The 4 Traits You Need to Make a Living Writing

There’s a lot of advice out there about getting started in freelance writing, but I think most books and ebooks skip over one of the fundamental steps to success: Before quitting your job and jumping into freelance writing, a would-be writer would be wise to take an honest look at their personality and history to assess whether they have the skills to be successful.

I’m not talking about “Do you write well?” Many freelance writers string words together beautifully, but they still can’t manage to make more than a few thousand a year with their writing.

Here are some of the other talents, besides writing, that I believe you need to make a good living as a freelance writer:

• Self-discipline. If you were left alone at your house all day, would you research topics, conduct interviews, write articles and turn them in on deadline, or would you watch TV and empty the refrigerator? If you don’t have the drive to focus on your business during your business hours, you will not make a good income.

• Willing to sell yourself. Are you willing to write query letters, research markets, respond to job ads, and do in-person and on-line marketing of your business, each and every week? Successful freelancers constantly market themselves. If that makes you feel uncomfortable, it would probably be hard to make freelance writing pay well.

• Willing to deal with rejection. Successful freelancers constantly look for new clients and try to break in with new editors. Even when you’re fully booked, you still look for better clients so you can swap them in and drop poorer-paying ones. That’s how writers progress to where they’re earning really substantial sums. If sending a query letter and not ever getting an answer makes you need to curl up in a ball on your couch and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every time, freelance writing will not make you richer – just fatter. Pros send dozens of queries and resumes a month and know that maybe one of them will pay off, and they’re fine with it. It’s just business.

• Willing to say “no.” Do you have a hard time turning work offers down, no matter how wretched the pay or conditions? If so, you would be in real trouble as a freelance writer, especially in the Web 2.0 era. There are many opportunities to write for almost nothing these days. If you have trouble setting healthy boundaries with people, especially employers, freelance writing won’t end up being lucrative for you.

So – what do you think? Are you cut out for freelance writing? Did I leave out any other important traits you need to succeed? Comment and let me know.

7 Reasons Why I Won’t Write a $15 Blog

Recently, I had a disturbing week looking for freelance writing gigs. I concentrate on applying for jobs where one of my areas of specialized knowledge is required, because I know there’s lots of lowball pricing for general topics. Surely, they can’t get a student, Third-World resident, or wannabe writer to write about arcane legal areas or variable annuities, so rates there should still be a living wage – or so I thought.

One week, I applied for several legal writing gigs. Two of them got back to me. One paid $20-$40 per 400-600-word article. The other, an agency which claims it has more than 200 law-firm clients, paid $15-$30 a blog. This second guy had called on the phone and was clearly serious about hiring, unlike the many flaky email nibbles I get off resumes I send.

After I informed him that I did not work for remotely those rates and hung up…I thought about it a lot. I wish I had kept him on the phone so I could have asked this recruiter some questions.

Questions like, “Are you serious?” and “Is that even legal?” and “Do you actually find qualified people willing to write legal content at those rates?” and “Don’t you feel ashamed to be offering what will work out to less than the minimum hourly wage (more than $8 here in Washington State) for a very specific writing skill that requires years of experience?”

He let me know his current team was “pretty maxed out” – yeah, I’ll bet. More likely that was code for “It’s really hard to find anyone who can do this work competently at these rates.” To which I say, good.

I thought a lot about this call because for a tiny moment, just an instant really, I considered taking this gig. Legal is easy for me…OK, I’d have to work a LOT of hours to make it into anything like a living…if each blog took an hour, it would take me all day and night to earn something like my normal hourly rate…but this firm has a lot of clients I could connect with. Maybe I should take this and hope to build the account into some better-paying work .

Then I snapped out of it, and wrote this:

7 Reasons Why I Won’t Write A $15 Blog

1. I’d rather quit writing. If that’s all I’m going to make, I’d rather go out on the lawn and play Frisbee with my kids. They’ll only be young once. If I can’t really pay the bills writing, I should pack it in and enjoy life.

