What Is A Freelance Writer Worth?

Freelance Writer's Dream

Yesterday in two very different Facebook Groups I am a member of there was a very similar discussion. I did not really participate in either as by the time I saw them, things turned pretty ugly. One group was RPG/Games Writers and  someone was asking for folks to write 300 word sample in hopes of 2000 word gig for 1 cent per word. The other was a Marketing Group and person did not want to pay anything but wanted people to come post 'viral' (his word choice) content on his blog, which was brand new and had no content at all, for 'exposure'.

Rather than get involved in ridiculously hostile flame war two sides of writing (those wanting to get content for as little as possible and those who want to get paid like they were best in the business) I chose to write a blog article.

My point of view is as a writer. I write two dozen blogs, I have around 200 books at the moment on Amazon (variety of genres and pen names), I copywrite both for my own products and for sales pages of my joint venture partners, and first really big money I made was by selling rights for two books I wrote while still a kid.
Before we begin, you should watch this brief three minute rant by Harlan Ellison from documentary "Dreams With Sharp Teeth", called "Pay The Writer".


Harlan Ellison -- Pay the Writer by jackhunterxxx

Important thing to understand is that any new writer, one who has no reputation at all, is worth lot less. But you should never work free, nor nearly for free. If you do, and it gets around, especially if you write free for a well known place, you end up devaluing your work permanently.

Look at people who go and write on places like Fiverr. They write for one cent per word, or less, and if they are good they will get constant work, but they are working for less than minimum wage. A pizza delivery kid makes more than they do! And you can get popular there, but that will NEVER translate into much bigger money. You forever brand yourself as CHEAP.

Right way of beginning freelancing is to give slight discount on first X amount of words, maybe 250-300, but only very first time you are working with a new client. And not to work on spec, nor for free, unless it is for yourself, and ideally not until you've already made it. An artist who sells paintings for 50k a piece can afford to paint a free one for something like children's hospital. Everyone knows its an exception, and not a rule. But if first thing people ever read about you is that you did work for free, you just majorly sabotaged yourself.

You watch a movie or a TV show and you love actors, the way the lines are delivered, and words themselves. You remember name of the actor twenty years later. You remember the words. But how many of you remember name of the person who WROTE those lines?

That is because there is this stupidity among writers where they do not push for credit enough out of fear of being replaced by someone else. Countless times director or head writer steals ideas of minor writers, and they might not even get screen credit. Because they let them do it. Some of my first work was done under what is known as a 'house name'. It means that several writers were writing content, under one name, but we had no right at all to what we wrote. My first two books did not sell a lot when I attempted to self-publish (old school style, cheap covers and self printing), but my writing was great, and got noticed. But topics covered would not sell, in opinion of publishing house that was interested, if it came out that a kid wrote it. So they paid me, rather a lot actually, but I had to sign off all rights to my work. In retrospect I do not regret selling because that money took care of me for ten years after that and without them I was never going to understand value of my skill. By seeing those books make 200 times more than I got paid I realized that I was really good at this and that I should stick with it. But there is that part of me that cries because I cannot tell you what books are and I cannot take credit for them.

But you are here because you want to know how much is your writing worth. Truth is, it depends. When I write a blog post, or Kindle ebook that I do not expect to sell a lot of (for example, under my name as I am unknown under my real name) the quality of writing might not be as good. I might miss few articles (a, an, the) because I am in that mindset of getting it done quickly. I would not value anything I write like a stream of consciousness at the same rate as edited paid work.

Lists of what some companies pay freelancers range from a quarter of a cent per word (yes, I am serious, heres source: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2301-What-s-a-Freelance-RPG-Writer-Worth), but I cannot take seriously any business offering less than 5 cents per word. That includes royalty. So, Steve Jackson Games might pay 4 cents per word but they also give you 25% royalty (of cover price) on top of that. And that is for absolute newcomers.

If you are any good as a writer I advise you to never work for less than 5 cents per word. If you are not, and are one of those 'I write for fun' types who likes to pretend they are a writer, knock yourself out, just understand you have far better chance of winning a lottery than ever being taken seriously if your claims to fame are on covers of nonsense companies that exploit writers. Odds are you'd do better self publishing with Amazon.