Thanks once again to Peter Bowerman for hosting me on the Well-Fed Writer blog. Please hop on over and give Peter some comment love.
Sometimes I like to go back to offers I’ve received, re-examine them, and review my decision to either take them or turn them down. Sometimes the decision is easy – sometimes not so much.
A recent offer was for book editing – 100 pages (e-book size), due in two weeks, price just under $1K. Easy one. First, I charge a LOT more than $8 a page to edit. Second, I charge more for rush jobs (and that qualifies). If I’d not been extremely busy, I’d have countered with a more realistic price. But only once – if we can’t come to an agreement quickly, it’s not going to work for either of us.
Plus I’m not one to enjoy giving immediate discounts to brand-new clients. It sets a dangerous precedent. Here’s the impression you leave:
That you’re going to be flexible every time on price. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way. I had a client who paid bargain rates for a one-page website rewrite. It was a simple job, so I lowered the price. His mother came to me a few months later for a larger job – but expected the exact same price. My reputation for being “cheap” attracted yet another cheap client.
That you don’t value your own work. It is the message you’re sending when you let a new client talk you down to a fee that isn’t within your comfort zone. It’s saying “You can pretty much tell me what I’m earning because I’m hungry for work right now.”
That the client can get bargains at your expense. And the client really doesn’t care if you’re sacrificing too much. When have you ever heard a client say “You know, I don’t think this price is fair to you, so let me increase it”?
That your clients can dictate your rate for you. Never allow anyone besides you to determine what you earn. Never. If you can’t live on $30 an hour, don’t let someone tell you that’s all you’re going to earn. Better to go without a lousy-paying gig than to settle for something that nets you little and sets you down a path of settling for whatever comes along.
How often do you turn down offers that don’t fit? Why or why not? What gets in your way?
6 responses to “When Losing is a Good Thing”
I'm happy to say, a lot more than I used to. I rarely take rush jobs. That's a choice I make. Maybe it's because in my corporate life it was just one big rush job.
Sure, for existing clients I'll put in the extra effort on occasion, but I still keep it reasonable. And reasonable doesn't include working 12-15 hour days. If that means I have to walk away from an offer, so be it. It gets easier to do the more you make that choice.
For me, it's more a matter of not even approaching publications and sites that list low per-word or per-article rates than it is turning down a low-ball offer.
I did, however, recently have a former acquaintance from college contact me about her new monthly local newspaper. She remembered I was a good writer. Guess she didn't realize I'd gone pro since her start-up paper doesn't pay. At all. I did tell a few beginning writers about it, in case they chose to offer a piece in exchange for a published clip. No takers yet, as far as I know.
A year or two ago I met a neighbor's friend who is a writer. She's published regularly in a neighboring small-town's weekly paper and was *proud* that she wasn't paid. In her mind "real" writers write for the art of it, not for pay. And we wonder why so many people think they can get away with paying writers next to nothing.
Same here, Cathy. No reason to haggle with unreasonable people.
Your neighbor is showing her beginner status, Paula. It's great to contribute to something you believe in, but not if the rest of the contributors are being paid. That's just nuts.
More than $8 per page, Lori? How long does it take you to do a page? Have you seen these?
http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php
Allena, how long it takes is usually dependent on how bad the work is. I've done jobs that I've breezed through and jobs I've spent what felt like lifetimes on. If I'm proofreading, it's much cheaper because I'm not changing large sections of copy. Editing is another story entirely.
Yes, I'm in line with that chart. I'm at $35 a page.
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