By Carol Tice
Each of us found some other way to get our career started. I bring this up because as I read the writer chat forums, it’s difficult to recall that there was ever another bottom rung of the writing-career ladder! But there was. And I think the pre-content mill routes are still better ways to quickly establish your career and start earning well.
Even better, the traditional routes to good pay have been enhanced in the past few years by all of the new pay opportunities that have arisen online.
What are the other ways to start a writing career that can get you earning more, faster? Below, I count the ways I earned in my first couple years.
Almost all of these paid more than mills from the very first assignment. The hourly rate wasn’t the greatest at first because I had so much to learn and wasn’t efficient, but they very quickly became good earning options on an hourly-rate basis, and led to work that paid very well.
1. Win writing contests. I won two of these early on, and they led immediately to long-term editor relationships and $500 article assignments in major publications. Great visibility, and it starts an “awards won” page for you that impresses prospects.
2. Write for the alternative press. I did this for years, and worked up to writing cover features. Alt papers are a great place to develop as a writer and get paid $50 an article or more off the bat. It can lead to a lot of other great opportunities — I got a full-time reporting job that paid more than $40,000 a year to start from my alt-press clips, and one of my feature stories was optioned for a movie for $20,000. Alt papers have gained reporting cred over the years, as so many highly successful writers such as Elvis Mitchell have started there and spun off to national radio, paper and TV gigs.
3. Write for daily papers. Yes, many have disappeared, and some don’t have freelance budget anymore. But many of the major papers need freelancers more than ever. The pay isn’t great, but I get $300 an article for Seattle Times pieces that aren’t terrifically complicated, which beats $15 an article any day.
4. Write for small, regional papers and magazines. When I first moved to Seattle and needed to find my first local markets, I wrote for Today’s Careers, a free local job paper, for about $200 a story. Easy, interesting work.
4. Write for local nonprofits or small businesses. The first small, startup business I wrote for paid me $750 an article. My second client was a $1 billion-plus global corporation that paid $85 an hour to start and sent me more than $20,000 a year of work for several years running. Moral: It doesn’t take much to get launched in the world of copywriting if you can write clear, compelling content. Walk around your town, hit your Chamber breakfast, approach your favorite nonprofit, and find a business or organization that needs something written. Now you’ve got samples and you can pitch anybody, including the biggest corporations in America. And writing a business profile for the business can lead to writing an article about business for a magazine — the two realms cross over quite easily.
5. Write online content. Businesses across America are waking up to the reality: their Web sites suck and aren’t attracting customers because they are static and dull. They need writers! Study the Web sites of your local business establishments and call the ones that look the worst. Suggest they add bios, case studies, a blog. Despite what you see on Craigslist, all Web content gigs do not pay $5 a page. Demand decent rates, and you’ll get them. And some great samples.
6. Write a couple free samples. You may be surprised to hear me say this, but I’m a big believer in just writing a few sample articles on your own, to create your first clips. I like it because you don’t get confused and think what you’re doing might be a living. You’re clear about moving on quickly to paying gigs.
7. Take a class. I got into journalism kind of sideways, from songwriting. When I realized I wanted to write reported stories, I went and took some UCLA Extension classes in journalism. While I don’t believe basic writing talent can be taught, you’ll never regret taking the time to study and learn about this field, particularly about reporting technique, article formats and ethical issues. Many writers are coming into the field now without any training, and it limits their options. Getting a bit of education can jump you ahead of the pack.
Just being in the class may help jump-start your career. You may write for a school paper or online site, getting a few clips that can lead quickly to paid assignments. Your professor might refer you if they like your work — editors do call them. The school’s career center could connect you with internship opportunities where you could compile solid clips. Possibly most importantly, you’ll leave with increased confidence in your ability to write for a variety of markets.
Yes, all of these alternative routes I’ve outlined for breaking into freelance writing involve a bit more work. Most involve actively marketing your business. If you love writing quick, easy articles and don’t yearn for more, keep writing for mills and enjoy your life.
But if you’re focused on earning as much as you can right away, explore some of the other paths to earning well. They’ll likely offer you more interesting assignments with more opportunity to grow as a writer, and get you earning more sooner.
This post originally appeared on the WM Freelance Writer’s Connection.
By Carol Tice
I think there are many types of people for whom these sites are a superb option — but in my opinion, those types don’t include writers who’re serious about building a good-paying, sustainable writing career. To clarify, I mean people who want to earn $50,000 a year and up from their writing. People who ultimately want to have unlimited earning capability from writing.
