Freelance Game Plan: Your Raise

August already, huh? Looking back over the last eight months, ask yourself this:

Am I where I want to be in my freelance writing career?

Think back to January. What were your plans? To get more clients? To work more? To work less? To earn more? What was on your resolutions list?

Didn’t quite hit that target? Don’t despair. Today is your new start. Right now. In fact, you’re about to do something that will guarantee a boost in income, starting today.

You’re going to raise your rates.

No need to hyperventilate. Raising your rates is easy. Convincing your current clients to stick with you isn’t difficult, either.

First though, we need to acknowledge that raising your rates for some clients may not work. Here are cases in which your rate will remain the same:

• Magazine work
• Work contracted at a negotiated rate

That’s pretty much it, really. Magazines set the rates they can pay. Budgets are tight in publishing, so there’s not much chance of changing that (though you might be able to wiggle a few more coins out of them if you’re a trusted freelancer). Any work that you’re doing in which you have a contract that states your rates, well, that’s not going to work. However, make sure that your contract period is not stretching into infinity. You should not be paid the same amount today as you were paid in 2000. That’s just not fair. That’s when I’d ask to renegotiate.

But for those clients where your rate isn’t locked in, you can raise them. And if it’s been three or more years since you’ve raised your rates, you’re overdue.

Here’s how to raise your rates:

• Send a note a month or two in advance, letting them know you’re raising your rates
• Tell them when your new rate will take effect
• Offer them the opportunity to book you for work prior to the new rate going into effect

That’s it. Will you lose clients? Possibly. If you’re working at really low rates now, you’re already working with people who are happily underpaying you. Don’t feel too badly about losing them. Besides, like attracts like — you’re probably stuck in a situation where every new client has the same “How cheaply can I get this done?” attitude. Raising your rate cures that.

Raising your freelance writing rate does something even better — it attracts better clients. I’m serious. I remember one gig that a friend of mine had referred me for back in 2007. When I gave a rate to her in email (I think it was $95 — I was trying to appeal to their budgets), she called me and said “You meant to write $125 an hour, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Yes, I guess I did. And from that point, I realized that unless I raised my rate to something that clients would take seriously, I wasn’t going to land any big clients.

[bctt tweet=”Raising #freelancewriting rates to be competitive attracts much better clients.” username=”LoriWidmer”]

That’s the weird part, too. If you’re priced too low, big clients don’t see you as a professional. They’re often used to working with contractors who charge much more ($250 an hour usually), so you coming in with a $95/hour rate is going to make them wonder what planet you’re from.

And the second you raise your rates, you do attract more clients. Maybe it’s because it does something internally — it makes you take yourself more seriously.

So raise your rates right now. The next client pays more, and your current clients will be paying more in a few months. Yes, you can negotiate with them, and you may decide that working for them is worth more than a raise. That’s up to you. But don’t shortchange yourself because you’re afraid to lose clients who might be worth losing after all.

Writers, are your freelance rates where you want them to be?
What is your target rate or annual earnings goal? How close are you to that? How might a raise help get you there?