he’s doing — chopping up Wikipedia entries and repackaging them as his own.
Is that “writing”? Does he really have an endless list of orders for $15 blog posts, or is he taking his best day — or hour — of every month and making it seem typical? Most definitely the latter.
I have a problem with people who devalue the writing market and make it seem as though it’s possible to make a living rewriting junk for content mills. And like I said, the vast majority of those “jobs” pay a whopping penny per word. They’re contracts offered by sleaze, for bottom-dwellers who don’t mind allowing themselves to be exploited for $4 per submission. All of us know you can go to a site like TextBroker and find hundreds of “contracts” for 500-word articles, paying as low as a buck fifty each. If you want to slave away for content mills, I can’t stop you, but if you post on public blogs trying to convince others that it’s a good way to make money, I’m going to call bullshit.
I can understand if someone who has made this their living would be pissed off about the ” content mills”, I mean you pretty much have about 5 or 6 freelance work websites with thousands of employers asking for bulk ” articles”. I put quotation marks on the article part, because they almost aren’t articles — their quickly written snippets used for god knows what and as I am a reader and FL writer, I wouldn’t even be remotely interested in its content let along the stuff I’m forced to write, especially with single keywords as topics.
Another thing. Most of the bulk stuff is bought along with the copyright so in reality, you can’t even use it in your portfolio of works completed — in fact you’d rather not promote that you even created such a thing. Its aside income filler. Gas money more or less. Its something to do when your out of work and the employers around your area are acting like the same outsourced mill machines some love to hate. You have to start somewhere. I blame the publishing culture in the end. Try E-Lance for instance. How is someone supposed to break into a market with these huge resumes of people with Master-Doctorate-J School degrees — that basically have 2 to 3 people who are working as a team to get most of the work and thus monopolize on everything. Then you have those who are paper-degree happy, and won’t even give you the time of day lest you had an English degree of some kind. What in the world is someone going to use an English degree these days? Sorry but at best you were better off with a Business, tech, or science degree of some kind since the progression of the internet. The time it takes to make these expensive queries and article plans — someone they know will walk in their office and get the job via nepotism.
I personally think as a general rule, one should get themselves a pretty good traditional job, and do this type of thing on the side. Its a bit too chaotic, you may get a few good gigs and then poof. Nothing. Lest you write for a magazine or publication of some kind.
But I do blame the sloth like system the old publication companies have gripped too in an age where printed media can be condensed in a PDF these days or put on Amazon’s Kindle.
People who are complaining need to suck it up. Do you really think this is the only field in which seasoned professionals are earning less because more desperate, less experienced people are willing to work for less?
In 2005, I worked in the publishing industry and my job was outsourced. It took four people to replace me (not native English speakers and definitely not in the United States) and their combined salaries were less than half of mine, which wasn’t so great to begin with as it was an entry-level job.
My stepdad is an IT professional approaching retirement age. He was laid off. Who is going to hire someone in his position when there are recent college grads with fresh certifications willing to work for a quarter of his lowest salary requirement?
I’m not saying it’s right–or fair–but it is the way business works. At least as freelance writers, each of us can set our rates and limit how low we are willing to go. If you are willing to supplement higher-paying workloads with content mill work, then it’s good that it’s there. I’m grateful for it. If I’ve worked a full freelance day and have spent time on a high-paying article, marketing, invoicing, and research and still feel like working, by all means…I’ll crank out a few DS articles. Nothing wrong with that–it’s earning a living. If I feel motivated, I’ll take advantage of it!