What’s on the iPod: Peace Frog by The Doors
What I’m reading: Transparent Things by Nabokov (almost finished)
Thanks to Devon for sending me a link to this article about newspapers now outsourcing to Demand Studios. Read it and weep. Loudly.
While this news is disturbing and may indeed indicate a downward trend in publishing, what disturbed me more were the comments some folks were leaving. It was the helpless tone from some of those who worked for DS – “I can’t get anything else” or “they don’t even acknowledge my resume.” And so they settle for crap because crap pays a small fraction of what these people are worth, but the crap pays.
I didn’t bother to ask one person in particular if DS appeared on the resume that was being sent, but if it does, there’s problem number one. I’ve been told, as have many writers here, that any mention of content mill work on a resume kicks your reputation in the teeth. But that’s still not the bigger issue.
What I sensed from these desperate comments is this: someone is settling. Instead of taking a proactive career path in which there’s a business marketing plan in place and in action, these people are doing the hunt-and-apply method, probably the most passive client search imaginable. And gawd, what that’s doing to both their earnings and their egos.
Their egos aside, writers who apply for job listings are allowing outsiders to dictate their rates. Unless you’re applying to those job listings that ask for your rate, you’re about to be presented with what this person, who is now in control, has set aside for the project. Don’t expect much. People in control, especially those used to hiring employees, don’t understand negotiations with contractors. In fact, some of them don’t understand that hiring a contractor is not the same as hiring an employee. Just wait until one of them tries to get you to give up 24/7 access.
If you expect to have a lucrative freelance career, you have to be in charge of it. You cannot let forces outside your business control your prices. They don’t control your costs, so it makes no sense to let them tell you what you need to make in order to earn a decent living. The best way – you have to build a marketing plan. You have to find a way of approaching new and existing clients that works for you. You have to constantly work that plan. Working it once a month is going to result in serious earnings gaps. Make sure that every day includes some modicum of marketing or networking or both.
I was the same way. I used to think job boards were the best way to find work. Thank the $4-an-article gigs for setting me straight. After realizing too many people wanted something for nothing, I decided to start pushing my skills and convincing people I rocked. If they didn’t think so, they weren’t my client. Rejection hurts only if you take a business decision personally.
When did you realize that the passive approach wasn’t working? How did things change for you after that?
15 responses to “Are You Settling?”
80% of my clients have told me that, if they see a content mill listed on a resume, that writer's resume is tossed into the trash. They know, from previous experience, that person can't deliver the quality of writing they need.
If you "can't get" something else, maybe you need to see which skills you lack and start working on them. Writers have to continually improve and grow, from project to project, or they won't survive.
There will always be people who continue to work for content mills because they think it's easier to work for next to nothing and not market than put in a little effort, or because they just aren't good enough to cut it in a different arena. I've simply run out of sympathy for them.
A 400 word article is a 400 word article. I'm going to make it as good and interesting a piece as I can, period. And then I'll put in a little bit of extra effort and sell it for a living wage, not pennies or maybe-someday-if-thousands-click.
I actually work on my skills, try to learn something from every assignment, and apply it moving forward.
If you want to survive as a freelancer,you need self-motivation. Most people I've debated with who work for a content mill are neither self-motivated, nor are they the sole providers for their families, nor do they rely on writing to pay the bills.
All of those factors make a huge difference.
Company reputation is important. I read in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, recently, that a MN Human Rights Organization returned a large donation from Craigslist due to the reputation that the job board has concerning the adult-related ads. It's no different than some clients turning down your resume due to the Content mill type work you use for work experience. Reputation is key in some of those situations.
I was there, except DS was not the mill I had used on my resume. In some cases, people would decline to hire me, telling me they're looking for high quality work and my work experience didn't show that. While they didn't specifically say “Content Mill”, I think I could read between the lines quite well. Especially since the mill I worked for was the only work experience I used on those resumes.