Let me explain why I’m down on content mills. In my experience, here are the career problems writers may experience who rely mostly on content-site assignments:
1. It does not teach you to report. Most of the stories on content sites are written with light Internet research or off the top of your head. They don’t help you develop newsgathering abilities, which are a bedrock skill needed for most good-paying byline reporting and corporate writing work. You don’t develop interviewing skills since you generally aren’t conducting interviews. If you dream of earning $800-$1500 for a single article, mill writing is not helping you get there.
2. It does not teach you to research. A lot of good-paying writing assignments call for extensive research. I recently wrote a $650 article for a regional magazine about all the stimulus money our state got and how it was spent. I wrote a $1,500 article about where Seattle’s trash goes and what happens to it. I’m doubtful that anyone cutting their teeth on mill stories will ever be able to write stories like these. Writing for mills does not teach you how to do investigative reporting, how to dig deep into documents, understand them, interpret them, or synthesize complex information. Copywriting as well can demand a decent amount of research and ability to dive in-depth into a topic.
3. It does not give you nurturing editor relationships. I would be nowhere today without two or three amazing editors I worked with earlier in my career. Editing at mills is usually cursory at best, and not the kind of close, one-on-one relationship you want where someone will really take you under their wing and take the time to show you exactly what you need to do to improve.
4. It does not teach you to market. Many mill writers have spoken in ecstatic terms of how much they love never having to market their writing. But marketing your writing is a key skill for those who want to earn big. Generally, you go out and find the really lucrative magazine connections and corporate clients yourself…they do not fall in your lap. Every week you write for mills is a week you don’t learn this critical skill.
5. It does not enhance your reputation. While some mill writers have reported they were able to parlay their clips into better-paying assignments…I usually find when I nail them down that their definition of “better paying” and mine are very different. They often mean something like they’ve worked their way to $50 an article. Know that many editors at quality publications discard outright the queries of anyone who offers clips from mill sites, so this work can slam a lot of doors for you.
6. It’s a model that may disappear. Traffic at mill sites has been plummeting since Google’s recent algorithm change in how it ranks sites, calling into question whether content mills will have a viable business model in future. As it is, mill sites go out of business on a regular basis, taking any promised “lifetime” residuals they owe writers along with them.
If you write for mills, ask yourself: How you would replace that income if this model goes away? What other client types could you find work with?
This post originally appeared on the WM Freelance Writer’s Connection.
Make a Living Writing blog reader Susan Glenn emailed me a while back to ask for more information on how to convince corporate clients to pay higher rates for your services.
“Tips about how writers can articulate their worth would be very interesting,” she wrote. “Not what does the writer NEED, but what is professional writing WORTH to the client — especially relative to other professional services they retain.”
Great question…so today I’ll share a bit of the speech I give prospective clients who ask me about rates. One of the things I’ll frequently say early on goes something like this:
“If you’re having a bidding contest to find the lowest price, I’d like to tell you right now I’m going to lose. I will not be your lowest bidder, and I don’t generally work with companies that are only concerned with how little they can pay for writing.
“I work with business owners seeking exceptionally talented writers who can help establish them as the pre-eminent thought leaders in their sector. They need to communicate in a sophisticated, compelling way with their target audience.
“That’s what I will deliver for you — authoritative content that communicates that you are the most knowledgeable source for information in your industry. This will attract quality clients, build Web traffic, and will pave the way for you to charge more for what you do.”
Of course, when presented with it that way, most of my prospects rush to say, “Oh, that’s me! I understand that I need to be the authority. That’s just what we need to do.” And discussions of how little they can get me to work for tend to evaporate.
They get it immediately — I’ve helped them put their finger on what it is they’re really in the market for. They need content so compelling and strong that it will enhance their brand and company reputation, and bring them more business. Not every writer can give them that — but I can.
Once you’ve framed it that way, if they balk at a rate, I tend to point out that paying, say, $1,500 for a custom-written article they can get republished in newspapers, use on their site, hand out as fliers, email to their prospect list, expand into a white paper, and otherwise use FOREVER to promote their business and drive Web traffic at no additional charge is the marketing bargain of the century.
Compare it to the cost of placing a single decent-sized print ad! To doing one radio spot, or putting up one billboard! The reality is that having strongly written information about your company is a real deal, even at prime rates.
