How Clients Get Away With Not Paying Freelancers (And What You Can Do About It)

piggy-bankAs I mentioned earlier this week in a post about why writers need to list more skills than just writing, it’s not uncommon for businesses to undervalue communication to cut financial corners. Many businesses will add company communications to other positions as a way to save money, especially if it’s not the businesses primary product or focus. Please keep in mind that I’m not talking about writing reviews or blogging here, because there may be instances where writing for free makes sense to build your online presence.

As writing and content strategy professionals, we may specialize in fiction or non-fiction because that is what defines us. Writing is our “product” that we deliver to clients in a timely fashion. We expect to get paid for what we do, because we don’t want to work for free.

Unfortunately, there is a darker side to writing that I wanted to share with you today. That darker side is what happens when we isolate ourselves from one another and don’t do our homework on the businesses we work for. It’s what happens when we chase the rainbow because we want to get those elusive writing credits and get ahead. The result? We don’t get paid.
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February 20, 2009
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Job-Hunting? Writers, List Additional Skills!

One of the things that happens in a tight economy, is that employers want to get more for their money. It makes sense, right? Not only are there are number of people out of work, but employers are looking for that value-add so they save money in the longer-term. In my experiences, this has meant that employers are willing to sacrifice the quality of writing for those “extra” qualifications that they might be looking for.

Unfortunately, those “extra” qualifications might not be easily apparent when you’re applying for a job. Give too much information up front, and you may qualify yourself out of a job. Don’t reveal enough about your skills, and you might find yourself overlooked.

Now more than ever, you’ll have to show not only why writing as a specialty is so important for effective communication, but you’ll also have to list your other skills. Whether you’re technologically-savvy or not, writers often incorporate other skills that are important to list. For your convenience, I’ve come up with a sample list of skills other than writing that may help you promote yourself.

  • analytical – Do you know how to analyze small details and glean insight from them? Are you familiar with web analytics?
  • proofreading – Can you spot punctuation and know grammar rules?
  • content editing – Are you a natural editor? Can you look at the bigger picture and restructure content?
  • web copywriting – Do you know the basics of web copywriting? Or how about search engine optimization?
  • social media-savvy – Are you on Twitter? Facebook? MySpace? It’s not a bad idea to mention that you know how to use the tools.
  • community-builder – Do you know how to generate great discussion and get people to interact with one another?
  • reviewer or critic – Do you write reviews of books, CDs or movies? You never know when someone might be interested in that skill.
  • presenter – Have you written speeches or presented at a conference?
  • style-format editor – Are you a master at word processing and know how to format reports quickly and easily?
  • indexing – Do you know how to index automatically or manually?
  • coding HTML, XML, etc. – Familiar with the ins and outs of coding? Even on a basic level this can be a real plus?
  • blogging – Different from web copywriting, pointing out to clients where you blog can help them glean a little insight about your personality
  • technologically-savvy – What kinds of tools do you know? While a long list of everything that you’re familiar with might not be the best, definitely let your clients know you’re not afraid of tech.
  • photographer or video creator – Do you know how to take a great picture? How about creating short videos?
  • coaching or advising – Have you ever offered other professionals advice? What about non-professionals?
  • bookkeeping – Do you keep excellent books for your freelancing business? Have you thought about expanding that skillset?
  • project management – Have you ever managed a project that you were working on?
  • photo or image editing – Do you know how to edit a photo to make it look great?
  • graphic or web design – Artistic? Know how to design flyers or websites?

Another thing to think about when you’re putting together your skillset, is that the skills you share will also help break down some of the common stereotypes that non-writers have about us. Blast those misperceptions of writers being anti-social and snobbish right out of the water and let your personality shine. The easier you appear to work with, the better your chances will be.

Good luck!

February 18, 2009
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Who Owns Your Content When You Blog? Facebook? Twitter?

After reading this article Facebook owns your content. All of it. Forever, I am reminded of the virtual lack of control content generators have over their content online. This is one of the reasons why I am very careful with not only what I publish online — but where.

Here’s a breakdown of the services I use, how I use them and their “content ownership” policies.
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February 16, 2009
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Resume Writing and the Resume Book Essential for Writers

Every day I not only read headlines about layoffs, but hear from peers, friends and people I greatly admire how they had just lost their job. Having been through some of these experiences myself, I’ve often turned to resume writing books, professional agencies and other resources to learn how to market myself on paper, which is not as easy as it sounds.

The challenge with writing resumes and cover letters, is that it’s easy to make a mistake. Unless you get a callback for an interview, typically prospective employers won’t communicate with you if your resume is written poorly. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of receiving resumes for different jobs you’ve hired for in the past, you probably have a lot of stories to share. Some of the more ironic stories I’ve encountered are the resumes I received for editing positions, only to find out their name was misspelled.

Writers often encounter another stumbling block, because writing is often perceived as a “skill” rather than a “career.” Often, we have to be versatile to navigate different industries both online and off in order to stay in business. Because of that, if we don’t handle that type of experience effectively we can appear very unfocused or too detail-oriented.

After reading several resume writing books throughout the year, there is one that stands out in my mind. This book is absolutely essential to writing effective resumes and cover letters, in my opinion.

Best Resume and Cover Letter Book Available

This resume writing book, entitled “The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book” is one of the best books I’ve ever read. This best-selling resource not only offers you different examples of resumes and cover letters, it provides solutions for specific job-hunting situations and critiques of resumes that could be improved. Before you get to all of that, the book asks you to think critically so that you find the job you want before you submit your resume.

Here are some of the items I’ve used in the book that have helped me:

  • Collection of well-written resumes and cover letters for Career Changers
  • Comprehensive resume writing worksheet
  • Sample cover letters
  • Sample Thank-You notes

The last revision of The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book was published in 2007. The revised editions ensure that the content is up-to-date with current trends and technology.

With an easy-to-reference format, this is a resume writing and cover letter book that’s perfect for writers, because it encourages the reader to think strategically about format, keywords, etc. and provides excellent critiques of the resume samples. The critiques are exceptionally helpful because it teaches you how to write an effective resume, rather than just following the format.

For those of you that are job hunting, you could probably also check this book out from your local library, too. Otherwise you can find The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book on Amazon.com for less than ten dollars.

My heart goes out to those of you who are job hunting out there. Hope you find this recommendation helpful. For more job hunting tips, be sure to check out my tip about the job hunting search engine Indeed.com.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day!

February 2, 2009
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How Much Should You Get Paid to Blog?

Are you new to blogging? Do you know how much writers typically get paid per blog post? Back before blogging existed, most writers would get paid by the word. The higher the word count, the better pay a writer might receive, the more prestigious the publication. For example, publications with national distribution models might offer $1.00 a word on up. Fiction, on the other hand, ranges from free to 5 cents a word on up. You can see a huge disparity in how fiction is paid even through the two, free fiction directory websites that I had listed earlier.

Taken from the perspective that writers should “charge by the word,” I’ve run into the challenge of explaining not only “what” blogging is to some of my fellow writers, but how much they can expect to get paid. One example of this, is that I forwarded a job listing for freelancing to a writer who was looking for work. The job was pretty decent: $10-15 per 300-500 word post on a regular basis. The writer responded by telling me that the company obviously couldn’t afford them, even though they had never blogged before.
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January 26, 2009
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