You put that query together and attached your URL samples or clips, and you got a response. Great! But there’s something amiss – the client is saying “I need this yesterday, and I’m going to pay you $20 for 1,000 words.”
No he’s not. Okay, so you’re sitting there idle thanks to a lousy job market. Your regular clients have stopped calling as often. You can’t seem to nail down new clients. But what you can do is walk away. That’s right – walk away from the only job to hit your in box in weeks. You won’t be sorry for very long if you do, but if you don’t, you’ll not have a big enough boot with which to kick yourself.
I received another offer yesterday from a company I’ve turned down twice. Both times, I told them I can’t justify working for 10 cents a word when three other publications are happy to pay me $1 a word. They’re persistent – tenacious even – but they’re not getting me. Ten cents a word for over 15 years of writing experience? They must be kidding.
So you’re new to writing or you’ve struggled to get published. I understand. I’ve been there. Still, taking these lousy jobs just to get something, anything with your name on it is counterproductive. In most cases the work is extremely involved, tedious, and time consuming. Let’s just say also that $20 – for what could be 4 to 12 hours of work – uh, why aren’t you considering a job at the mall instead? And those clips? Worthless. Employers want to see a progression in your career, not a quick-and-dirty account of how you don’t respect your own talents.
Every writer has his or her pain point. Unfortunately for the company mentioned above, mine is even higher than their 10-cent-per-word offer. The only way you’ll know what your bottom line is will be to sit down and determine what your yearly income goal is. From there, you can break it down into monthly, or even weekly, increments. You’ll soon realize how low is too low for you.
When you see a job offer with pay scales lower than minimum wage, walk away. There are other jobs. There are better paying jobs. You can find them. You don’t have to accept these rates simply because they were available. Swine flu is available now too, yet you wouldn’t take that on purpose, either.
Writers, what have you walked away from?
(Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how to change your approach so you’re not tempted to underestimate your market value.)
$20 for 1000 words. Don’t you know, Lori, that “this is an easy job for someone who knows what they are doing.” NOT! Those are code for “run away!”
LOL! Exactly, Eileen! I always wonder – if it’s so easy, why hire anyone in the first place? 🙂
I walk away from a LOT these days. I’m just happy to be at a place in my career where I have absolutely no qualms about that decision. No matter how slow things get or how fearful I grow that work might never pick up again, it eventually does, and usually big time. It all evens out in the end, and if I were to bog myself down on these pennies-on-the-word projects, I’d never be able to handle the glut of well-paying ones when they arrive … not to mention I’d feel degraded in the process. This discussion definitely boils down to self-worth.
Totally agree with all of you. I’m not seeking jobs that are plainly low paying, and I’m not reducing my rates.
That’s made me slightly less busy, but I refuse to contribute to two perceptions that will damn us.
The first is that anybody can write. Baloney! And most smart businesspeople know that’s baloney.
The second is that there’s no difference between a penny-per-word writer and one who has expertise in a subject combined with an ability to write well. Again, buh-loney!
As I’ve said before, when you walk away, often clients end up following you after they realize they can’t get your skill for dirt rates.
LOVE the swine flu comment. ;o)
I’ve said it before, but I think it’s important to understand how long a project will take. Sometimes the per-word rate is deceiving. I consider ten cents a word to be worth my while if it’s quick to write and requires no research.
Don’t forget to consider how much effort you’ll have to put into appeasing the client, too! I’ve also had seemingly good-paying projects work out to ridiculously low wages, once I figured in researching, writing, and constantly having to field emails and requests from the client.
LOVE the Swine flu analogy!!!!
Looking foward to tomorrow’s post.
My comment vanished! ;(
I built on to Irreverent Freelancer’s comment about self-esteem.
Self-esteem is OUR job. WE set it. We can’t be dependent on the employer so to do.
If the job’s not a living wage and not the be-all, end-all, one-shot appearance to vault you into the big time — walk away.