I find most writers don’t think about their services through the client’s eyes. Writing is usually part of companies’ marketing budget — and in that context, it’s very affordable compared with many other forms of marketing spend.
So ask for a great rate, and explain why you’ll be worth it. You’ll be surprised how often you find yourself with a wonderful new client who’s happy to have you, and willing to pay you what you deserve.
For more about negotiating rates, see my post for the week on WM Freelance Writing Community – How I Got Paid $300 A Blog.
By Carol Tice
So here’s the story of how I negotiated a rate of $300 per blog post:
I was contacted by an editor I hadn’t worked with before. They got my name from another editor who’d worked on a different part of a large financial-service firm’s Web site than the part I had written for previously.
Rates for writing articles for my editor had varied widely, so I didn’t know quite what to expect on rates.
This new editor explained they had a huge, rush project — 144 blog entries in all at 400 words each — that they needed done in six weeks flat. The major corporate sponsor who’d paid to create this content wanted it all ready to upload at the beginning of next year. It was explained to me that it was a bit of a hybrid format — a ‘reported’ blog that would need an interview for each post.
So based on that brief introduction, these were the key factors I was thinking about as we talked rates:
Me: “How many of these would you like to see me handle for you?”
Them: “Um…could you do 20 of them?”
Me: “Let me take a look at my assignment calendar…I think I could do that many.
What’s your budget for this project?”
Them: “We’re offering $200 a blog.”
Me: (after long silence) “But…it is a rush project.”
Them: “Yeah, you’re right…how about $250 a blog?”
Me: (Silence.)
Them: “OK, $300, and that’s my final offer!”
I’d like to add that the client was very happy with what I turned in and will likely use me again in future. I’ve detected no negative backlash from negotiating a higher rate on this project.
This incident illustrates my philosophy on how to handle rate negotiations, an area I know intimidates some writers. My rules:
This post originally appeared on the WM Freelance Writer’s Connection.
by Carol Tice
I highly recommend using the Writer’s Market for anyone looking to get published in publications of any kind, both online and off.
For the uninitiated, the Writer’s Market has traditionally been a vast, annually published reference book of places that publish writers — from consumer magazines to trade publications to writing contests.
It’s published by the folks who bring you Writer’s Digest magazine. It also lists book publishers, screenplay markets, greeting-card markets and much more.
My current copy is more than 1,100 pages long. When I was starting out, I made much use of this resource to find entry-level markets, and since the downturn have been back to browsing it again to identify markets in the top pay rank. No matter where you’re at in your writing career, there’s useful information in this guide.
Here are my tips for getting the most from the Writer’s Market:
1. Get it with online support. In the fast-changing media world of the 21st Century, getting the Writer’s Market as a physical book only is a mistake. Getting the Market with online support offers many advantages in using the data in this enormous volume — and it’ll be the best $40 you ever spent on your writing career.
Or if you’re interested in a particular writing niche and buy one of Writer’s Digest’s niche guides, you can now also buy it bundled with access to WritersMarket.com. Or, if you’re a virtual type, you can now subscribe to WritersMarket.com without getting the book. So there’s lots of new flexibility in how you can access their listings.
2. Use the search engine. The prime advantage of online support is that rather than leafing endlessly through physical pages, you can use the Market’s online search engines to slice and dice their data and cut right to what you’re looking for. You can use their advanced search to find only consumer magazines in only a certain region, at only a certain pay level. Saves a lot of squinting time poring over the book.
3. Browse the new listings. One of my favorite ways to use WritersMarket.com is to click on the link that says “X number of listings were updated in the past week.” Why? I have a theory about people who take the time to fill out the surveys Writer’s Market sends them asking for updates to their information: Editors fill them out when they are interested in finding new freelancers. When they’re not interested, they throw the update form in the trash. So the new listings are a great resource for finding new editors and publications that are good markets. At the speed editors are changing jobs these days, this is a great place to browse for inspiration on new places to query, and to make sure you’ve got current information about a market.
4. Build your market list. No more scribbling down contacts on a sheet of paper, or copy and pasting contact info into a Word doc — on WritersMarket.com you can create your own “My Markets” database and store information on any markets you find interesting. Also no more scratching your head trying to recall that market you saw three months ago that’s a fit for a great story idea you just got.
4. Get the free marketing newsletter.As a perk of membership you can get a free newsletter with tips on how to market your writing. Nice!
