Freelance Writer Rates

Freelance writing is one of those things that attracts a lot of entrepreneurial people who are looking for a small business startup that they can launch with little investment and run on very little overhead.

While it is true that little investment is required to start up your own freelance writing business, assuming you already have the requisite software and a computer, the other side of the coin is that it is also the kind of startup opportunity that has income trickle in at the beginning.

Search around the Internet for freelance writing, freelance writing business, or freelance writer and you’ll get a lot of barely informational junk on websites who actually have no interest in being freelance writers or helping you become one.  Instead, their primary interest is in showing you ads, collecting your email address, and if possible, getting you to buy something from them.  You can thank Google for this.  Persevere long enough to dig a little deeper into the search results, or use more intelligent searches with more words and you’ll eventually find the websites of real writers.

Some of these writers are bloggers, others write books, and others are copy writers, and of course, there is everything in between.  Generally, most of these sites will eventually post something regarding the rates freelance writers earn.  Or, mores specifically, on the rates freelance writers should earn.  The overall theme is that writers should earn more than they do because writing is valuable and the only reason freelance writers get lower rates than they deserve is because non-savvy writers accept the low pay.

After you find some of these websites authored by professional writers, eventually you may also encounter websites which are not about a writer and their business, but rather websites about helping other writers find writing gigs, or helping those who are not yet freelance writers become freelance writers.  These sites too will end up with an article on rates.  Ironically, these articles will generally have the theme of why they post low paying writing gigs and that if a writer doesn’t want to take a low paying gig, they can just ignore it because some writers will want those writing jobs.

I’m not going to get into that debate, but if you want the answer, I have it.

I am a professional freelance writer as my full-time job.  I do not have another job of any kind.  Writing is the only way I make money (except for some of my websites which earn money because I am doing the writing for them).  I bring this up because that is the line that separates those who truly understanding the pay structure of professional writing and those that do not.

If freelance writing is the difference between whether or not you get to buy an extra Xbox 360 games and that “other job” is the way you pay your mortgage it is easy to sit on a high horse and sniff at lower paying jobs.  Incidentally, it is also what makes it easy to take a job no matter how little it pays because it is fun or easy.  Besides, $5 for a 1000 words is good enough to add up to Saturday night’s beer money if you do it at work when your boss isn’t looking.

But, when freelance writing is how you pay the electric bill, the mortgage, and buy clothes for your baby, you know exactly what and how you have to earn to be a full-time writer.