UPDATE: After this post was written, Upwork changed its fee percentage from 10% to 22.75%. The company is also changing membership from free to paid, thus shrinking the freelancer’s net for jobs even further.
Writers Worth Month is a month thanks to one person — Paula Hendrickson.
The High Cost of Laziness
by Paula Hendrickson
About six months ago, someone I know asked if I’d like to contribute a few blog posts to her company’s consumer-facing website. She warned me the pay wouldn’t be great, but it was straightforward work. I thought it might be fun, and since no interviews were required it was light work I could easily fit into my schedule.
With an assignment letter in place, I wrote my first post and my friend sent the formal paperwork along with a note asking if I’d be open to joining Upwork to help streamline the process. Her bosses wanted to be able to pay by credit card, and Upwork would allow them to do so.
I hadn’t heard of Upwork, so I looked at the site. At the end of the FAQ, under “How Much Does Upwork Cost,” it says, “It’s free to join Upwork. Once you begin doing freelance work with a client on our platform, we deduct a 10% fee from each payment.”
Woah, Nelly!
This middleman website wants to take 10% of my hard-earned dollars? For what? It’s not as if they found the client for me, negotiated terms, or did anything an agent or manager would do to earn 10% of my fees.
Luckily it wasn’t a deal breaker, but I was told it would take longer to be paid by check. (It did.) Thankfully I wasn’t so hard up for cash to even consider forking over 10% of my earnings just to be paid faster — and frankly, if the company wanted to pay by credit card, they could do that via PayPal, which only charges the recipient 2.9% plus a 30¢ transaction fee.
But some writers are so desperate for quick cash or a clip that they’re easy prey for companies saying they’ll help connect them with potential clients, streamline the business side of things, or provide them with that fabled “exposure” — at a price.
Newsflash: exposure doesn’t pay the bills.
I don’t mean to pick on Upworks, which I later discovered is really just a shiny new brand name for what used to be called Elance and Odesk. Sure, technically speaking they provide a service, but is it a service you really need?
Not if you take charge of your career by putting forth a little effort to find your own clients.
Another lazy way people try to find clients? Contributor networks. Some writers swear by them, but I can’t see why—unless they’re so unsure of their talent and afraid of rejection that they’re terrified to directly approach editors.
Writers who are accepted into some of these networks get regular updates about topics editors are looking to cover, and without benefit of an actual assignment, each writer can spend hours writing an article, hoping it might be chosen for publication from countless other submissions. Some networks pay a flat fee, some pay per impression, and some offer a combination of the two.
Sorry, but that sounds more like a writing competition than a business model.
Worse yet, the editors probably have dozens of articles to choose from, which means your odds of getting paid are even lower than if you’d queried an editor with a story idea and were asked to write it on spec.
From what I’ve seen, most contributor networks are pretty vague about pay rates. Some won’t even divulge how much—or little—they pay.
A friend of mine freelances on the side for fun, not profit, because she has a full-time job that pays the bills. She writes a lot of articles for the online portal of a well-known publication, and it works for her. According to some online sources, just a couple years ago the print edition was paying well over $1/word. But for digital articles, the current stated pay rate is $1.50-$2 per every 1,000 ad impressions.
That means to get paid, the writers need to market and promote their posts, too. That may be a smart, cost-saving, content-generating business model for the publishers, but it’s not sustainable for writers. Not if they want to earn a living.
Instead of squandering time writing on spec—especially for major titles’ lower-paying online editions—why not pitch your original ideas to better-paying markets, or to a contributor network’s print edition?
Sure, maybe you can break into a market through a contributor’s network. But ask yourself: If the editor is used to paying a fraction of a penny per impression for my online articles, why would they pay me $1/ word to write for their actual magazine?
As usual, it all comes down to knowing your own worth.
Once you know your worth as a writer, you’ll see how costly the lazy approach to finding new markets and clients can be.
You don’t need a middleman, and you don’t need to devalue your talent by joining the feeding frenzy of a talent pool filled with people who think writing on spec is a productive use of time.