5. Check the news. Writer’s Market’s Debbie Ridpath Ohi assembles a great compendium of breaking news that affects writers — news of bankrupt publishers, new magazine launches, and editor changes. These are great leads for places to send pitches or resumes that put you ahead of the pack, before these markets send out want ads.
6. Dig the community. WritersMarket.com has its own writers’ community, with subgroups for many genres. If you’re looking for a niche affinity group within writing, this could be a great place to connect.
Whatever way you get and use the Writer’s Market — the main thing is to use it! Put it on your marketing plan and make a date with yourself to check it regularly. It can be a powerful tool for increasing your writing earnings.
This post originally appeared on the WM Freelance Writer’s Connection.
By Carol Tice
Whatever level you’re currently earning at, you should be making a plan for how you are going to move up and earn more. For instance, if you’re writing $15 or $20 articles now, you should be looking for $50-an-article clients who would allow you to slowly drop your lower-paying gigs and raise your average hourly rate.
Personally, I was approached by several folks at the $50-$100 an article level in the past few months…so I know these markets are out there.
For instance:
The Los Angeles career magazine Working World pays $70 an article, for instance, and I was also asked to write for a section of AOL for $50 a piece.
To investigate move-up markets more, I spent the past few weeks trolling the online job ads for gigs that paid around $50-$100 an article. These aren’t ordinarily ads I look at, so I was surprised once I focused on this price point to find quite a few listings.
Obviously, this doesn’t include the many, many higher-paying gigs you could find by networking, approaching small businesses in your town, using social media to prospect, and otherwise aggressively marketing your business. This is just a selection of what I gleaned from a quick browse through online job ads.
The Nature Conservancy of Texas offered $200 for four 450-word columns a month — so that’s $50 an article, and more than $.10 a word.
StreetAuthority was looking for a freelance financial writer for $75 an article.
Not For Tourists in New York was looking for local writers to write $100 neighborhood descriptions, with pay ranging up to $500.
Life123 offered $50 an assignment for a “wide range of subject matter.” I can remember when nothing in general subjects paid over $20…interesting, huh?
Audio Academy was offering $100-150 a post for a music blogger (the job has since closed).
In addition to these, Writers Weekly lists many jobs at move-up rates….the issue linked here had quite a few, including $125-$300 from Alaska Business Monthly, and assignments from $75-$150 about hockey from Puck Life.
Here’s what I’ve learned — the marketplace will not set healthy pay boundaries for you.
There will always be cheapskates. You have to set the boundaries yourself.
If you entertain the notion of $15 articles, you end up writing them. If you turn down low-paying jobs as simply below your bottom asking price and keep looking until you find better-paying ones, you’ll likely end up being better paid.
Why doesn’t everybody do this?
Because switching up can cause a short-term cash-flow problem while you get new clients lined up. You have to overcome your fear that you’re going to starve if you hold out for better gigs, or even spend part of each week prospecting for better assignments instead of writing your current cheap articles.
Saying “no” to prospective clients — or to that oh-so-easy to access assignment page on a content mill dashboard — can feel harsh, scary, confrontational, maybe in this economy even a little crazy. But that’s exactly what you have to do to move up.
I’m polite with prospective clients who call and offer me $20 an article, or $50, or $70. I thank them for their interest, and let them know they’re not in my ballpark.
I offer my rewriting services in case they discover the content they got cheap isn’t up to snuff, and encourage them to be back in touch when they can pay professional rates. I don’t go away mad, I just go away, and leave the door open.
Try it — you’ll find that valuing your time enough to turn down lowball clients feels great. It also leaves room in your schedule for better-paying clients.
This post originally appeared on the WM Freelance Writer’s Connection.
By Carol Tice
Other writers may think the fall is time to plan their winter vacations. But for me, it’s always been time for something else: Time to lay my plans to raise my rates.
I can hear you quaking in your boots from here. And I live way up in the northwest corner of the U.S. But I want you to consider this.
The approach of a new year is a naturally great time to break the news to existing clients that rates are going up. Ideally, you want to put the news out to them in the waning days of a year.
Message: A new year is coming, and my rates are going up.
Maybe not for every client. But if you’re going to keep raising your average hourly rate, you need to keep raising rates.
So it’s time to take a look at who you’re writing for, and what they are paying you.
Who pays the least, on an hourly basis? Make a list of your lowest payers.
Now you’ve got a decision to make.
There are only two ways to make rates go up:
So the first question to ask is: Do you think there is any chance you can get your existing clients to pay more?
If it is possible your existing clients will pay more, it’s time to write them a letter. Let them know your business is growing and thriving, and rates are rising.
