Why freelance writers agree to work for almost no money

Writers work too cheap

How can content buyers online be callous enough to offer next to nothing for writers’ work? How can writers, some writers, be so short-sighted that they accept jobs that pay $5 for 100, 200 or 500 words? The freelance writing marketplace is changing – especially the writing markets online. From my point of view, a writer chooses where and for how much to sell their writing. Let me see if I can explain why you can’t blame the writers and you can’t blame the buyers.

I offer you a new Yugo (assuming I had one) for $100. Or you may choose a year-old Cadillac for $40K. You need transportation, not bling. Do you take the basic and work with it, or go for prestige? You can’t blame buyers of content. It’s about free enterprise. It’s about supply and demand.

There are as many reasons to try DS, Examiner and other “sweatshops” as there are writers. I would never have understood the mechanisms had I not jumped in myself. So, you can’t blame writers. The marketplace for writing has, unfortunately, moved away from valuing all writing and all writers.

This year, people got axed at other jobs. Those folks “became” writers, singers, designers. Desperate to scratch up dough, any dough, they scrounged for gigs to purvey on websites. Writing competition got tougher. Average quality of work went down the toilet. The web is jammed with wannabes who will work for peanuts.

If the established writer only targets online markets her income will dwindle. Supply and demand. New writers – or would-be writers are out in droves. They have no confidence. They are untrained. They’ve mastered buzz words and the ability to hang 500 words together in the rough. They know how to spell S-E-O. They don’t understand how that concept meshes with quality content, quality writing.

Boycotting publishers on behalf of underpaid writers will be ineffective. We’re seeing a new iteration of this business and things will change. Few people care what the publisher paid for the content or who they paid. Believe it or not, SOME $5 sweatshop articles are not bad. They come from writers who never learned to market their work and don’t believe they can compete. So those writers settle – for peanuts.

The established writer must diversify. She must know her strengths and her weaknesses and exploit both. She must understand her worth as a writer in the markets that suit her skills, experience, and marketing techniques. The established writer has to develop a plan and move forward, not settling, in a panic, for peanuts. It’s about targeting a market and an audience. It’s about writing the truth supported by facts and by good writing.

Each worker makes his/her own decision. This isn’t the 19th Century. Is that oppression of writers self-inflicted? Writers must find markets that fit their specialty. It’s urgent they snuggle into niches and produce quality. They need to spend 75% of time actively marketing by phone, mail or email. Some writers surf the web and bid against thousands of others. Some send resumes that will compete with another few thousand, hoping to get lucky. There must be a better way. There is a better way.

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