The Working Writer

One of the more hotly contested, ongoing debates about copywriting and marketing are the rate schedules - meaning, how much a copywriter gets paid for their work. Throught my years as an seo copywriter, I’ve had more than several of these debates with clients, editors and publishers.

Hope C. Clarke, Editor of the long-standing weekly ezine, “Funds for Writers” ranted about this topic in the January 22, 2007 edition, stating:

A thousand words for $5 or $10 is a joke. Payment in copies is an insult. No payment ought to be a crime called stealing.

and,

If you sell a commodity, you are in business. Businesses are supposed to make a buck, or quit operating. The term nonprofit doesn’t mean you aren’t supposed to make ends meet. Nonprofits are supposed to be self-sustaining, or they can be considered defunct entities. They have an obligation to make sound business decisions, and if they cannot publish, pay the writers and make a profit, then they need to quit publishing until they find enough financial means to pay the worker-bees who provide the honey in the editor’s honeycomb.

with a final,

For those who are in the business of writing and publishing, and like a writer’s work, for goodness sake, pay him or her a respectable income. Otherwise, write the dang stories yourself. There’s no prestige in making less than minimum wage…and I’m not talking about the new increase, either.

I think Ms. Clarke pretty much summed up all of the reasons I’ve heard for being paid pennies an hour. That’s right: pennies.

I’ve had countless people on the ‘Net ask me to write them an eBook - and since I love this kind of ghostwriting, I usually jump at the chance. That’s why I’ve got more than three dozen to my credit.

However. Writing an eBook takes time. There’s the research, interviews, phone calls, trips to the library, magazine clippings, locating affordable photos to spruce things up - and I haven’t even written a word yet!

Normally, I take a month to write an eBook, including any necessary edits or revisions a client may request. You are correct if you think I’m working on other projects as well, but let’s face it: the average 50-page, 18,000 word eBook isn’t going to get finished in a day, much less a week, no matter how hard I focus.

So when a client tells me their budget for this average eBook is $300, I cringe.

Now if their budget was a little more reasonable (I’ll get into fair rates for an seo copywriter tomorrow), I’m usually more than willing to talk: perhaps I could write fewer words, get creative with the layout and add more stock photos to get the same result. I’ve even been known to say, “Here is what I can do for you that fits within your budget.” I don’t mind negotiating; in fact, I enjoy it.

But $300? Not negotiable. That’s about a penny a word, which works out to approximately $4/hour without including any background work or edits and only if I type really really fast.

When I explain my situation, many people have stated they’ll just go somewhere else. True, they will easily find another copywriting and marketing company who will do it for pennies - and they’ll get what they pay for.

So what do reasonable seo copywriting rates look like? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s posting, where I delve into the 2007 Writers’ Market and Chris Marlow’s Freelance Copywriter Fee and Compensation Survey to answer.

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