The Writer’s Well

I am currently focused on writing book length work only in my freelance writing. You can read more about that here.

That said, I wanted to leave some posts here that writers might find helpful and evergreen. I had hundreds of posts up beginning in 2005 through 2009. I went through and deleted any irrelevant or outdated posts, any broken posts, and only left the ones I thought would stand up to posterity.

You can find me through my personal site Leslie Poston dot Com, a hub for my other endeavors.

You can also find me at Uptown Uncorked and Smoke Rings and Coffee Stains.

Have a writing question? Disappointed that I don’t have the bandwidth to keep this up? Ping me with it on Twitter and I’ll try to help you directly.

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come give me your video reply on Seesmic

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I love this. So true:

(Hat tip to Jaime McD)

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I did a write up for one of my professional blogging gigs about online plagiarism. I also pointed you to some tools to fight it. Go check it out at Profy. Be sure and let me know what you think or offer your own solutions in the comments over there.

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By far the question I hear most often both online and off is “Where do I find work as a freelance writer?” I seldom answer this question, because so many people are under the false impression that “anyone can sling two words together, it’s easy”. These misguided people think that just because you speak English you can be a professional writer. While I wouldn’t want to dash anyone’s secret dreams, I’m here to tell you that simply is not the case.

Writing for a living is real work. It takes time, practice and the ability to deliver exactly what a client wants. This means not only delivering a well written piece grammatically, but also in the tone, style and voice the client requests, on the topic given to you by the client, with the necessary research done and cited, in a time frame that is anywhere from quick to reasonable. The first time many new freelancers sit down to write, they discover they did not budget in enough money for the research, or that they aren’t capable of writing in the style or voice the client has requested. Perhaps they didn’t mark out enough time to write the piece, causing delays. Maybe the new writer didn’t pay attention to the spec sheet and deliverables and has no way to deliver the documents in the file format requested by the client. They deliver a slow job, or a poor job, and that ends their career – word of mouth flies faster than the speed of light these days. Unhappy clients talk much more than happy ones.

Let’s assume for a moment that you are not a new writer or editor, but simply wish to take something you do already, writing, to a more professional level. Perhaps your goal is to one day work from home, or to supplement your income with a few extra writing gigs. Before you can start logging on to writing bid sites willy-nilly, you need to price your work. I’ve talked about pricing, contracts and rate sheets in other posts, but haven’t gone into the details yet. I’ll save that for another entry. For now just know that you don’t ever want to become a bargain writer or write for experience, and you never want to do a job without a contract signed up front.

I will also tell you that you should price yourself out per page or per project, never per word or per hour. The average per page rate for a new and unproven writer is $5 a page without prior work recommendations and $10 per page if you can provide samples and references. That takes into account research time and one edit per page at client request. As you gain experience and happy clients, you can increase your rates about once a year. The average industry standard length of a page is 350 – 400 words, assuming 12 pt, Times New Roman font, 1″ Margins.

Navigating the bidding sites and finding work can be a challenge. You have two issues that come into play immediately: learning to tell when an ad for writing work is fraudulent, and competing against writing mills in other countries that bid pennies on the dollar. At the moment the country with the most writing mills is India. What ends up happening when you bid against a writing mill is that a potential client will choose the cheapest option – the writing mill. They will receive substandard product in return, because the writing mills do not speak native English and do not understand what they want. They will then contact you, the second choice bidder, and try to talk you into “fixing” the work for a reduced price. Never do that! I can not stress enough that undervaluing your work is the worst decision. Better to stick to your rate sheet and lose a few crappy jobs, building a network of solid clients you can trust that pay your rate, than to take any labor intensive fix-it job that comes along for cut rate prices.

The best way to get work in the writing industry is word of mouth. Find a few clients locally that you can do work for, or write for your local paper, for example. If the clients are happy, have them write a testimonial you can place on your web page. Your web page should have your rate sheet, some samples with copyright stated clearly as yours (never use Creative Commons), and a description of the type of writing you do. Specialization helps you stand out. I write quite a bit of technology pieces and psychology pieces now. When I first started out I specialized in how-to ebooks geared toward Internet marketers. Whatever your specialty, state it clearly on your web site.

If you have no way to start locally, then you will have to comb the Internet for work. Want ads like Craig’s List have plenty of writing jobs, but don’t check for fraud. That puts the burden of vigilance on you, the writer. The bidding sites I will detail in another post do a better job of checking for fraud, but bad buyers still slip through. Not only do you have to watch out for scams and deadbeat buyers, you also have to watch for students who want to use your skill to write their thesis and other odd ducks. You will get burned at least once in your quest for the golden quill, it’s inevitable. Recognizing fraud is a learned skill, after all. Having a contract and demanding every client sign it is one way to keep those kind of life lessons to a minimum. Having a clear, unchanging rate sheet is another.