2. I won’t be part of the problem. I won’t contribute to the current downward spiral in pay rates by accepting insulting pay. If I accept this kind of work, it reinforces the idea that high-quality content on specialized topics can be obtained from professional writers at one-tenth or less of what was, until recently, market rates. I refuse to be part of the problem.

3. Low paying work begets more low-paying work. Say I worked for this legal content sweatshop, and managed to convince one of their clients to work for me directly. Even if the connection helped me land other clients and I cut out the middleman, I’m doubtful the wages would be appropriate. Any client I got through my association with this low-payer would likely also want to pay me joke wages. Once customers have the impression you’re cheap, it’s hard to convince them that you’re not.

4. I’d rather get a day job. At those rates, I could make more money as an assistant manager at a fast-food place, and work on that novel in my off hours. So if it comes to it, I’ll do something else to pay the bills. My creativity will be fairly compensated, or I’ll earn money another way. I type fast – I have made a living as a secretary in the past, and could again.

5. I want to take a stand. I believe we’re at a turning point in the world of online content that requires taking a moral stand. Thousands of scam operators have flooded into the marketplace, hoping to get writers to write for peanuts and then either resell the work for much more, or sell ads against them and make much more, or sell their whole Web site to someone else and make a killing – all off our backs. What they’re doing is morally wrong. So my basic sense of decency and justice demands that I resist exploitation. Accepting low-pay assignments may pay a few bills in the short term – emphasis on a few – but in the long term it will foster more exploitation. That’s why, for the sake of our vocation’s future, it’s important to refuse.

6. I have good-paying clients. I’ve been afraid to say this out loud for fear of jinxing it – but I still have some very good-paying work. Contrary to what you may have heard, there are still magazines and corporate accounts out there that understand that writers who freelance need to make an appropriate wage, or they’ll soon leave the vocation and be unavailable to create the content clients need to keep growing. Maybe there are fewer of them, but I know they still exist. That knowledge makes it easier to turn down slave-wage gigs.

7. Market forces will raise rates in time. As the economy improves, I believe the pool of good freelancers who can deliver sophisticated, quality content is going to shrink dramatically as many find new jobs. Then rates will naturally be driven back up as it becomes harder to find qualified writing help. I know writers who are already getting jobs in other fields. The fact that Demand Studios recently announced a plan to offer some of its writers health care is a sign that we’ve hit the saturation point. These sweatshops are struggling to attract the talent they need, and that their compensation is going to start to improve.

While professionals from other fields who want to write articles to market their services will always be around, and won’t care how little such articles pay… there aren’t enough pro writers who’ll take these rates to go around. So rates are going to rise.

I believe this is not a new normal – this is a momentary market glitch in our industry that’s taken root due to the downturn. Meanwhile, people are not going to stop reading quality publications, and companies will still need to communicate clearly with their customers in the future. The economy will recover, most content-mill writers will probably get jobs and leave, and rates will rise.

The only way to stop the exploitation is for professional writers to say “no” to insultingly low rates. I’m willing to be the first writer to publicly stand up and do that. Will you join me? If so, sign thepetition on my Web site and pledge never to work for less than $50 an assignment. The first step in bringing more power to writers is to organize.

Why $50? That’s what I got paid per article when I first started out in 1999. Rates shouldn’t be lower now, accounting for inflation. So I think that’s a good cutoff.

Who knows? Maybe Lance Armstrong or Amazon.com (have you seen their mill, Amazon Mechanical Turk?) would improve their pay rather than face public embarrassment over their rates.

If we pull together, we could create that public pressure. Maybe the number of clients for these mills could be decreased if we raised public awareness of the situation. That would grow the pool of better-paying markets for freelancers to approach on their own and lessen the profiteering mill owners are currently able to do off writers’ labor.

Want to quit the content mills and learn how to make a good living writing? I mentor a maximum of three writers a month and teach them how to earn more. Also hoping to complete my e-book shortly on this topic, Make a Living Writing — if you’re interested in a copy, email me and I’ll put you on the list to get a notice when it comes out.