This blog’s archive is loaded of free, usable tips on finding good clients. Please take advantage of Lori’s sage advice. You’re worth it.
How do you overcome your own lack of motivation?
One of the toughest things I had to learn as a new freelancer was this
is a business and I'm in charge. Oh, I knew it intellectually, but until I faced the reality of that, I did a lot of wheel-spinning.
Whether it's trying to take the easy way out (which doesn't turn out that easy) or buying in to all the "get rich quick" ploys, freelancers do their business a disservice when they shortcut the hard work.
I still have a healthy streak of laziness from time to time. Life's realities (bills, food, etc.) usually provide a good swift kick in the posterior. 😉
Amen, Paula! Thank you for this.
Cathy, you said "Whether it's trying to take the easy way out (which doesn't turn out that easy) or buying in to all the 'get rich quick' ploys, freelancers do their business a disservice when they shortcut the hard work."
Totally agree. Too often, we see writers chasing the latest fad, the latest marketing craze, the latest bad advice to hit the blogging world. Instead, they should be themselves, find a plan that works for them, and work for it.
That applies to every self-proclaimed guru or wanna-be guru who thinks by repeating it, they'll create the reality. Instead, they should be creating a reality that's long-lasting, not full of embellishments.
Thanks, ladies. What it all boils down to is that finding clients and freelance jobs is a numbers game. Lori, you've been saying that for years with your "market, market, market" mantra. Only with contributor networks, bidding sites and middlemen, the numbers are against you because writers become a teeny, tiny fish in a giant, global ocean—all fighting for the same scraps of food. By seeking out your own opportunities, instead, you're planting seeds to grow your own food.
Twins again, Cathy. When I started freelancing, I didn't think of it as a business, but I soon learned.
Paula, love your point about not being lazy in searching for clients. And it's worth noting that putting in effort early on to market your services properly usually pays off in the end as clients start finding you instead.
ah, yes, the race to the bottom… thanks Paula and Lori.
Exactly, Sharon! I get why some publications like contributor networks to generate cheap content for their websites, but how many well-paying clients are really going to work through bidding sites?
What a great post, Paula, and it rings true at every point. When I first started freelancing, I was lured into the extremely low-paying websites because I had no clue how to go about finding good clients. And just as you suggest, thanks to Lori's blog (and the writers who frequent this blog!) I was able to build a business instead of just working for a quick, measly buck (emphasis on measly).
Anne and Ashley, you might not believe this, but a couple years ago I met another writer at a friend's garage sale. She was PROUD of the fact that she didn't "take money" for her "art." (She was writing a column and occasional articles, not fiction.) I answered her by saying something like, "I glad people value my writing enough to pay me. Doing what you love is a nice way to pay the bills."
Good points here Paula.
Upwork is just one of many race-to-the-bottom "marketplaces" around these days. It's sad really. There are writers who that's fine for. But it's not a smart option for most pros.
I wouldn't dismiss all "middlemen" though. There are some middlemen options that are quite lucrative. But that generally involves partnering with or sub-contracting through a firm (marketing, PR, SEO, advertising, design, etc.). You're still independent, and the middleman client is your direct client in many cases (the only way I take them on — they're paying me up front, then worrying about getting paid by their own clients however they see fit). But that's a far cry from things like Upwork and the mills, and it never involves spec work. I agree, that kind of setup reeks of "writing contest" to me.
Yes, Jenn, there are other, better, kinds of middle men — I work for some of them, too. But those are usually more lucrative connections you have to unearth yourself, not the feeding-frenzy middlemen that tend to appeal to less pro-active writers.
Exposure CAN pay the bills when there's a webcam involved. DON'T ASK ME HOW I KNOW THIS.
Good thing I hadn't just taken a sip of tea when I read that, Yolander!
(And no, I won't ask. I might wonder, but won't ask.)
Needing to keep a roof over my head is a great motivator.
I was never a fan of Elance or Odesk, so I'll past on this Upsie-Daisy thing.
If clients want to pay me via credit card, they can do so via PayPal. Works just fine.
Upsie-Daisy thing. Love it!