I think that's what ultimately opened my eyes. I realized that I had to figure out how to come up with a different approach or I wasn't likely to go anywhere.
I have to credit a comment left on your blog by Devon Ellington as a turning point for me. I wish I could recall what the post was about, but I clearly remember Devon's comment. She state that she would find companies that interested her, contact them and convince them that they couldn't live without her.
That was a completely foreign concept to me. Sure, I was marketing and contacting companies directly about my services (and I did get a few clients here and there using that method), but I wasn't doing it like that.
As "luck" would have it, the very next day I came in contact with a prospect whose business really impressed me. I spent time going through his website and realized that he could make some simple improvements. I thought about Devon and sent an email convincing him that he needed my expertise and it worked! The passive approach went flying out the window. 😉
Two months ago I decided to make a go at freelance writing and I started with the "pits" of content writing… I'm not going there any more. I also wrote and still have it on my resume (note to self to remove it) for a site like DS. I now am writing at Elance as well.
At Elance I've lost a number of projects because my rate was 'too high' and that's fine. I point out in proposals that quality work comes at a price and that I will not sell myself short or produce a shoddy project.
I understand the issues you speak of and I see the trap one might get into. For me it is like a short internship where I got some confidence, learned how to do this type of work and got some nice feedback. All of this helped me see what I can do and how to proceed. So, I have a mixed opinion about the value of these content mills. When we talk about people who perpetually work for pennies that's a whole different and problematic subject.
Writers just like beginning waiters or bus drivers have to take that first job. No one really wants to hire a professional if they have no experience, so how to get it?
Welcome, Walker! Great having you here. I like that you liken it to an internship. I don't know that it will give you the same "credit" with a client that an internship would. In fact, maybe an unpaid internship at a magazine or newspaper would be better – the published clips certainly would hold more weight.
My first writing job paid fifty bucks. That was 20 years ago and that's still more than a content mill article would pay. The only people getting rich over content mill copy are the content mills.
Kim, Devon's inspiring that way, isn't she? 🙂 She's right – seeking them out and showing them you're the one for the job is the best way.
Wendy, your experience is exactly what the problem turns into – writers looking for a way in take these jobs and then find themselves working even harder to convince future clients that they're not fly-by-nights as the content-mill jobs would suggest.
Devon, that still amazes me. But it makes sense given what Wendy's just said and what I've heard. Content mill jobs are not viewed seriously by hiring folks.
You know what? I'm going to say something that is going to blow. your. mind. Okay, maybe not really but I wish it would 🙁
Anyway, let's stop talking about freelancing as a career for a moment, because I think this is where all that sticky shit starts creating a problem. Instead, let's think of it as a BUSINESS. When you take the "career" out, and you de-personalize what you are doing to think of it as a business it's a lot easier to see where you are going wrong. Would any business just settle on a certain customer because everyone else ignores them? No. You see it time and time again with businesses that succeed and businesses that are about to fail. They run ads, they have sales, they hire someone to do SN, they have press release written, they guest on a radio or TV show, they put fliers on all the doors in the neighborhood–see? That is what we need more of.
And honestly, even if you switch your thinking to that of a business instead of a career girl or guy, you still might fail–but at least you know you didn't settle and ignore the possibility of everything you could have been.
I know I need to be more consistent with my self-promotion. As I was knocking out another column the other day, I realized I'd been doing the column for almost four years without any price increase. The small paper that runs it has made it clear they're paying the max they can afford. So perhaps it's time to look elsewhere. (And I do have an idea about that….)
My passive approach is: this is my rate. Sometimes the client walks away. Surprisingly and not surprisingly, once they try getting someone at a "bargain," most of them come back. I usually resist the temptation to raise my rate at that point.
Yo, I'm a huge fan of changing the perspective. It's amazing how that little switch turned around in your mind can make all the difference, isn't it? Career and business are related, but oh, so different. Great point. I know people who have crappy careers because they feel out of control of them. I know businesses who don't take no for an answer because it's not a good business model for them. THAT is where we need to be.