How to Tell if You’re Qualified for Freelance Writing Jobs

I recently forwarded a job listing to one of my mentees. She has a background interviewing celebrities, and it was a media/communications job at a movie studio. I thought that might be a great segue for her as she was looking for something new… She replied to me that she didn’t think she was qualified for the job, so she didn’t apply.

Woah! That really took me aback, because I’ve never let lack of official qualifications stop me from getting writing assignments.

As a freelance writer who happens to lack a college degree, I routinely apply for jobs that require a B.A. In fact, hardly any job listing I’ve applied for in my career didn’t list some requirement I didn’t have.

I believe that lists of qualifications for writing jobs are highly fungible. The company is basically guessing at what sort of background the person they need would have, what they would have done before and what education level they would have reached. Probably most of the people who could do it well would have a 4-year degree. But then there’s me. I’m an exception. I let my clips explain to them that I’m the best candidate.

Let me reiterate my longtime philosophy of freelance writing — clients, from magazines to major corporations, don’t really care whether you learned how to write well at an Ivy League university or under a freeway overpass. Do you have strong clips that fit their niche? Then apply. And in my experience, you will get hired!

I actually would never have ended up with a well-paying writing career if it weren’t for my habit of applying randomly for any job I thought I could do, while disregarding listed requirements. My first full-time writing job I’m quite certain required a B.A. at least. It was business writing, which I’d never done. But I thought it sounded intriguing and like I could do the work, and my husband’s job was ending and I needed a full-time gig. I’d been reporting on community activists for an alternative paper, and this was for a Park Avenue business trade publication.

They interviewed me, and then I was among 20 people they asked to do a trial assignment. They told me later I was the only one who wrote something they found publishable. From there I got another full-time gig that I’m sure required a B.A., and then on to my past four great years of freelancing. I’ve written for a global insurance consultancy and a major national business-information provider. I’ve applied for and gotten many gigs in recent years, all the while ignoring ‘requirements’ and sending my clips.

Here’s the litmus test to tell whether you’re qualified for a freelance writing job: Do you think you could do it?

Then send your clips over and let them show what you can do.

What to Do About Low-Pay Writing Jobs Ads

I’ve been blown away by the response to my 7 Reasons I Won’t Write a $15 Blog post. It’s been around the world, to Jerusalem, Italy and who knows where-all else! It is by far my most popular and retweeted post ever in my year-plus of posting my Make a Living Writing blog.

Many who signed the petition have written me on email as well to ask what’s coming next, and what more they can do to help. I do have some things planned – I’m hoping we can organize to raise public awareness about the issue of low pay for writers, and shine some light on the high-profile players involved.

But in the meanwhile, here’s the best thing you can do right now, on your own, about content mills and other writing ads that promise ridiculously low per-article fees:

Ignore them.

I didn’t say it would be an easy thing, did I? But really, that is the single best action you can take. Don’t send them snarky emails – I know, it’s tempting, and I’ve done it myself in the past.

Don’t waste time on your online forums discussing the insulting nature of these pay rates (“$25 for 1,000 well-researched words? Unbelievable!”), dissecting the ad, emailing the poster for more details, or telling friends about it. Don’t be distracted by these ads, or get depressed or discouraged by them. Skip right over these writing “opportunities,” and move on to finding ones that pay appropriately.

Don’t spend time worrying that the content mills are driving rates down or lowering standards for online content. These are things that we as individual writers can’t control. Stay focused on what you can control – your efforts to market your business.

The more time you spend in productive marketing activities – cold calling, in-person networking, working your online social network, writing query letters, researching legitimate publications and corporations that pay professional writers a fair wage – the more good-paying accounts you will have. That’s been my strategy for several months now, and I’ve landed four major new clients recently with projects mostly paying around $1 a word. So don’t let lowball ads make you think they are all that’s out there. They’re not.

