Successful Freelance Writers Don’t Underprice Their Services
October 12, 2009 by John Hewitt
Successful freelance writers don’t underprice their services. Charging too little not only hurts the freelancer, it hurts the whole freelance industry. When you underprice your services, you make it harder for other freelancers to charge a reasonable rate.
This sort of price-cutting is especially prevalent for web-based opportunities. There are thousands of internet “entrepreneurs” out there who are building bad, poorly-written sites with the lone objective of luring in visitors long enough to sell them something. These people want to pay outrageously low rates such as $500 for 200 articles. This wouldn’t be a problem normally, because no self-respecting freelance writer is going to take so little money to produce so much writing, but the web is worldwide and there are writers all over the world who are willing to take such a tiny amount of money. They may be poor, just starting out, or idiots. Whatever the case, they are out there.
The problem is that every time a writer (and they aren’t all in third world countries, some of them live just down the street) takes such a low rate, it makes it more difficult for other writers to make a living. This is one of the reasons I have stopped freelancing web clients almost entirely. There are still some clients out there who respect writers and pay a reasonable rate, but it is hard to convince a potential client to pay $1.00 a word or more when there’s someone out there willing to work for a $0.01 a word. For the most part these cheap writers haven’t figured out how to reach the corporate market, so it is still safe to freelance there — at least for a while.
If you are looking for a way to fight rate abuse, you might want to check out the National Writer’s Union. They have some excellent guidelines on what you should be charging for your work. Another interesting, though a bit over-the-top, way to determine what to charge is to try out Freelance Switch’s rate calculator.
For a quick rule of thumb though — if the rate your charging means that you make less than $20 an hour (US), you are definitely charging too little. A good average for a beginner is $30 an hour (remember, you have to pay all of your expenses out of this). There are plenty of professional writers whose rates equal $75 to $100 an hour and a few who charge more than that. If these numbers look impossible to you, then you are probably the sort of person who these web businesses are looking for.
Related links
- How to Become an Expert Writer in Any Field (0.500)
- 10 Steps to a Freelance Writing Career (0.500)
- The Beginner's Guide To Freelance Writing (0.500)
- Benevolent Dictators: The Truth About Editors (0.500)
- Writing for City Web Sites (0.500)
Contact John Hewitt
Writing Content and Web Consulting
Email: hewitt@poewar.comPhone: (520) 261-6104
LinkedIn: poewar
Twitter: @poewar
Facebook: pwar2
[...] you’ll find something on this list that is worth your time.Successful freelance writers don’t underprice their services. Charging too little not only hurts the freelancer, it hurts the whole freelance industry. When you [...]
[...] way more than I wanted to pay.” We also often hear people say, “You should charge more for the quality of work you [...]
I completely agree, John. Any writer who puts out quality work should be well paid for his/her work.
Writing is a skill (some would say art) that not everyone has. If you do have the skill to put out quality materials, selling cheap is a disservice to yourself and to the writing community.
Duane
Duane Fords last blog post..Inertia – What Does it Have to do With Success?
The National Writer’s Union page is a Page Not Found
I think there are way too many writers out there settling for $0.01/word and it is not going to change for some time, since there are way too many of them desperate for a job. They will take any job they can get.
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..From Homeless to Hollywood =-.