Everyone’s heard the phrase, pay peanuts, get monkeys, and it gets trotted out on People Per Hour with clockwork regularity. If some well meaning client posts a freelance writing job with a low budget, count to ten and wait for the discussion board to light up. It seems a good number of ‘professional’ content providers have nothing better to do with their time than troll the jobs boards, ready to slam any employer who doesn’t want to offer them £50 for their precious 500 word project.
But if you pay peanuts, do you really get a monkey? I hope not, because all freelance writers need to start somewhere, and for me I have been working for a peanut loving client for over 2 years now. OK, so I’m tending to tone down my quota from him in favour of higher paying contracts, but to me its easy work and a good way to keep the bread and butter money rolling in. Or peanut butter, maybe?
It’s hard to know when to up your rate, and I’m as guilty as the next man or woman of undervaluing my services. Producing a newsletter for an organisation whose goals and ethics I truly believe in, and who fit perfectly with my specialisms is a nice contract to have. But boy don’t I wish I charged them more! What started out as a simple two page round up of their activities for the month has evolved (largely through my own enthusiasm) into a 6 to 8 page, beautifully designed and bursting at the seams professional publication. It looks great. I’m very proud of it. But if I was working on an hourly rate to make it, I’d be clearing £3 maybe £4 per hour. Oooh ooh aah aah.
And once you’ve set a low rate, it’s so difficult to change it. It really is the elephant in the room. The content provider knows they are worth more but doesn’t like to say so, and the client knows they should be paying more, but hopes they don’t have to. I guess professional freelance writers have no qualms about upping their rate for clients if the job changes drastically, but I’m just not there yet.
Still it’s better to be paid something than not at all, as I have learned the hard way this week. While I don’t mind being asked for a sample of my work, to be asked to write a specific piece (which took a fair bit of work) and then never hear from the client again is a bit more than cheeky. These fishermen are almost as common on People Per Hour as the trolls and I expect many of them make a very good living asking unassuming freelance writers to complete a ‘test piece’ for them and then disappearing from the boards.
You would think even a naive country girl like me would learn her lesson after being hooked by freelance writing fishermen twice in a week. But three times? I think that makes me less of a monkey and more of an ass.
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| Hold on, I dont think he did say Ship Creek... and where's my paddle? |