As I accumulate petition signers, plans will firm up for the next step in my larger plan to fight the virtual sweatshop companies. Until then, keep building your business!

More on “The Day the Content Mills Died”

There’s been so much discussion on my LinkedIn groups of how “most Internet publishers pay only $10, or $5 or $3 per article” lately that I had to revisit this topic. Why? Two reasons.

1) There are so many better-paying markets out there. Just in the past week I saw a $50-a-blog ad. That’s for everyone who wrote me to say they couldn’t survive financially if they signed my petition and pledged not to write for less than $50 an assignment!

Also see Deb Ng’s valuable article 40 Freelance Writing Markets Paying $100 Or Much More on her site, FreelanceWritingGigs.com. I’m going to write my own manifesto on good-paying markets soon, but this will help open your mind in the meanwhile. Personally, this fall I’m writing more than 25 online articles at around $1 a word for a major business-information firm, to name just one great-paying online-content gig I’m working on right now. Just don’t believe the negativity and hype, and go out and find companies who want to pay you well for your writing expertise. They’re out there.

2) Content mills’ low-pay model is failing. Market forces are compelling content-aggregators to do more to attract good writers. There are too many writer sites and not enough decent writers to go around. So they’re starting to compete with each other and improve their offers to writers. You may know Demand Studios began offering healthcare to its frequent contributors a month ago. Next up: Allvoices, which has launched ProVoices, its content site for professionals that pays up to $250 for articles. They were advertising for writers in the past week.

I think Allvoices realizes that low-quality content is a game of diminishing returns. As companies discover that content somebody researched and wrote in 20 minutes won’t help them get or keep clients, they will cease buying $15 articles and seek professionally researched and written material. So Allvoices is smartly getting into the business of providing this higher-grade content. I believe they have seen the future – and it pays better! ProVoices may be a good option for out-of-work reporters looking to make some money and get some exposure while they job-hunt. Certainly, $250 an article is not optimal but it is a huge step up from $15.

3)Mill customers may be going away. Another development to watch this week: Some content customers are getting into creating their own content, cutting the mills out of the loop. AOL apparently plans to start using a Demand-like algorithm to determine what site visitors want to read about and quickly deliver content packages, potentially working with advertisers to create “complementary copy” on key subjects to accompany their ads. While the current pay plan appears to be revenue share (sigh), it says $100 an article for hot topics will be possible, which if real would be a big improvement over typical mill rates.

If AOL gets into this…why wouldn’t writers work directly for AOL instead of some relatively no-brand content mill? As it happens, I write for part of AOL – AOL Careers – through a third party. It’s one of my lower-paying gigs at around $300 a fully reported story, but I do it because the exposure is MASSIVE! My tagline links to my Web site and it has been a great marketing tool. If this new AOL work is bylined writing, it could be an interesting new bottom-rung opportunity. I’ve been approached by some AOL sections directly, and pay seems to range from $50 up.

Which content mill will be next to improve its writer pay and perks as they seek to hang onto their clients? Which companies will start their own, better-paying content factories? I can’t wait to find out.

4 Myths of the Writer’s Recession

As I talk to my mentees and circulate on the writing chat boards, I’m hearing a few themes repeat themselves over and over. They are themes of hopelessness and negativity about our current writing market. So today I’d like to explode four myths about the current economy for writers.

Myth #1: You can’t get any new accounts right now. Heard frequently: “Everyone’s getting 200 resumes when they post an ad, and I just don’t stand a chance.” It’s just baloney. Personally, I’ve gotten several good corporate clients by answering online ads in the past few months.

For the most part they’re paying very well, in the $.50-$1 a word neighborhood. People who’re looking to move up from the $15-article ranks should know I turned down three freelance offers in the past month as they paid below my minimum rates — one paid $70 an article, one $50, and another $40. Look at this Craigslist ad posted today for Web articles at $50-$150! So there are good move-up opportunities for people at the lower-pay levels, too.

