How Much Are You Worth?!
Posted on August 8, 2011
Whether you realize it or not, your worth is constantly being measured. It’s measured by what you and others think of you and your talent.
How Is Your Worth Measured?
As a writer, your worth is measured by what others are willing to pay you and by what you are willing to accept. Although you have the ability to reject what others offer to pay you, you also need to make an income.
Once I accepted a job to write 10 articles for $10 each. They were 300-word articles. That’s $.03 per word and not something I ordinarily do. So, why did I accept it? I did so based on three reasons:
- It enabled me to gain experience writing on law topics — I now use these examples to market my wares to law firms (love writing for law firms!).
- I had some extra time and didn’t mind writing for the law firm.
- It supplemented my income.
My Personal Current Worth
I don’t typically accept a writing job for less than $.05 per word, and currently receive $.10 per word. With all the layoffs in the U.S. and foreign competition, however, it is now more difficult to find great-paying writing jobs. The reason is that many laid off U.S. professionals, like me, turn to writing while they look for other, better-paying work.
Although I love receiving high wages for writing articles, that may not always be the case. With that in mind, what choices are there?
Strategies to Accepting Writing Jobs
I would like to think that I choose my own worth, but the market also dictates the worth of a writer. Although your skills may be worth a lot to some companies, others have fixed budgets, and some are just plain cheap and don’t want to spend much for a quality writer.
My advice is to only accept lower paying writing jobs if you:
- Are just beginning as a writer and need any experience you can get.
- Are desperate for the income and you don’t have any other writing jobs at the time — continue your search for better-paying writing jobs.
- Want experience in a particular field to add to your portfolio and this writing job provides that.
- Can’t find any other better-paying writing jobs and want to write until you find something better.
- Need to supplement your income.
- Are an authority on a topic and can kick out the articles quickly — results in good pay for some.
- Want the work, because it’s easy to produce articles quickly — marketing copy is sometimes the fastest and easiest to produce — key words are critical; quality is not.
I try not to bend when it comes to pay, but negotiations are everything in obtaining good writing jobs and better pay. If you are interested in writing for a particular company that offers you a job that doesn’t quite meet your pay expectations, consider these strategies:
- Some companies raise the rate of writers after they see the quality of articles produced – be open to negotiate with the company for better pay after you’ve proven your worth.
- Negotiate up-front with a company to receive better for better pay-per-article if they see your articles bring in high traffic.
- If you can bring in lots of traffic for a company, negotiate a PPC, along with the pay-per-article – pay-per-click (PPC) or –visitor has the potential to produce significantly greater income for you in addition to the pay-per-article.
Strategies in Applying for Writing Jobs
It can take time to find good-paying articles. My first writing job paid me $35 per article, but I don’t think that’s the norm. In contrast, I continue to receive offers from companies who don’t pay well, but usually reject those.
Companies don’t typically post their per-article or per-word pay in their ads for writers, so you don’t know until after you receive the offer that the pay is low.
So, how do you know for which jobs to apply?
That’s a good question and one that is not easy to answer.
Some strategies I use when applying to job ads are as follows:
- Look for industry names in the ads – e.g., Groupon, LegalZoom and other companies or websites you’ve heard of before.
- Look for links to the company’s website – click on the links and look through the articles on the site – if they are low-quality article, stay away – the company doesn’t pay well.
- If links in a job ad take you to quality articles on topics on which you enjoy writing, then apply.
- Stay away from simple ads with VERY general non-descript language – these are generally ads to obtain email addresses for sending SPAM.
- Set up iGoogle to receive regular job ads from Craigslist – my friend, Sam, has a great article on this. I’ve found good-paying writing jobs through Craigslist.
Use good common sense when applying for and accepting writing jobs. Think about how accepting the current writing job offer might impact future writing jobs offers. Don’t accept low-paying writing jobs, unless it will benefit you in the future.
Are there other strategies you use to find better-paying writing jobs or for accepting lower-paying writing jobs?
Samantha Bangayan
August 10, 2011
Sherry, thanks so much for this thorough post and thanks especially for linking to my article! =) I’m so glad that the iGoogle dashboard could be useful. It takes a while to set-up, but it’s forever there for you to quickly scan through whenever you need to client/job hunt. After setting mine up earlier this year, I hadn’t touched it for a long time until I started job hunting again last week! =) Quick and easy!