I also recommend taking advantage of the business laws in your state. Register a business name, even if it is your own name. Then go to the IRS and file for a free Employer Identification Number to use in place of your social security number. All of my clients pay me as B G W E*, using my EIN on the W-9. That helps immensely at tax time, especially with write offs. Yes, I said write offs. If you can make a success of your career, you will find you can write off a variety of things, from office space to gas, that you use to conduct your business. I’m continually surprised at the number of self employed people I meet who don’t take any write offs each year.

Once you have made your list of things to do before you start checking bidding sites, come back to this blog. Tomorrow’s post will be a comprehensive list of places to look for work online.

*It stands for “Business Graphics, Writing and Editing”, but I didn’t want to spell it out on every document and check, so I just registered the initials.

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Recently, the economic downturn has created some interesting financial situations for my freelance work. I have had a number of clients try to bargain with me (I do not offer discounts, a point well covered by a friend of mine and his source this week). I have had several simply stop returning calls and emails. I have had a few outright disappear. None of this has happened to me before in my career, at least not all at once, but each one is a risk a freelancer takes.

I’ve been lucky so far. Being a cynic, I set my business terms up to cover myself for deadbeat buyers. I did deplete my reserve funds while recovering form an accident last January through March, but even without the cushion of two months salary in the bank I’ve so far weathered the storm. How do you hedge your bets and make sure the business you have worked so hard on doesn’t tank when someone else’s does in the precarious world of freelancing?

The first line of defense is your contract. Never do work without a contract. Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t hear me: never do work without a contract. I don’t care if it’s free work for your church, a $100 job for a friend or a major project totaling thousands of dollars – sign a contract for each one that clearly outlines the terms. Don’t start work until you have signatures, names, addresses, phone numbers and contact info for yourself and the client on the document. This will be your first line of defense in the case of arbitration, the need for going after funds or any adverse circumstance.

Why sign a contract for pro bono work, or work for friends? Signing a contact with iron clad terms keeps pro bono work from becoming something that takes up too much of your time, eating away at paying client’s time. It also sets boundaries. By having the parameters of the job clearly outlined in writing you avoid getting taken advantage of, which can happen even when a client doesn’t mean for it to. It can save a relationship with a friend of pro bono client not to have to argue about what was included in the offer of work.

The other way to help make sure you aren’t left holding the bag for a client’s inability to pay is how you structure your fees and payments. My payment structure is clearly written out and is absolutely sacred. I will not bend for anyone on this, because I have been left holding the bag the few times I’ve tried to “accommodate” a client. My payment terms are simple: 50% of the project bid to start a project, and the balance on delivery (not on completion, on delivery), with the number of revisions or edits specified in the contract. I never work for an hourly rate or a per word rate – it is too hard to estimate. I always work for a per page rate and I recommend everyone who freelances as a writer do the same, being sure to set a rate commensurate with your experience and include a buffer for any research you may need to do.

If I do a project that incurs expenses such as travel, printing costs or food, I make sure to make those things payable upon receipt, not at the end of the job. If the expense can be determined beforehand, I will get payment up front and provide a receipt once the item is completed. The point is that incidentals can sink your ship if you don’t take them into account and be firm with your clients about your terms.

Never change your terms midstream. Whatever you determine is your rate, put it on paper as a rate sheet, and make it available to potential clients. Detail each service offered for each rate clearly. Don’t change your rates more than once a year, if that. I tend to keep my rates for years at a time, only changing them to accommodate changes in costs of running my business. This makes your clients comfortable in knowing exactly what they can expect from you, and it is just good business.

If you have a client disappear or become unable to pay, you have several means of recourse. First, turn to your contract. Use the contact information in it to try and track down the client first. You always to try the amicable solution first. If you can’t reach them by normal means to achieve a solution, you may have to take your contract to a mediator, a court or a lawyer. If you were smart and got 50% of your bid up front, you shouldn’t be in too much hot water financially, yet. If you were even smarter and banked your profits from your first few clients to create a cushion, you have more time to resolve the payment issues you are facing now.

Once you have determined a need for further action, first check out the laws in the country or state your client resides in. Often the simplest and cheapest solution to your problem is to file a free small claims court petition against the client in their own location. Most small claims court petitions are free to file, though you should check the laws in each state before assuming that is the case. some states also require you to present your small claims petition in person, so be sure to find out if you can file in absentia as well. once you know the proper procedure for the state in question, simply provide copies of your contract, completed work and invoices as back up to the file and let the system work for you.

If small claims court isn’t the solution for you, you can check with the courts in the client’s state to find out if they have filed a petition for bankruptcy. All bankruptcy filings are public record. It costs you nothing to find out if someone has filed. If your client has filed for bankruptcy, you want to contact their lawyer and the court and be added to their bankruptcy petition as a creditor. Again, you will provide documentation of the work provided to the client, including a contract copy. Often bankruptcy court cases settle for pennies on the dollar after dragging on for a few months, so this is definitely not the fastest way to get paid, nor will it get you the full amount you are owed, but something is better than nothing, right?

