Taking the "Free" Out of Freelance Writing

Friday, 08 January 2010 03:39

James Rainey at the Los Angeles Times has written an essay on a subject that has been much on my mind lately: the destruction of writing as a profession. This subject has been on my mind because for the last 12 years, editing and writing professionally has put food on my table.

It’s easy to blame the poor economy and the demise of newspapers and magazines for the problems facing writers. Rainey gives into this temptation ever so slightly, pointing out that “an estimated 31,000 writers, editors and others have been jettisoned by newspapers in just the last two years.”

This amounts to an increase in available talent, representing an increase in the potential supply of written content, and definitely contributes to the reduced rates writers are getting paid. And those rates really are atrocious. Rainey recounts the story of one publisher willing to pay only $100 dollars for an 800 word essay. As bad as that is, in my experience lately, that’s a pretty good rate. Many publishers won’t pay anything at all, instead offering writers only a chance to “get published!” How kind of them. This, however, is not just a recent development. For the last ten years at least, and probably longer than that, the trend among publishers has been to offer less and less compensation to writers. But it’s not entirely their fault. Publishers are only reacting to the increasing number of foolish writers who are willing to write for little or no compensation. And why not, with ad pages decreasing and rates for online advertising not filling the void, an editor has to be more cost-conscious than ever before.

From my editorial vantage point, the problem is that you get what you pay for. There may indeed be a larger supply of available writers today than in years past, but there is not a greater supply of good writers than in years past. I regularly receive manuscripts from people calling themselves writers, but their submissions are disasters comprised of utterly poor grammar and composition. Moreover, many such manuscripts are incredibly shallow regurgitations of stories written by others.

These so-called writers would love to get paid, of course, but more often than not they salivate over the prospect of just getting a byline. And many publishers, particularly on the Web, are more than willing to accept substandard work. Just get the right keywords in there and bring in some traffic from Google — who cares if the article is well written.

I wish there was some easy fix for this death spiral of mediocrity that is destroying the profession. But, there is no easy answer. The traditional publishing world that so many editors and writers have been accustomed to for so long is on its last legs and isn’t going to survive. But writers will, and good writers can still prosper.

To this point, Rainey paraphrases a bit of advice from 34-year-old writer Matt Villano who says that writers “need to act more like small business people ... diversifying their skills and the outlets they write for.”

That’s excellent advice, but what does it mean for a writer to act like a business person? At bottom it means realizing that your writing is your product, and that if you are producing a quality product you should price it accordingly. In other words, never, ever write for free.

This does not necessarily mean you should always be paid in dollars, though you should strive for that as often as possible. There are, however, other forms of compensation. One of those is exposure through marketing. If you, as a writer, absolutely must write for someone without expectation of direct monetary compensation, make certain that you at least benefit from the exposure. To do that, make sure your work appears on a reputable Website that has substantial traffic and is willing to link back to your blog or Website. Of course, you need to have a plan for monetizing your blog or Website in such a situation. And if you’re a writer, you do have a Website, right?

There is no sign that making a living as a writer is going to get any easier in the future. But, just as with any other profession, those committed to producing quality work, and pricing it properly, will find a way to prosper.