2. Myth #2: There are no full-time writing jobs. While there may be fewer jobs than there are applicants, there most certainly are full-time job openings in writing. Let’s take a virtual tour over to MediaBistro (8 FT jobs posted in the past week) and JournalismJobs.com (more than 20 FT jobs in the past 2 weeks).

Gorkana is another great place to look for full-time gigs — I get an alert from them that usually has 30 or more full-time jobs listed each week, mostly in traditional media with a finance/Wall Street emphasis, but some Web writing, too. Also see LinkedIn, where my job-catcher set on “writer/copywriter/reporter/blogger” has posted 15 full-time writing jobs in the past 2 weeks, in fields including healthcare, marketing, technical writing and Web content.

Myth #3: Rates are plummeting, and they’ll never recover. Lots of discussion about this on the forums. Reality: not only aren’t rates plummeting, in many sectors they are already rising again.

True, some magazines have cut their rates a bit, if ads are down. Some markets have gone kapoof. But many survivors continue to pay $.75-$1 a word. In general, my experience is that rates have stayed much as they were for both the magazine and copywriting work I do. On average, I haven’t had to lower my hourly rates or per-word prices this year.

It’s just that a whole new economy of low-priced Web content articles and blogs has been created that’s grabbing all the attention. But there’s already a light at the end of that low-pay tunnel — see my previous blog More on ‘The day the content mills died’. This market hit bottom early this year and is on the way back up, raising rates and adding perks.

Myth #4: Prospecting is hard, takes too long, and doesn’t pay off. I have to ask: Are you really frightened of standing around an art gallery or bar with a drink and a snack in your hand, meeting new people and finding out about their freelance needs? It’s not torture. I’ll tell you a secret — it’s actually fun! You get out of your computer cave for once and meet people.

You can devote as much or as little time to prospecting and networking as you choose. Make it a half-hour a day on Twitter, send marketing InMails to targeted prospects on LinkedIn, go to a Biznik event every week…it’s up to you. But do it…because it works!

One client I met at a live networking event pays $300 for articles that appear on AOL and Yahoo!, where my tagline is a live link to my Web site. Massive marketing exposure plus half-decent pay, for articles that are fairly easy to find sources for and write. Another I got through Twitter pays $750 for marketing case studies. Another prospect I’m still working on getting a first assignment from edits online content for a Fortune 50 corporation…an amazing connection I never would have made if I hadn’t done in-person networking.

Would you invest a few hours a month in marketing to find clients that would increase your writing income by $20,000 a year or more? In my experience, that’s an easily achievable goal.

To sum up, don’t believe what you hear around chat boards where many posters are dabbling or just getting started. Things just aren’t as bleak out there as they’re made out to be. This was my best earning year ever, and I’m expecting to top it next year.

And ultimately, I find that’s what it’s about: expectations. What you expect of your career, you make happen. So be a mythbuster in ’10 and find some good-paying writing assignments! They’re out there.

5 Good-Paying Writing Niches

My main reason for blogging is to help writers make more money from their work. These days, for the most part, that means finding a good-paying writing niche. We all know that thanks to the content sites, articles on general topics like how to remove mold from your bathroom may never pay decently again. So what does? Specialized types of writing that require specialized knowledge.

So here’s five of my favorite good-paying writing niches. These are all niches I’ve worked in myself. Next week, I’ll post about more writing niches that I know pay well.

1. Trade publications. This is the niche where I landed my first full-time writing gig. I still freelance for trade pubs, for around $750 an article. Trade pubs usually can pay decently well even though their readership is usually relatively small, because their ads are expensive as they offer a unique opportunity to reach a particular audience.

There are trade pubs in every imaginable industry niche, and they don’t have to be terrifically technical industries. I’ve written for trade pubs about home improvement, restaurant and retail. In healthcare alone, there are more than 20 trade pubs, including America’s Pharmacist, Biotechnology Healthcare, Modern Physician, Plastic Surgery News, Managed Care, and Southern California Physician.

