Comments on: Your Aching Image

By: Lori

Lori — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Very excellent point, Lillie! Breaking your back for low-paying work is just senseless.

By: Lillie Ammann

Lillie Ammann — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:23:00 +0000

Lori,
I haven’t even considered lowering my rates. If I’m broke, at least I want to have time to enjoy it. 🙂 I’d rather not work than work for nothing.

By: Lori

Lori — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Cyndy, I’m glad this post helped you make the right decision. If it saves one writer, it’s worth it!

I’m sick to death of “writing tests” or “samples” of how I’d handle a topic. I gave someone a brief “here’s how I’d fix it” critique last week – I attached a copyright notice. As expected, they went dead silent. Not only that, they got brief bullet points. No way I give away the farm!

Leigh, don’t you dare apologize! That needed to be said. And Kimberly and Devon, I’m glad I’m in such good company on this!

By: Cyndy Kryder

Cyndy Kryder — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing up this issue of low rates for freelance writers. I just received an email from a new freelance medical editor who couldn’t decide whether or not to take an editing job that required her to edit reports, FOR FREE, for a “trial” period of time! As writers and editors we need to value ourselves and the work we do enough to say “No” to poor pay. If we don’t value our work, our clients never will.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Kimberly makes a great point. How many times have we had to pick up the pieces for a client who went with the cheapest "writer," only to find out that the work was terrible or even plagiarized?

Clients are hurt by low rates just as much as writers are. If a client is not able to tell good writing from bad writing (and some can't, so they trust the people they hire), their reputation will suffer if they post poor quality writing. If a "writer" plagiarizes and a client then posts the content on his site, it's not the writer who is going to get in trouble. The client is going to get a DMCA complaint letter and may even be threatened with loss of Web hosting or legal ramifications.

What we can do for Writers Worth Day is to let people who are in the market for writing services know this. I think we've all tried to let new writers (and wanna-be writers) know why they shouldn't work for peanuts. Maybe if we all blog, Tweet, and talk about the negative consequences for people who hire writers for low pay, they'll learn to appropriately compensate the real professionals.

Sorry for my long comment.

By: Kimberly Ben

Kimberly Ben — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:47:00 +0000

Devon is in my head today. I was just going to say that the number of writers out there accepting scandlously low wages is driving down rates which hurts all writers in the end. I know these are tough times and all, but there is work out there and there are clients willing to pay. This is hard work, and we deserve to be well compesated for our time and effort as much as professionals in any other industry. Interestingly, I have a couple of clients who have actually been burned trying to go for cheap over quality in the past.

By: Devon Ellington

Devon Ellington — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:59:00 +0000

Also, every nitwit thinks it's easy to make a living writing, and there are far too many people who are hired for writing mill jobs with no qualifications, who don't care to learn the basics of grammar and structure. They think $25 over six months is a good income. Do you know anyone who can live on that, in this country?

When employers see the low pay and crap quality everywhere, they start to think it's the norm. They pull us all down.