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OuterNotes: Writer and Editor Pay Scales
http://www.greenmagazine.com/2000/09/000925a.asp Freelance writer John Scalzi received an intriguing assignment from his editors at Green Magazine: Survey 50 Web sites that pay freelance writers for content, and calculate the word rate that these writers actually receive. The bad news is what you might already expect: Word rates for online writing assigments rarely approach the $1.00-per-word word "gold standard" typically received by first-tier print writers. In fact, Scalzi estimates that the majority of Web sites only pay writers between 10 and 50 cents per word, with some sites paying as little as three cents a word. The good news is that Scalzi's listings do an excellent job of distinguishing fair-paying sites from their more parsimonious brethren. Each mini-review also includes helpful information on payment practices, typical assigned article length, and in many cases, candid comments about working with the site's editors. --Steve Baldwin NWU Offers a Freelance Rate Chart http://www.nwu.org/hotline/hotsurv.htm Are you earning what you're worth? The National Writers Union's Freelance and Contract Writer's Rates Page helps you answer the question: What is a fair rate to earn for my work? Whether you copyedit (average $26.00-$55.00 per hour), write for a small trade publication (average $600.00 per story), or write Web content (a 55-cent per work average), this page shows editors the industry averages and helps writers to negotiate reasonable rates. --Melanie Barton Zoltán Writedirection.com's Offers a Freelance-Fee Formula http://www.writedirection.com/rprt300e.htm Now that you've sharpened your Web-writing skills and found a telecommuting gig, it's time to negotiate rates. Author Debra Jason has spent years of researching how a writer should set his or her pricing schedule. In "Putting A Price On Your Capabilities: How To Set Your Fees as a Freelance Writer" she includes three overall areas to examine: overhead, experience, and geographic location. She concludes by analyzing a specific project and giving cost-benefit examples that will be of use to writers and publishers alike. --Karin Call 1. Site of the Week: Salary.com's Worth Its Salt! http://www.salary.com Salary.com's online database - compiled from a myriad of public and proprietary resources - provides low, median, and maximum salary ranges for more than 1,000 job descriptions in the US and Canada. Dropping down into the "Printing and Publishing" category and entering a zip code reveals that the media salary for a beginning copywriter in Yonkers, N.Y. is $42,529; editors in the same locale earn $52,959, and senior copywriters and senior editors take home $57,838 and 82,507 respectively. The well-done News, Advice, and Career Resources areas can further find your fair-market value before you weigh a career and/or geographical move. --Steve Baldwin The Dangers of Writing on Spec http://www.novalearn.com/wol/Straw11-15.htm In "The Dangers of Writing On Spec," Debra Straw points out that no other professional works on speculation -- except writers. She then relates particular pitfalls: deadlines, word count, and even pay schedules are in place, but the agreement to actually pay and publish is not -- and five anecdotes in which she and her colleagues were burned by not having a definite agreement to pay in writing help drive her point home. To remedy the situation, she offers legal references and specific advice as to how to obtain better treatment for your professional writing skills sans the half-promises and poor treatment. --Karin Call Writers Guild's Guide to Surviving Hard Times http://wga.org/WrittenBy/1299/surviving.html If you've written too much on spec (or found other ways to reach the brink of insolvency), help is available from the Writers Guild of America. Marsha Scarbrough's "A Writer's Guide to Surviving Hard Times," serves up information on three health plans: The Writers' Guild-Industry Health Fund, COBRA, and WritersCare. She also details four emergency financial help programs, including The Good and Welfare Fund, which offers small short-term, interest-free loans for writers to pay the rent or insurance premiums. To qualify, you just have to be a WGA member and be approved by their Finance Committee. And for those looking ahead, there are also pension plans for members of the Producers and Writers Guilds. OuterNotes is produced using the OuterForce Platform, which allows publishers to easily recruit and manage remote and freelance content creation and export it into their publishing platform of choice. For more information, see http://www.outerforce.com. Copyright 2000 by OuterNotes. All rights reserved. OuterNotes is a trademark of OuterForce Systems, Inc. Return to Main Archive Page |