Have you dabbled in a technical field as a hobby, been a legal secretary, a teacher, an engineer, a medical receptionist, or had an unusual college major? Likely there’s a trade publication that could use your help explaining industry trends to their sophisticated professional audience. In my five years writing full-time for a trade pub, we were never fully staffed.

2. White papers. This is the hottest piece of collateral in marketing right now. It’s sales material that doesn’t feel “sales-y,” and it’s incredibly effective in getting clients — see this study for details. If you’ve written articles, case studies or reports, you can easily learn this niche.

I got approached by a communications firm to write a 6-page white paper in ’08 for a Fortune 50 company, and it paid $2,500 – about $1 a word – for my very first one, which was essentially three brief case studies. More complicated, longer white papers pay much more. Follow the masters,Michael Stelzner and Robert Bly, to learn more about this lucrative area.

3. Corporate web content. While writers moan and wail about ads for cheap Web content, major corporations – particularly ones that do something complicated or technical – are paying handsomely for authoritative, well-researched and expertly written Web content created about their products and services. To get the best rates, think big – Fortune 1000 companies or $1 billion+ private companies, though mid-sizers can pay decently, too.

I connected with one global private company three years ago when they were relaunching their complex Web site and rewriting all the content, and made probably $60,000 in several years, just from one client. I’ve been paid $95 an hour and/or $1 a word for content like this, straight through the downturn.

4. Research reports. Do you enjoy sleuthing around and turning up information? If so, there are a number of good-paying gigs writing research reports. For several years, I did quality-of-management research on CEOs of small public companies for investment firms. I’d find where the CEO used to work, research past news clips on the company, find former coworkers, and interview them about the CEO. Took about a week. I got paid $1,500-$3,500 a project, and I found the work challenging and fun.

5. Blogging and social media. I know what you’re thinking – that all pays $15 a blog, right? Not if you’re blogging for major magazines or corporations. I just finished a rush job of 20 short blogs for a business-services firm that paid nearly $1 a word. They were part of a $10,000 package of Web articles and blogs, mostly at the same rate level.

Because it’s so new, it’s great expertise to have and rates are high. Expert Chris Marlow did some research on people who were combining copywriting with social-media expertise in job bids, and found the typical hourly rate they reported was $350 an hour. Take a minute to absorb that concept!

I believe social media is the hottest new writing opportunity out there. You just need the right kind of clients. In the last half of ’09, I signed my first few clients where article writing is coupled with social media – blogging for them on other sites and/or tweeting on the company’s behalf. I did one $1-a-word article package recently for a major company’s Facebook fan page. If you enjoy social media, the work’s fun. Often, the marketing exposure’s great, too…and I expect this niche to boom in ’10.

8 More Good-Paying Writing Niches

Last week, I discussed some of the writing niches I’ve personally mined to make good money. This week, I’ll talk about some of the other good-paying writing specialties out there. A few of these I’m interested in getting into myself, or I’ve dabbled with them in the past. I’m going to use rate quotes from my 2009 Writer’s Market to discuss pay.

1. Technical writing. If you can talk to software engineers and translate what they’ve created into a user manual consumers can understand, you will make a lot of money. Ditto for medical device makers. The biggest problem facing most of the technical writers I’ve met is they can’t kick the habit and write anything else, because this pays so much better. Plenty of this work is still around, despite some offshoring. Writer’s Market says top rates are $125 an hour.

2. Article ghosting. How many times have you pitched a magazine or newspaper editor a company profile, written it, and gotten perhaps $100-200? What if instead, you sussed out when special sections were coming out that might need guest articles written by executives, and approached those busy executives about ghostwriting a really strong article for them. I have a friend who does this, and gets $1,200 an article, including pitching the publication. Brilliant, eh? Great approach to improving your pay.

3. Grant writing. Many of us have a soft spot for good causes. If that’s you, you might explore helping them win grants to support their work. I’ve done a tiny bit of this, and if you can carefully follow instructions and write well, you can do it. Small nonprofits may want you to do it as a volunteer, or for a cut of what they get. Do one sample and then move up. Top rates hit $125 an hour or better.