Or perhaps, Paula, it's time to ask for a raise…. try it. You lose nothing. You're already willing to walk away.
Joseph, great approach. My rate is my rate. Take it or leave it. I'm running a business, not a free-for-all.
Lori, you said, My first writing job paid fifty bucks. That was 20 years ago and that's still more than a content mill article would pay.
My first writing job was when I was 15, over (gulp) 30 years ago. I was paid $15 to write a brief article about a feminist bookstore in my town. And ya know what? Even that's more than a content mill article would pay!
Paula said, I realized I'd been doing the column for almost four years without any price increase. The small paper that runs it has made it clear they're paying the max they can afford. So perhaps it's time to look elsewhere."
Paula, let me share a similar experience with you. I wrote a local newspaper column for 6 years that was syndicated to 4 newspapers owned by the same company. I got quite a local following and even 5 years later since I stopped. The pay was abysmal,and there was no room in the paper's budget for a pay increase. I may have eventually ended my relationship with the paper over the money issue, but something else came up first: over intellectual property rights. The paper got first rights, and then all rights reverted to me. However, they put my columns in a database and other organizations would take them out and republish my columns without my permission and without paying me. The paper was unwilling to stop making my column available.
I loved having that column. I loved getting recognized when I was out shopping. I was really invested in it emotionally, but intellectual property rights theft is the line in the sand for me. So I quit, cried over it, mourned and moped for weeks, and finally snapped out of it. What's funny is that as soon as I let it go, much more lucrative writing opportunities came my way. Sometimes we clench what little we have so tightly in our hand there's no room for something else to land gently in our open palm.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Eileen.
The paper I'm contributing to may be a rare exception. They actually have encouraged me to re-sell my column elsewhere, ala self-syndication. I tried that, but when the economy tanked, so many small papers folded and budgets shrank that I had zero bites from the hundreds of packets I sent out.
I'm thinking of approaching a mid-size company that published several hundred daily and weekly papers. Perhaps a package deal for them? The combined circulation would make it easier to get exclusive interviews – right now my column recycles unused quotes from previous articles. Negotiating a decent rate would also allow me to put more time into each column.
Another option might be turning it into a blog. The current paper is really getting into the on-line side of publishing. I could ad short updates instead of trying to write a longer thematic column each week. I could charge them a flat fee per week or per month.
I'm just think out loud here (and sorry for hijacking the thread, Lori…but there are many brains worth picking around here!). Suggestions are more than welcome.
Back on topic: I've already sent three marketing-related e-mails this morning. Two asking editors if they need ideas for some specific sections they have coming up, the other to a publicist about a possible feature article idea I may be uniquely positioned to write, depending on the publicist's reply.
I don't know what I think about newspapers turning to DS… sounds like the final death to news as it should be to me.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/how-to-save-the-news/8095 is an article in The Atlantic Monthly about google and news… interesting and maybe hopeful stuff.
Lori, I love what you said in one of the comments "I'm running a business, not a free-for-all."
I think I need to work on the confidence aspect of my work. I'm a really good writer, and I know it. So why am I so scared of telling other people that? I think I'm just scared to fail. Maybe that's a good topic for another post — how did you build confidence in yourself? Maybe that's a given with some people, but some of us are more timid than others! 🙂
Ashley, perfect timing on your post! A friend and I were just discussing the fear we have when we first start out. It's fear of rejection, but because we love our work and it's part of who we are, we internalize that rejection. They're rejecting us! Hell no – they're rejecting our price or our attempts to work for them. It's not personal. Even when a few fools try to make it personal, it's still not. I look at it as we're just not a good fit from a business perspective. In fact, I have a few former clients who were lousy fits, but they're friends now.
I smell that post coming. 🙂 Thanks for the idea.