Also, everyone has their own needs. I don’t like people telling me how I must handle my freelance writing business and what type of wage I’m supposed to accept. It’s my career after all. People are quick to offer one-size-fits-all “solutions” which will supposedly increase your writing income. But they are slow to understand different people have different lifestyles.

Livable all depends on what you feel is important to you and for me that is waking up every morning and being well enough to hug my kids, kiss my wife and let the chickens out of the pen. After that, it’s all a bonus. Cheers Perry

Here’s why: we are NOT alone in earning less than we feel we’re worth. And we can make choices that will radically increase our income.

Re Not being alone:

In theory (for example) we see care of our young children and infants as so important that many women leave their careers to be available to their little ones. Yet preschool teachers make $10-$15 per hour.

Clergy, in general, are paid poorly (many, with masters degrees and years of experience, make $40K or less).

NonProfit managers, educators, writers, fundraisers, etc at museums, theaters, social service agencies and even health care institutions make less than similarly credentialed people in for-profit settings.

Re doing better financially:

I’ve seen many peers do better than me financially, because they actively chose a more lucrative career (law, medicine, business). I certainly could have chosen to go into those fields, but I didn’t. I had my eyes open – and could easily see that the arts, social service, and science typically are less lucrative than business.

We can make different choices if we so choose! In fact (just fyi) – a writer who specializes in, say, pharmaceutical sales brochures, can make a WHOLE lot more money than a writer who blogs exclusively. Same goes for ad copy writing, and even grant writing.

I personally want to do it all – and as a result, I make a moderate to good income. I could easily imagine someone doing a whole lot better than I, though, just by specializing differently.

Lisa

I think $10/hour is an insulting wage (nevermind whether or not it’s livable). Good writing, especially when paired with other skills, such as marketing, design or SEO, is worth much, much more than that. Years of experience plus graduate-level education should warrant more than $10/hour. But I understand this post is about a livable wage.

For me, a livable wage is nothing less than $25/hour. Of course, that’s only because I’d like to continue paying bills on time, save for retirement, save for a rainy day and maintain good credit. But maybe that’s just me.

Basically for me a living wage is $10 an hour but only because we get government assistance for the kids (everybody earning under $150K a year gets the benefit on a sliding scale)and so on so I could actually make nothing and still afford to live. Mind you we live on a budget, don’t smoke or gamble and we save and pay cash for everything, no loans or credit cards. We also save the first 10% of every dollar we get and I run our house like a business.

So I consider myself a wealthy man, and free to boot. I shudder when I read how my American brothers and sisters have to pay $700 a month for healthcare or stick at lousy jobs just in case a loved one gets sick. As for having a degree, last year I did a Master of Arts in Writing, was paid while I studied and will only ever pay the tuition back by installments when my taxable income exceeds $40K pa. Given I had robotic mitral valve surgery this year where we spent more on visitor parking than medical expenses I really would be wasting my life and my good fortune to be an Australian if I didn’t follow my dream and write fulltime. So for me it’s not so much a case of what is a living wage but how can I not afford to write?

That’s a factor for many though. I have a friend whose husband would love to work from home by becoming self-employed, but they need the insurance coverage, so until their daughter is grown, they don’t want to risk it.

If I didn’t have that insurance coverage, I’m not convinced I’d still be working from home.

This isn’t to disparage employees. I worked in newspapers for 13 years, and at a magazine for one. But the income as an independent (if working “full-time”) needs to be more than that of an employee

Winter around here seems to have arrived early. It was 19 when I got up and I’m just not ready for it. In the winter, you look at additional bills for heating, electricity because you need lights before 7:30am and after 4pm and snow removal if you don’t do it yourself. Not to mention trying to start a car in 20 below weather that ends up in costly jumps or oil hose thawing for some. So I know our bills are going to skyrocket from here until March/April.

I’m a reporter for the most important newspaper in my state and I’m paid $10 an hour. My wife earns $15 an hour as a copywriter for a nearby advertising firm. We pay our bills, taxes and healthcare and still have money to spare at the end of the month.

We would love to earn more money but the jobs aren’t there, at least not where I live. I’m sorry to we’re hurting the profession but it’s either that or the welfare line. That’s what I wish some writers would understand. What are we supposed to do while between higher paying jobs, starve?

Freelancers must pay income taxes, social security taxes, and health care or insurance costs unless insured by a spouse. Subtract that from $10/hour, and then think about paying back student loans.

I know of no other profession that requires a degree that pays as little as $10/hour. Few pay as little as $20/hour.

If you work for $10/hour, you are hurting the profession. Please don’t. We need to establish the value of our services. Working at the poverty level contradicts that.

Since we compete in a marketplace, I think that it is helpful to think in terms of replacement costs rather then living wages; since that is the thing that actually determines what an employer has to pay to get the work done.