4. Curriculum design. If you’re an academic type, maybe a former or current teacher, know that there is a vast need out there for people who can write courses in a way that students will find appealing and accessible. E-learning is exploding, and someone has to write each online class. I see listings in the online job ads for this category all the time. $100 an hour is WD’s top rate.

5. Company magazines. Many large companies publish magazines for their employees, customers, or franchisees. They pay like trade pubs from what I’ve seen, $.75-$1 a word. Linda Formichelli recently related to Jennifer Mattern of All Freelance Writing how she broke into better-paying markets freelancing for AKFCF Quarterly, KFC’s magazine for their franchisees. Other company magazine examples: Here’s one Raytheon does for customers and prospects: Defender. And Tractor Supply Co. does one for its mostly-rural customers, Out Here. And of course there’sCostco Connection. The possibilities are literally endless – look around the next time you’re in a chain store to find more of these opportunities.

6. Airline magazines. Airline mags are one of the best-paying consumer magazine types. Research which airlines pay best, and where they’re based – they love articles about their home or big-hub markets. If you like to write about travel, these are great target markets.

7. Annual reports. If you’ve written about business or nonprofits and feel comfortable around figures, annual reports can be a great niche. Both for-profit and non-profit entities need them. They’re about conveying what a great year the organization had, through stories and numbers. WD says $150 an hour is top rate, or $15,000 a project.

8. Business plans. This is one of the top new niches that I’m targeting for ’10. Every company that seeks funding from a bank or venture-capital firms needs a business plan. While the Internet is full of wannbes who’d like someone to write their plan for $300 or so, there’s another tier of companies that want a quality, intelligent plan done, and they pay much more. I’ve seen writers comment on LinkedIn that they’ve gotten $15,000 a project if they were doing the market research in the deal.

OK, that’s 13 good-paying writing niches I’ve chronicled over two blogs. Have I missed any? Feel free to add more niches in the comments.

Should Writers Blog for Free?

I was recently asked why, given all the stumping I do about writers standing up for themselves and demanding better pay rates, I’m here blogging for free on Make a Living Writing. And recently I signed on to also blog once a week for the WM Freelance Community.

So I’ve told writers not to write for $15 a blog, but I write these free blogs. What’s up with that? Great question!

I believe blogging for free can be incredibly helpful to the progress of your writing career – or a total waste of your valuable time. It depends on your situation. Here’s why I do it:

1. It’s a marketing tool. I started blogging because I knew I was going to write several ebooks about the writing business, and I wanted to start building an audience for my products. I can say it’s been a big success for that – I’ve built a substantial list of potential ebook buyers by spreading my blogs through social media and attracting more viewers to my Web site. That led to invites to guest-blog on sites such as About Freelance Writing, which brought more leads.

2. I learn. Having the blog has brought me questions and comments that have really shown me what needs to be in my e-book – I learned what writers want to know about how to break in and earn more. So it’s improved my product.

3. It’s increased my productivity. I’m writing more now, and not just writing about surety bonds or venture capital or one of the fascinating business topics at which I make the bulk of my living…I’m getting to write about my own thoughts and feelings about the career of writing. And I’m just plain writing more, which means more time spent honing my craft of playing with words. That’s going to pay off in a million ways I can’t even quantify.

4. It’s awakened my passion. I discovered something about myself doing this blog and the WM blog: I LOVE helping other writers write better and earn more! I’ve been at this for a while, and now realize I really have some expertise to share. And it feels good to know I’m helping other writers navigate this tough marketplace.

5. It helped me write my ebook. Often, as I’m answering a question on my blog, I realize: this needs to be in my ebook! And I go over and add more points to my ebook draft. So the blog has been a way to break down the sort of intimidating task of writing a 50+ page ebook into more manageable chunks.

I think ultimately it depends on the kind of writer you are whether a free blog is worth the time. The key question to ask yourself if you’re starting a blog is: Why?

