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My Writing Is My Product

Written by Alyice Edrich

Thursday, 22 May 2008

Three years ago I was approached by the director of a new company who needed a few ghostwritten articles and wanted to know my fees. The first part of the letter addressed "Dear writer", not me personally, which tells me this director was mass submitting this request to several writers he found online. Not that much of a big deal, I thought to myself, I could easily reply with a quote. But here's where the query for a writer got me clicking the delete button instead...

The director changed thoughts midstream and offered a second alternative. Instead of paying me to write an article for him, he wanted me to write about his company and then spend hours pitching the idea to several print publications. He proposed an arrangement that looked very much like this:

"We do not purchase the article; however, you write the article and submit it to [topic specific] magazines and you work out the reprint fees with those magazines. You allow us to use the article, free of charge, for publicity and marketing purposes—with your byline of course. Both parties are required to keep each other informed as to where the article is submitted, for the first year, to prevent duplicate submissions."

Had he sent me a publicity email letting me know he was available should one of my writing assignments require his expertise, I would've held onto his information for inclusion in future topic-related articles. But that's not what he did.

I wanted to email him back and say, "HELLO! I don't know what you think writers do all day, but you are requesting that I act as a PR agent for your company and not get paid for it. That is not only disrespectful of my talents as a writer, but as a human being who earns a living from her writing. If I proposed the same scenario to you, would you honestly consider putting in hours of unpaid work to promote my business, The Dabbling Mum.com , without receiving a single dime for it? Or with the hope of being paid by another publication? I highly doubt it. Thank you, but no thanks!"

But instead I simply declined his offer.

Had he offered to pay me to ghostwrite the article for him, he could've retained all rights to the article and pitched, sold, or given away the article for free to whomever he pleased. Had he asked me to write the article for him with one-time rights to use my article on his website, with my byline, I would've retained the rights to the article, asked him to pay a reprint fee for each medium he wanted to place the article, and then—at my discretion—pitch the article as a reprint to other publications myself. But I was definitely under no obligation to tell him where I sold those reprints.

In all honesty, I've encountered several small business owners with similar pitches, and no matter what deal I came up with, these business owners wanted to either pay peanuts to reuse my work anywhere they pleased without further compensation or they wanted to sweet talk me into giving my work to them for free—even going so far as to offer a barter arrangement I really couldn't use.

But I wasn't always this confident in my writing skills or my business. In fact, I've been burned or "run over the coals" more times than I care to count. But with age comes wisdom and with wisdom comes a belief in one's self and one's abilities.

Over the years, I've learned a few valuable lessons, like:

Never give up all rights to your work unless you feel the compensation is worth it.
Every paid writing assignment has the potential of becoming a paid reprint, if you know which rights to keep.
If you seriously aren't going to pitch the article as a reprint, use it in a book compilation, or use it in another form, negotiate a ghostwritten contract instead.
Believe in yourself enough to charge what your expertise and experience dictates.
Believe in yourself enough to turn down writing assignments that simply do not interest you, are outside your area of expertise, or cause you to feel uneasy.
If you accept a writing assignment and later discover you hate the topic or the person you are working for, don't walk away leaving the client hanging. Stay professional, give the assignment everything you've got, complete the assignment, get paid, and then turn down the next assignment.

In the end, it all boils down to running my freelance career as a business and remembering that my writing is my product.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com

About The Author:

Alyice Edrich is the award winning editor, freelance writer, and aspiring artist. Visit her websites to learn how you can earn $50 in two hours or up to $10K working from home in your spare time (http://thedabblingmum.com/ebookstore) or to learn more about designing your own personalized gift (http://alyiceedrich.net).

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