If You Give a Freelance Writer a Low Paying Job
February 16, 2009 by Deb Ng
Filed under Freelance Writing
by Deb
If you give a freelance writer a low paying job
She’s going to ask for more to make ends meet.
When you give her more, she’ll probably work ten hours a day.
When she’s finished she’ll realize the $60 earned won’t be enough to buy the weekly groceries so she’ll ask for more even work.
As she’s writing she’ll realize she can’t keep up the pace
so she’ll invest in an article spinning program that cost more than the project.
So she’ll probably ask for more work.
Once she has more work than she can handle and more articles than she can spin,
she’ll probably take some shortcuts.
She’ll want to give it all a Google.
Once she’s on Google she’ll see so many others have written on the same subject and it all looks the same.
So she’ll probably make her article the same too, and borrow from the other writers.
The words are hers but they don’t say anything new.
“This is easy” she’ll think and request even more low paying work.
And you’ll probably give her everything she asks for.
She may have to hire other writers to get everything done within the deadline. Paying them $2 while keeping $2 for herself.
They’ll realize a couple of dollars for an article isn’t a whole lot of money so they’ll ask for more work.
Because for some reason it’s easier to ask for more work than more money.
Soon all the new writers are working for slave wages, and chances are,
if you give one freelance writer a low paying job, others will soon follow suit.
I love this, Deb.
Thanks Marye. It was running through my head last night and I couldn’t sleep until I wrote it all down.
Great post about how one thing leads to another, Deb. Reminds me of the ‘for want of a nail ..’ thing.
Thanks Sharon. My son loves the “If you give a mouse a cookie…” series which is what made me think of this.
…And thanks for the retweet!
Deb,
Great take on a fantastic children’s book series. My daughter loves those books, too. This is BRILLIANT!
As the mother of an almost-three-year-old who worships the whole “If you give a mouse a cookie” series and as a freelancer who grumbles about low-paying jobs, may I just say, “Bravo!” I so, so love this. And it is so true!
This is very cute and very accurate. My kids love “If you give a mouse a cookie,” but they enjoy the “If you give a moose a muffin” more.
While I wasn’t article spinning, I took a job about a year ago to write blogging. I had never blogged before so I kept it at the mid to low range for price although the articles I was creating was worth so much more. The client realized this and started sending me more work, which I took (of course, can’t just eat one cookie now can I).
Anyway, long story short, I finally clued in on what I was doing and (gasp) asked for more money, which the client agreed to but then the client realized that there were some new writers who would work for a lot less than I charged. After that, the work stopped and the client found a new mouse…err…writer who would work for crumbs.
I will have to share the link this morning since a lot of people would find it enjoyable.
excellent deconstruction of the writing process for key tappers
moderate what?