I think it’s so valuable that you share specifics in this post, Sherry! Thanks for letting us know a range for what we can define as decent pay. I also love how you bring up negotiation — I’ve used all three of the strategies you mentioned in one way or another. It’s important to note that “high traffic” can be defined in different ways. The most obvious way to measure traffic is through unique page views, but some companies like to see shares (e.g., Likes, tweets) and others like to see comments.
Loved this post, Sherry! Thank you!
Writing4Effect
August 11, 2011
You are a fantastic writer, Sam — one of the best I’ve ever met — and the iGoogle idea was ingenious. I set it up after I read your post and love it. You are part of the reason I added the negotiation strategies — you are quite effective at this. I’m glad you provided more specific notation to the “high traffic” thingy. You’re absolutely right — click-throughs, Likes, tweets, etc. are highly valued traffic and presumably suggest “quality” traffic vs. “quantity.’ And who doesn’t want quality traffic?! So glad you found something in this post useful, Sam, and always glad to see you visit!
Penelope J.
August 11, 2011
Hi Sherry,
As usual, your post is full of important and relevant information for those interested in writing jobs. It’s very encouraging for someone interested in getting writing jobs though the low pay, increased competition, and what you didn’t mention, the pressure or stress factors, might put me off. Also, it takes time to find your niche and your customers. Or maybe I’m just reluctant to jump into this particular arena at a moment in my life when I have many other things on my plate.
Sherry Zander
August 14, 2011
Always good to hear from you, Pennie, and glad this post was helpful. You brought up a very good point. Writers can experience a lot of pressure for a variety of reasons — brand new to writing and working from home, too much work or too little work. I have to admit, there is a lot of flux in the field of writing. I work for companies all the time that reach their limit of content and don’t need anymore. I love the comment about finding “your niche and your customers.” Some writers do find a niche that works well for them. I have a friend who found consistent work ghostwriting for a private company. They pay her $50 per hour, because they turned one of the books she wrote into a successful screen play. I know of others who make a comfortable living through affiliate marketing on their websites, along with writing gigs. I also know of a plethora of others like me who do not necessarily have a niche, but write for a variety of companies. I hope to some day ghostwrite or write books full-time and command the pay my ghostwriter friends does. That would provide a comfortable and relatively stress free income. Who wouldn’t love that?!
cspeno
August 14, 2011
Hi Sherry
Thanks again for another insightful post to all writers!!
I love doing community articles although I only get about .03 word for a semi-monthly piece I do for a small city newspaper with a print circulation of 20,000; however, this publication also receives 380,000 page views each week and is visited by approximately 75,000 unique visitors each week so in spite of the lower pay rate, I look at this as great exposure for me and allows me to list this experience on resumes and online profiles.
I do the best with content writing for websites. For this type of work I am able to charge a good hourly rate for all time spent on research, meeting with clients (in person and on phone) along with the writing and editing of the text. I am in the process of building a marketing strategy to pick up more of this type of work as I love it.
But after reading your post, I think I will also try to apply for some of the online article writing jobs out there. After all we can all use a little extra cash, and I am confident I have the skills needed to do this type of work.
I appreciate your wonderful advice and the sharing of your experience with your writing work. Keep up the great work on this blog and in all of your writing!
Sherry Zander
August 14, 2011
Thank you for the quality feedback, Christine. Love the stats you’re getting on those community article — looks like great numbers and great exposure. I know I enjoy reading your articles — always well-written, informative and interesting. One strategy that’s worked well for me in the past and is touted by Jennifer Woodard @ http://wordzopolis.com/ is to market your wares to web developers. They are already developing sites and having a “resident” content writer can benefit them and you.
As far as online writing jobs, I am confident you have the skills for those. In my opinion, you are an exceptional writer!!
cspeno
August 26, 2011
Well, Sherry, you’ve inspired me with this post. I applied with Demand Studios for both writer and copy editing positions. I am approved as writer and waiting to have my profile reviewed. Also waiting to hear on copy editing.
As always thanks for your words of wisdom as we continue to remind each other of our worth 🙂 Will keep you and your readers posted on my progress through my blog so be sure to visit me!
Writing4Effect
August 26, 2011
Congratulations, Christine, that’s encouraging news. Way to go, girl! BTW, just saw your email as I was going through it and will be replying shortly. Congrats on the acceptance — I know of many who do not — look forward to hear how things go for you. I know you’ll do grrrreeat! 😉
Leigh Donovan, HHC
February 23, 2012
Terrific post!
Writing4Effect
February 24, 2012
Hello, Leigh. So glad you liked it. 😉