I spent a couple of minutes Googling writers and found a range of about $30K/yr – 65K/yr. This was for three categories, technical writer, writer and content writer with 1-4 years experience. You can safely assume that it costs the employer another 15-25% for payroll and benefits, some of which you have to pay yourself as a freelancer and the rest of which you simply don’t get.

But wait there is more…

It is very clear that charging by the hour is a losing strategy. You will do better charging per project, and in my experience, clients much prefer a flat figure to budget with.

Steve Slaunwhite did a “Schedule Of Copywriter Fees” for the 2008 Copywriters Summit. He lists everything by the project – a very casual analysis suggests that the average is about $50-75 hour for most kinds of work – ie brochures, speeches, newsletters. Note that Steve is very clear that this pricing is for mid-range talent – not the newbs and not the rock stars.

Figure that on average you will be able to bill 25-30 hours a week (say $1,250-1,500). There are a lot of activities that are not billable, there are projects you take that are below average and there is time needed for marketing and administration.

Based on all that I would say that assuming a 40 hour week, $25-30/hr is a livable wage ($1K-$1.2K/wk) – about $50K/yr which is pretty much in line with what you would get on staff less benefits.

FWIW in my experience, if you have the discipline and skills to stay that busy you will make much more.

I’ll also say this about that: it’s a wonderful feeling to be able to write what you want. I’m quite excited to say I’m the new “Green Home” Examiner – which means I now have the opportunity to build my chops (and knowledge) as a “green” writer while getting paid for it.

I don’t expect Examiner (or Demand, or any other aggregator) to offer me a “living wage.” But what they do offer is an opportunity to develop a new knowledge set on their nickel.

IMHO, it’s a win-win.

Lisa

I appreciate your thoughts, but that’s not what this discussion is about. I often see bloggers discussing a livable wage. All freelancers place a different value on their work, but what I’m wondering is, what is a livable wage? Of course we want to earn $50 an hour – that’s a desirable wage and not what I’m looking for here.

I know my lifestyle could not suit everyone, though–no cable, vegetarian/vegan food, bookstore and cafe dates, no drinking, and little to no shopping. Now that I make way more than a living wage as a writer (about $25 per hour is my minimum, but that doesn’t include if I get hit with a huge amount of edits or obscure photo requests), I find my tastes have not changed much, except for the occasional mojito!

Despite what the lobbyists in Washington say, the minimum wage is not a living wage. Not even close.

Folks, we are the literati. We can read, write, spell and some of us can even do ‘rithmetic. This puts us in the top 5-10% of the national workforce and probably the top 3% of the global workforce.

The demand for writers has never been greater. It is simple supply and demand – there are more pages then words to fill them.

Sure, if I want to make money from a site, and I need 100 or 1,000 pages I want to pay as little as I can. Good for you.

But from my perspective it is possible that those folks are excessively greedy. Or hopelessly naive. The fact that lots of people have business plans based on you or I working for nothing is their problem, not oours.

No one that I know lives the freelance life because it is easy or secure. They do it because they are rewarded for the risk they take and the expertise they offer. They go it alone not because they want to make a living wage, but because they want to do much better then the average bear.

Give yourself some love. Recognize that if you are a capable writer, you do something most people can not do – and not only can they not do it, they hate to do it. So get paid accordingly.

Remember that there are three reasons that a company or individual can be successful. In each situation, one is always dominant. They are superior creative (be it wordsmithing or widget design), superior customer service and superior value (usually a more complete product, not a less expensive one).

Pick one. Even if you want to be the price leader, do not commoditize your services. Once it is only about price, its game over. That’s why a lot of people would rather do a project for free (and have the client owe them one) then establish a low price point and never get a raise.

Visualize the life you want. Then charge enough to head you in that direction.

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/wri/1397168874.html

As a professional translator who translates about three news articles per day, I can tell you that translating three articles of this type is about five hours of work…if you are fast, skilled, and use translation tools. Even if you could do it in three hours (if the articles were exceptionally easy), this works out to $5 per hour, which is most certainly not a livable wage, much less a desirable one.

Demand says they provide content that has been through a “translation tool” – the implication being that you will only need to do light editing to the articles. Most translators already use translation tools to some extent, and they do not produce quality translations. They are only used to help the translator get the gist of the topic and make suggestions on phrasing.

The offer from Demand is just wrong on many levels.

I hope you publish my comment so more people become aware of the low rates Demand is offering to professionals.

My health insurance alone is $700 a month, and isn’t one of the so-called Cadillac plans.

Plus, as you mention, I believe a person just trying to get by is missing the boat. Do you want to take vacations, have money set aside for emergencies, have retirement funds, send your kids to college, etc? Though I do take on projects that pay a lot less, I’m no less a professional than a plumber ($75 an hour), accountant ($90+plus per hour) or similar person. So those are the fees I’m looking for. A lot of our time has to be spent finding clients, doing billing, etc. Employees don’t have those non-paid duties.