Tag Archives: freelance rates

advice, resources

Negotiating Freelance Rates for 2009

freelance-writing-advice-3An interesting article at FreelanceWriting.com includes this quote:

“Many individuals who lack writing skills drive down rates, way below what professional writers can rightfully charge. If the true professionals do not keep up their prices, this will become an even bigger problem. Just because writers from other countries want to work for eight or nine American dollars per hour, this doesn’t mean you should.”

That by Brian Scott, who in the same article advises writers to list their rates on a website and collect a retainer up front. I disagree with both of these suggestions for two reasons. I never list my rates on my website–it prevents me from being flexible with small clients who work on limited budgets. Let’s say you find a non-profit you believe in and want to cut them a break–listing your rates up front could scare them away before they even get in touch. In theory, you’re also committed to those rates regardless of how labor-intensive the project winds up being. Continue reading Negotiating Freelance Rates for 2009 →

advice

Freelancer-to-Freelancer Marketing

See all those empty office chairs? Offices like these could get even more empty if freelancers take my new bright idea and run with it. Let me state for the record that I should NOT be telling you this right now, I SHOULD be developing it MYSELF and making a cottage industry out of it. But I’m obviously not as smart as I should be, since I’m going to spill it now… Continue reading Freelancer-to-Freelancer Marketing →

advice, editorial, lifestyle

How to Go Full Time as a Freelancer: Five Painful Steps

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Note: After a few horrified responses to this post, I should point out that I am wearing the pointy hat for much of this screed…that is to say I may have actually DONE this, but remember that all editors are slightly crazy and I’d never expect anyone to seriously take this advice unless they are as much of a rabid workaholic and certified nutter as I am.

There is no one tried and true way to make the jump from part time to fulltime…except possibly ONE method, the one I tried myself with great success. (How egotistical is THAT? There’s no way to make it except MY way, HAH!) Yet, when I think about it, this is the only method I know that makes any sense at all IF you have a day job you need to dump with extreme prejudice, and want to get yourself into a freelance situation where you wake up and tell yourself that your job is getting in the way of your career.

Naturally it’s a painful, isolating and downright masochistic path to follow to fulltime freelance success, which is why many people shy away from it. And who can blame them? Do you really want to suffer for your dream? You’ll find out just how committed you are when you contemplate doing “the Crazy Joe Wallace Method”. Also known as “Leaving Las Vegas, For Writers.”

What you do is decide, sort of like Nicholas Cage in that uber-depressing movie, that you’re going to write yourself to death.

Well, not quite. The actual trick is to write so hard that you WISH you were dead, but manage to take care of yourself in the meantime enough to maintain your madness. What madness would that be? Continue reading How to Go Full Time as a Freelancer: Five Painful Steps →