Comments on: Writers Worth: Putting the “I” Back in Freelancer

By: Lori Widmer

Lori Widmer — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 15:38:52 +0000

You should feel honored -- it speaks to the quality of your work.

Giving the proceeds to an educational organization? A rather thin story punctured by the fact that he didn't think to give that to the writers.

I'd be surprised if the money didn't end up in his wallet.

By: Kathy@TheFlawlessWord

Kathy@TheFlawlessWord — Tue, 31 May 2016 21:53:20 +0000

Thank you all for stopping by and reading. I miss my blogging community. I ultimately was not the winner of the Penelope Niven Award, but I feel honored to be among the finalists. As for that darn anthology, the organizer is now claiming he is going to give the proceeds to an educational organization. I'm still not signing the consent form, but I hope he follows through with that notion.

By: Ashley Festa

Ashley Festa — Tue, 31 May 2016 20:20:10 +0000

Hi Kathy. Integrity is definitely hard to come by these days in many circles. I've had a few raw deals pitched my way, and thankfully have avoided most of them, even back as a newbie in the freelance life. The ones that bother me most is when a client begrudgingly agrees to the terms and starts sending the work my way, but is very slow about signing the contract. I've even had one that verbally agreed to the terms and sent me the info, but when presented with contract, he backed out. He said, "I wasn't expecting to have to sign a contract." Hmm. Were you expecting to pay me for my work? Who knows. Thankfully I didn't take on either of these clients.

Best of luck with the Penelope Nivin Award results!

By: Anne Wayman

Anne Wayman — Tue, 31 May 2016 16:58:18 +0000

Finalist in the Penelope Nivin makes you a winner, period. And so does refusing to participate in what turned out to be a scam… nice to meet you, as Cathy said.

By: Paula Hendrickson

Paula Hendrickson — Tue, 31 May 2016 15:41:13 +0000

Happy to meet you here, Kathy.

This reminded me of some poetry contests I entered in high school and college. I got the feeling everyone who entered "won" at least an honorable mention, along with a special "discount" on buying the fancy leather-bound edition - for a couple hundred dollars. Riiiight. Even if I hadn't been a broke student I wouldn't have bought a copy.

It's amazing how expensive it can be to feed an ego. Luckily my ego isn't so needy that it needs external validation.

Good luck with the Penelope Niven Award!

By: Lori Widmer

Lori Widmer — Tue, 31 May 2016 14:36:54 +0000

Kathy, thank you. Again, I'm so thrilled to have your words here!

You point out, as does Cathy, the math behind these decisions, as well as the ethical considerations. If the client is making money from the product, the writer should be paid. Period. In the case of the anthology, the writers should have been told upfront what to expect, or they should have been offered a stipend for their submissions.

I really hate the anthology-crowd mindset. "We'll publish your work and you get to purchase our book" is just another way of saying "You get free exposure!"

And they can put that in the same place I suggest to other fools offering these same deals.

By: Cathy Miller

Cathy Miller — Tue, 31 May 2016 12:55:29 +0000

Nice to meet you, Kathy. And fingers crossed for you on the Penelope Niven Award.

I'm in an industry niche that loves to create publication empires on the free writing of subject matter experts. I wrote one such article to use for marketing and I did receive a few queries and a couple of clients.

The trade magazine continued to write me every month asking for submissions (unpaid, of course). I basically was too lazy to Unsubscribe. When they contacted me to write a chapter for a future course they were going to charge nearly $1,000 for and expected I would write it for free (but, hey, I'd get a free copy of my finished chapter), I stopped the subscription. They surface every once in a while but I ignore them.

The company makes their big $$$ off industry conferences where they solicit huge corporations to pay big $$$ to attend. The corporations probably saw the ads for the conference, while reading the company's magazines, written for free by others. Integrity. Ah, yes.