Why are you going to blog for free? What do you hope to accomplish? Maybe you need to hone your writing style, develop your voice, or explore topics to see what niche you want to write in. A free blog’s good for all that. Or maybe you have a great expertise niche (I gather tattoos rock) and want to put ads with your blog and make money, and become one of those $100K-blog success stories. Or maybe like me it’s primarily a marketing tool.

I think the dynamic of writing your own free blog is completely different from being radically underpaid to write someone else’s. The first is your passion project; the second can feel like exploitation.

But have a goal with that free blog, and keep a close eye on the clock. For me, it’s a marketing cost, so I try to make sure it doesn’t eat my whole day, as my primary business is to find lucrative clients and do their assignments.

One other thing I was asked about is blogging for free for others, and whether that represented “selling out.” I think to “sell out,” you have to be given money! While it’s not selling out, it certainly isn’t a smart career move.

Blogging for others should always be for pay, in my view. Sure, plenty of startups and site operators are out there trying to get someone to blog for free for ‘experience’ on their site. All you have to do is say no. If you have no clips, maybe do it for a week, or a month. But then it’s time to get paid.

Why Freelance Writers Need to Make $100 an Hour

Several writers have commented to me in the course of the year that they make $30-$40 an hour writing four articles an hour for content mills, and that they consider that great pay.

But is it? What is a good rate to shoot for in freelance writing?

My answer, in case you couldn’t tell from the title of this blog, is $100 an hour. That should be your goal.

Let’s do the math to learn why it’s important that your hourly rate be so high.

If you work 35 hours a week, $30 an hour means you’d make $52,500 a year allowing for 2 weeks’ vacation. Sounds good on the face of it, right?

But at $100 an hour, you make $175,000 a year. Wow! Big difference, huh?

I sense that you’re freaking out. Think it’s impossible? Yesterday’s pay rate? Hardly. That’s my own rate goal for my business.

If you’re saying, “I don’t need to make $175,000 a year, so $30 an hour will be OK,” I’d like you to consider these three things:

Your expenses.Costs include paying your own health insurance, which is more costly every year. Paying state, local and federal taxes, and self-employment tax. Paying for equipment, marketing, Web-site development, advertising, heat, light, paper and other supplies. Making $40 an hour at a full-time job where they pay the benefits might pencil out – but the equation changes when you’re on your own. After expenses, that really doesn’t leave much net profit.

Unbillable hours. Then there’s the downtime. You wait for interview calls to start, bill accounts, market the business, tally up your monthly accounts, have a slow week where you aren’t fully booked, and on and on. Not every hour is a billable hour. Track your time for a month to get a sense of how many real, billable hours you’ve got – it’ll probably be eye-opening.

Work/life balance. Didn’t you start freelancing so you could spend more time with family? Many freelancers get into it for the “freedom,” but end up working 12-hour days to keep it going…not that freeing in my view. A lot of us with children find we’ve got only 30-32 real, available work hours in the week unless we want to stick our kids in many hours of child care.

Put these three factors together and you’ll quickly see why your average hourly rate needs to be high in order for you to earn a decent living.

Don’t know what your average hourly rate is now? Track your billable hours for a month to get a sense of your current rate. Then, set a goal of improving your hourly rate in 2010. You won’t bill $100 an hour overnight if you’re at $20 an hour now. It’ll take time to gradually replace lower-paying accounts with higher ones – but it’ll be worth the effort.

There’s one final reason to aim high, for $100 an hour. We often don’t achieve our goals in life. Maybe one client’s at $100 an hour, but you have another situation where it works out to less, but there’s still a good reason to do the gig — a great editor connection you want to keep, for instance, or great exposure that helps your marketing. So when we shoot for $100, we may end up with $75 overall and still do quite well. Shoot for $30 and you may end up with not enough to buy groceries.

Whatever your rate now, make a plan to increase your hourly rate in the coming year – because better-paying gigs are what truly put the “free” in freelance.