Stop Exploiting Us

People seem to think that writing isn't worth anything!

Go on any number of freelance writing websites and you'll see what I mean within seconds. People offer 2 cents per word, or a couple of dollars for articles thousands of words long.

As someone who loves to write and would love to make a career out of freelance writing, this makes me so angry because when people offer jobs at these stupidly low rates, it makes it impossible.

The reason people are able to put ads up with these ridiculous pay rates is because people accept them. Now I understand if you are someone who is just starting out in their writing career that you might take these. You might take them because you're learning and it can feel scary and like to much pressure if you're new and inexperienced and yet someone is offering you a large amount of money for your words - so you start small and as you gain experience and feel more worthy, you'll start taking on more expensive work.

But generally that's all you're going to get when you're offering such low rates for high amounts of work. Maybe every now and then you'll get the odd experienced writer who just really needs a little bit of extra cash; but that's not going to be the norm. What I'm sure they'll be getting instead is people who are inexperienced and therefore can't, at this point in their career, provide you with super high quality work in short periods of time. Either that or you're getting experienced people who know they aren't getting paid shit for this so put little to no effort in and give you exactly what you would have gotten from that inexperienced person anyway.

When I see people offering such little money, it makes me feel like this skill of writing isn't valued; these people obviously think that writing words and sentences isn't a valid skill, it isn't a hard skill and therefore it's not worth much. First of all, when you're asking someone to write thousands of word that can take a bloody long time, especially if you work as a freelancer because you're generally taking on work about topic areas or subjects you're not overly familiar with. This means you'll also need to spend time researching (another awesome skill most freelancers have which I'm not sure people realise).

As I mentioned, when people offer such low rates it makes me feel like these people think writing isn't all that hard - question; if it's so easy, if it's worth so little to you, why aren't you just doing it yourself? Why aren't all these people doing it themselves? Answer; because they can't! Because it's actually not that easy to sit down, sometimes with a topic you know little about, and smash out a few thousand words and pages of sentences, and smash it out in a reasonable time frame, if not relatively quick. It's not fucking easy, we make it look easy because it's what we do, it's our skill, our passion that we've worked on to build up to a point that it looks like nothing. The fact it's not so easy is proven to me by the hundreds of ads out there looking for people to write.

The number of people looking for writers in the world shows that freelance writing should be entirely possible as a career, that there is the demand for it - what makes it so damn impossible to do for a living is because people want to offer cents, which just isn't sustainable for living.

So if you're someone who is looking for a freelance writer and you're putting your ad together and seeing all these people offer crumbs in exchange for work and you're thinking you should offer a similar rate, just don't! Stop making the prospect of a writing career so damn hard and actually open yourself up to receiving good quality work. I know parting with money is never a fun time, but to all those looking for the skills of a writer, 1; I'M AVAILABLE FOR HIRE!, and 2; put up a decent rate and I promise you'll attract a much more motivated and talented pool of writers.

Rant over x.

People seem to think that writing isn't worth anything!

Go on any number of freelance writing websites and you'll see what I mean within seconds. People offer 2 cents per word, or a couple of dollars for articles thousands of words long.

As someone who loves to write and would love to make a career out of freelance writing, this makes me so angry because when people offer jobs at these stupidly low rates, it makes it impossible.

The reason people are able to put ads up with these ridiculous pay rates is because people accept them. Now I understand if you are someone who is just starting out in their writing career that you might take these. You might take them because you're learning and it can feel scary and like to much pressure if you're new and inexperienced and yet someone is offering you a large amount of money for your words - so you start small and as you gain experience and feel more worthy, you'll start taking on more expensive work.

But generally that's all you're going to get when you're offering such low rates for high amounts of work. Maybe every now and then you'll get the odd experienced writer who just really needs a little bit of extra cash; but that's not going to be the norm. What I'm sure they'll be getting instead is people who are inexperienced and therefore can't, at this point in their career, provide you with super high quality work in short periods of time. Either that or you're getting experienced people who know they aren't getting paid shit for this so put little to no effort in and give you exactly what you would have gotten from that inexperienced person anyway.

When I see people offering such little money, it makes me feel like this skill of writing isn't valued; these people obviously think that writing words and sentences isn't a valid skill, it isn't a hard skill and therefore it's not worth much. First of all, when you're asking someone to write thousands of word that can take a bloody long time, especially if you work as a freelancer because you're generally taking on work about topic areas or subjects you're not overly familiar with. This means you'll also need to spend time researching (another awesome skill most freelancers have which I'm not sure people realise).

As I mentioned, when people offer such low rates it makes me feel like these people think writing isn't all that hard - question; if it's so easy, if it's worth so little to you, why aren't you just doing it yourself? Why aren't all these people doing it themselves? Answer; because they can't! Because it's actually not that easy to sit down, sometimes with a topic you know little about, and smash out a few thousand words and pages of sentences, and smash it out in a reasonable time frame, if not relatively quick. It's not fucking easy, we make it look easy because it's what we do, it's our skill, our passion that we've worked on to build up to a point that it looks like nothing. The fact it's not so easy is proven to me by the hundreds of ads out there looking for people to write.

The number of people looking for writers in the world shows that freelance writing should be entirely possible as a career, that there is the demand for it - what makes it so damn impossible to do for a living is because people want to offer cents, which just isn't sustainable for living.

So if you're someone who is looking for a freelance writer and you're putting your ad together and seeing all these people offer crumbs in exchange for work and you're thinking you should offer a similar rate, just don't! Stop making the prospect of a writing career so damn hard and actually open yourself up to receiving good quality work. I know parting with money is never a fun time, but to all those looking for the skills of a writer, 1; I'M AVAILABLE FOR HIRE!, and 2; put up a decent rate and I promise you'll attract a much more motivated and talented pool of writers.

Rant over x.

continue reading

posted by The Noise in Wonderland . 11/3/16 .