Freelancer Writers - Charge What You're Worth!

Ah yes ... we work for money, don't we.

And we should. After all, you wouldn't take to pass your afternoon authorship a fourth estate release announcing acme Balloon Rental's new frailty president of rising prices instead of working on your novel, would you? Nor would you protrude out of bed in the morning time thinking, "Finally, today I acquire to compose a booklet about appliances instead of finishing my screenplay!"

The fact is, as independent writers, we work to eat, and to eat, we must bear down for our work. But there's the rub: What should we charge?

Let's cut to the chase. I currently basal my fees on $75 per hr for anything clients inquire me to do, whether it's writing, ghostwriting or editing. It doesn't substance whether it's for a brochure, Web site, book, fourth estate release or what. It's $75 per hour. (That complaint per unit is higher than some authors complaint and less than others charge. The geographical marketplace have a batch to make with it.)

My fees are almost never discussed when I work with repetition clients. They cognize what to anticipate and look to be all right with it. If it looks like a undertaking is going to be more than than the client is used to, I convey this up for approval. The last thing I desire is to give a good client an unpleasant surprise when he or she open ups my bill.

My fees are always discussed with new clients. I usually don't state them what I bear down per hour. That really states them little, because it's only half of the equation. One author might take five hours to make the undertaking while another would take 10 hours. So simply saying "I bear down $75 per hour" intends nothing. That's why with new clients I gauge what I would bear down for a project, based on all the information I have got been given. I also allow the client cognize to anticipate alterations in the estimation if the project's parametric quantities alteration midstream. An up-front estimate get rids of spine daze when the client have the invoice. (By the way, you could name it a "bid," but I like "estimate" because it looks a spot more pliable.)

Ultimately, of course, you can only complaint what the marketplace will bear, but the fee construction I've just described have worked for me for years. I have, of course, periodically raised my rate.

Don't be afraid to turn down clients who aren't willing to pay you what you're worth. If you maintain saying yes to these people, you will acquire locked into a low-level of patronage and will always be underpaid. Believe me, there are companies and people out there who are willing to pay the terms for a good writer. If you are a good writer, you just have got to happen them. But you won't happen them if you're swamped with occupations that maintain you perpetually unpaid and overworked.

I have got a pet peeve: authors who low-ball their rates just to acquire work. They do life hard for other hardworking, professional freelancers, and ultimately they cut their ain throats. I recently went online to check up on out what authors were charging and being offered for online articles and content. I was appalled and frankly infuriated to read that some online publishing houses were offering 1/10th of one cent per word! Once cent per word was fairly standard. That kind of compensation is a smack in the human face to serious writers, and any author who accepts it is doing existent harm to the community as a whole.

Let's put option things in perspective: Yesterday a garage door repairer charged me $89 to repair one of our garage door openers. He spent - I'm not exaggerating - less than five minutes! The twenty-four hours before, my sister paid a pipe fitter $180 to repair a leaking connection. He pass just over 30 proceedings on the job. And they're asking authors to work for maybe $2 per hour? And some authors will make it? I can't believe about this without wanting to interrupt something.

One last thought. Some authors inquire whether to bear down on a per-word basis. This may work for magazine articles and the like, but is madness for most types of projects. It doesn't take into business relationship the clip you might pass on research and in meetings, or the blessing procedure and other variables. I once spent three years in meetings and originative clip to come up up with a little college's three-word hoarding headline. Had I charged per word, I would have got had to bear down over $400 per word. Had I told the client that I would bear down $400 per word, I wouldn't have got landed the job. But telling them that I would bear down about $1200 for three years of work seemed sensible to them. And it was. In fact, it was a steal. They used the newspaper headline for old age in all their selling materials.

In my dreams, I regularly acquire $400 per word for 2,000-word traveling articles ... in my dreams