I actually just did this with a client I had on a two-month contract at $1,600 a month. The project suffered from massive scope creep as it went along and became really $3000 or more a month of work. When they let me know they wanted to extend the contract, I informed them I was happy to keep working for them, but not at that rate.
I proposed a new rate — not $3,000 as I was sure that would make them bolt, but one that gave me nearly a 30% raise, to the point where I felt the account would be worth continuing and wouldn’t lower my overall average hourly rate.
I documented how the project had changed and what going rates were for the types of work I was now doing. I showed them the massive discount they would still be getting. I mentioned that the economy is turning around and many clients are competing for my time.
And bottom line, rates had to go up. Or I’m walking.
Feels scary, doesn’t it? But you’ll need a little courage if you’re going to increase what you earn year to year.
If you write for flat-rate content sites or bidding sites, that would be a big no. Their pay will likely remain exactly the same in the coming year. If your clients aren’t negotiable on rates, it’s time to look at your marketing plan for adding better-paying clients.
Will you write advice articles on Biznik? Attend in-person networking events? What’s been working for you in the past? What do you want to try that’s new? Figure out how you will attract new clients this year, and create a schedule for when you’ll do your marketing.
At the moment I sent that client proposal, in mid-December, January was only about half booked up, and a lot of assignments were still hanging and uncertain. But it had to happen, because the point of it all is I need to make a living.
Talk rate raises at any opportunity. You never know when the chance will disappear.
I had one hourly-rate client back in late 2007 that I was getting $85 an hour with. I had the sense other freelancers for them were making more, so I told them my rate was going up in the next year to $95 an hour. They grumbled a little, but went for it. (I later learned others were getting $120, so I was still a deal.)
Of course, my timing was great. By early 2008, the economy was collapsing, and I wouldn’t have dared to broach a rate increase.
The payoff: it turned out to be a very busy time for this client, and I earned more than $5,000 of additional income over the next 2 years. That’s right, 5 large for doing exactly what I would have done…just getting paid more for it. Because I simply asked for it.
So lay your plans to get a raise. You deserve it, and it’s worth the risk.
This post originally appeared on the WM Freelance Writer’s Connection.
By Carol Tice
Gripes about pay are an epidemic these days in the writing world. But there’s still a lot of good-paying assignments out there. So why aren’t you making more money? In my experience mentoring writers, there are three main reasons:
#1. You’re not marketing. When I talk to writers who’re stuck making $10,000 or $20,000 a year, I usually begin by asking them about their marketing. Are they not getting responses to their queries? Feel they don’t do well at in-person networking? Need help with their cold-calling skills?
The answers are always the same. It isn’t that they need help improving how they do these things – they simply aren’t querying, aren’t networking, and aren’t cold-calling. To sum up, they’re not marketing their business, aside from perhaps shooting the occasional resume to an online job ad.
You’ve got to constantly be looking for new and better clients to keep your slate full. This is also how you raise rates – you find better-paying clients, and then one day you look at your roster and realize you’re so busy you can drop the lowest-paying account. If you’re actively prospecting, you get more new clients and can drop low payers faster, leading to higher average pay. If you’re writing for $15 an article, it’s because you’re not taking the time to market your business and find better-paying markets.
#2. You’re getting assignments instead of building relationships. New writers often get so excited about having an assignment that they forget — every assignment should be, like they say at the end of Casablanca, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. You should link in social media to that editor so that you never lose track of them, even if they change jobs.
When you turn in your story, don’t let the relationship momentum die. You should be ready with two or three additional story ideas. If you don’t have ideas, at least ask the editor what their needs are coming up. Instead of a one-off, try to turn each relationship into a steady gig.
#3. You’re not reselling. One great way to maximize your earnings is to take each story idea you have and sell it multiple places. Personally, I’ve recycled story ideas so much this year I’m dizzy. I’ll write about a business topic for a Canadian conglomerate, then a U.S. magazine, then a corporate Web site. Reselling accelerates earnings because you leverage the research and expert interviews you did once across many paychecks, making you more efficient. You can interview one source and sell the story to their university magazine, a business magazine, a local newspaper…and so on. You fit more articles into each year more easily, you bill more, you make more.
What’s it all boil down to? Be willing to go out and actively look for better-paying clients, and do your writing assignments more efficiently. Do that, and your income is bound to rise.
This post originally appeared on the WM Freelance Writer’s Connection.