If none of these solutions work, you can try using a collections service. The collection services work by purchasing the debt from you, again for pennies on the dollar, and then pursuing it on their own behalf, using their own resources. Once you sell the debt to the collection agent, you are no longer allowed to continue to try to collect it yourself – it is considered paid as far as you are concerned. This is probably the least favorable option to pursue, as collection agents are not pleasant to deal with on either end of the equation.

Currently I am listed as a creditor on three bankruptcy filings. That is certainly something I never thought would happen, and a sure sign the economy is struggling this holiday season. At least I will get paid, and I made sure to get the deposit before starting the jobs, so I am not completely losing my shirt in the meantime, but if I didn’t follow my own advice to stick to my guns and get everything in writing I would be up the creek.

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I know that sounds weird. Let me explain what I mean. Too often the desire to turn out perfect content, flawless in every way, brings us to our proverbial knees. We have personal blogs, but we never update them anymore. We are so busy trying to make each entry perfect that we never write the entry. We are overwhelmed before we even start. We have novels and short stories we are working on, but our fear that someone won’t like it, or that the words we choose aren’t the absolute correct, pristine words to capture the moment that we never write at all.

Write now, edit later. Make that your motto in the coming days and weeks. Stop striving for immediate perfection. It cripples you. Just write. Let your typos show, warts and all. Force yourself to ignore the glaring errors only you can see. Then, just before you click “save” or “publish” do one quick error check. Do not allow yourself major revisions or sentence rewrites. Do not allow yourself to do anything more than adjust your punctuation and fix one or two spelling errors. Make yourself take no more than one read-through (or about five minutes) to correct small errors on the page. Stop obsessing yourself into silence.

The words will be there later to go back and make perfect. For today, and the next few weeks, increase your productivity by adopting the Write Now, Edit Later mantra with me. Forget plot. Eschew direction. Just write. Write Now, Edit Later.

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UPDATE 2009: 451 Press has closed it’s doors as a paying blog network. However, the company has left ALL articles online from past authors, removed author access to the articles so the authors can’t remove them, and taken all author NAMES off of the article. 451 contract stated that they could continue to use your content with credit to you in perpetuity (which is a terrible contract clause, by the way, authors). It also stated the author could use their content elsewhere after a certain period of time. Taking the names off is in violation of that contract, as is prohibiting access to the posts to authors (and thus making future use difficult).

Update: I was contacted by some of the powers that be at 451 Press, who informed me of some changes in the last month that may alleviate some of the issues below. It seems they have now automated their payment system, including the payment tally. This means that for the first time last month all bloggers were reportedly paid on time. That’s a huge step in the right direction, and I wanted to make sure it got mentioned. Now, if the automated tally system works as well, paying bloggers the correct ad revenue for all types of ads, bloggers, do let me know so I can take 451 off the hot list.

Update: Further updates can be found in the comment section of this post, as I receive them. 

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According to this self-released press release, 451 Press has proclaimed themselves the largest blog network. What they aren’t saying is that they have the highest turnover rate of any other blog network, with bloggers leaving in droves, and the worst pay rate and payout record.

Many bloggers at 451 are lucky to see pennies on the dollar, in spite of signing a 40% revenue share agreement. Even on months when page views for the sites double, triple or quadruple with skyrocketing unique hit counts and ad impressions the bloggers are lucky to get paid at all, and the company is ever ready with excuses as to why the stats are great and the pay is low.

451 has also been consistently late with monthly pay outs, not to mention the fact that they rarely come through with contest winnings and pay for placement ad rate revenue, with some bloggers waiting as long as 7 months or more for a simple $20 a month share of a paid placement ad on their site or their share of contest winnings. Recently, the powers that be claim to have addressed late payment issues, however; the ad payouts are still generating dissatisfied reports from current and former bloggers on the network.

451 has also garnered a reputation for locking bloggers out the moment they say they’d like to quit, offering them no chance to take their writing with them, even though the contract clearly states that the writers own the rights to their work after 30 days at 451 Press. This has been an issue with several bloggers who have left on both good and bad terms, though I must give credit to 451 for reaching an amicable agreement on my content with me when I quit a few weeks ago.

They offer a writer’s forum, but at the first indication that the writers would like to publicly discuss the lack of payment, the pay structure (currently Ad Share, but with rumblings of a change to CPM soon), the high turnover, the use of spam writers to generate filler without a writer’s knowledge, accusations of plagiarism by some of the spam filler writers, and more the forums are edited and shut down, ending open and frank discussion.

All in all I’d say 451 Press has behaved as a blog network that treats its writers like so much disposable garbage, and my recommendation is to stay away until or unless they sort out these issues. If they do sort out these issues (as in, have several months of solid, on time payment and resolve the outstanding other blogger beefs), do let me know so I can update this entry.

End note: Those of you who read this blog will note that I was writing for them myself for several months not too long ago. I thought they showed great promise, and liked the full rights to the author language in the contract, as well as the 40% ad revenue share. In the end I left because of the forum practices outlined above, after giving them every chance to change for the better. I personally did not experience the low pay issue, though I did experience the late pay issue. It’s too bad, really, because as a young network they had such unlimited potential to grow and a stable of great, eager bloggers to draw from.

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