Writing-World - the site for freelance writers

How much should you charge for proofreading? The jury's still out...

I let this particular poll run for a couple of extra days because every time I looked at it the results were split equally three ways, and I wanted to be able to give you some kind of definitive "answer", if such a thing exists (I suspect it doesn't). Well, close but no cigar: when I finally closed the poll today we'd lost the three-way-slot, but were left with a two-way tie instead. It seems that most of you would charge anything between $30 - $100 to proofread a 500-word page of text, with 17.9% opting for $10 or less.

(Note: 3.6% of you also said you'd charge $300 or more, but the image was too long to fit that result in the space!)

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this result. I had expected it to reveal proofreading as one of the poorest-paid freelance writing jobs, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Of course, I was basing that assumption on the sheer number of emails I receive from people telling me that they're "really good at spelling" and "always notice mistakes in the newspaper", and who have decided that they'd make excellent proofreaders.

Of course, I'm not saying that they wouldn't. But having attended professional proofreading training, I know that proofreading is a far more time-consuming job than many people seem to think, and it requires a considerable amount of skill and patience. In addition to the emails from would-be proofreaders, I've also had my fair share from would-be clients asking me to proofread text, either for free or for close to free, because "it's only a couple of pages, it'll take you five minutes." Er, no. It won't. Or not if I do it properly, anyway...

This week we're taking a break from our What to Charge polls and you'll find a completely different poll in the right hand sidebar, so please go ahead and place your vote!

One hour's copywriting: $60 - $100?

The results of our latest freelance writing poll are in, and it would seem that the majority of our readers are charging somewhere between $60 - $100 per hour for sales based copywriting, with 25% saying they'd charge $20 - £40, and just 3.6% charging $150 - $200. No said they'd charge higher than that, and thankfully no-one said they'd charge less than $10 either, so copywriting appears to be worth more to most of you than press release writing or article writing.

Our latest poll, on proofreading, is now live in the right hand side bar. I know many people seem to view proofreading as an "easy" option for freelancers, so I'll be interested to see whether that's reflected in the rates you say you'll charge for it!

Freelance Writing Poll: How much do you charge for one hour of sales-based copywriting?

This week's freelance writing poll is now up - you can see it in the sidebar to the right of this post, and as you can see, this week we're continuing with our quest to find out what the "average" rate is for various freelance writing projects by asking the question, "What do you charge for one hour of sales-based copywriting?"

Now, I realise that this may be a particularly tricky question for some of you to answer, because clearly not everyone charges by the hour, with some writers preferring to charge by the word or project for this type of work.

For the sake of the poll, though, I'm going to ask you to imagine that you do charge by the hour. How much is an hour of your time worth when you're working on a piece of sales-based copywriting? The project could be a web page, a leaflet, a brochure - it could be anything you like. Just imagine you've been asked to write text designed to inspire people to buy something, and you've worked out that the work will take you one hour.

What would you charge?

How much do you charge to write a press release? The results!

All I can say about this one is that I really hope the 2.7% of you who said you'd charge less than $10 to write a press release were joking...

These are the results of our 'What do you charge for a press release' poll, and as you can see, the results follow the same broad pattern as the '500 word article poll, although rates for press releases are a little higher, with 21.6% of respondents falling into the $100 - $150 bracket, as opposed to just 13% who said they'd charge this amount for a 500 word article.

This doesn't really surprise me. Personally, I'd tend to charge more for press releases than for short articles, purely because press releases take me longer to write. There's much more pressure to "stay on message" and there tends to be a lot more to-ing and fro-ing between writer and client in a bid to strike the right balance than there is with a web article, in which the writer is more often left to their own devices.

That's just my experience, of course: yours may be different, so I'll be interested to know what you make of these results. Do they surprise you, or are they more or less what you would have expected?

(And the 2.7% of you who charge less than $10? I'd really love to see an example of the type of press releases you produce for that amount, if you're brave enough to show me...)

Why low rates don't always win the clients

One of the things our last poll on freelance writing rates showed us is that there are still a number of writers out there who are charging what seems like an incredibly low rate for the job - we're talking less than $5 for a 500 word article, here, which is pretty amazing to many of us.

Of course, there are lots of reasons why a writer may decide to pitch their rates low, but I'm willing to bet that the overriding one is that they think it helps them win clients.

Here's the thing, though: it doesn't.

When you value yourself low, you encourage other people to do likewise. You may win some clients - you'll get lots of attention from the type of people who advertise on Craigslist looking for people to work for nothing, or close to nothing, for instance - but perhaps not as many as you'd think. And for every $2 article client you win, there's a high-paying potential client lost. Here's why:

1. Charging very low rates makes you look like an amateur

Quite simply, professional writers don't charge less than $5 for a 500 word article: in fact, they don't charge anything close to that amount. By charging at this kind of level, you're clearly marking yourself out as an amateur, and high paying clients don't want to work with amateurs.

Freelance Writing Poll: How much do you charge for a press release?

We've been talking a lot about press release writing recently, so for this week's poll on what freelance writers charge, I thought we'd try and find out roughly how much you'd charge to write a press release for a client.

You'll find the poll itself in the right hand column: as with our last poll, of course, it's going to be hard to get a definitive answer without knowing your personal circumstances, but your answers will, at least, give us a very rough idea what the going rate is for this type of work. And, as always, feel free to expand on your answer in the comments section!

Freelance Writing Poll: How much do you charge for a 500 word web content article?

   

One of the questions I'm asked most frequently by people new to freelance writing is "How much should I charge?"  Unfortunately, it's yet another one of those questions that are very difficult to answer, because one writer's fortune is another's pittance, and what counts as an "acceptable" rate of pay in one part of the country or world can seem very like slave labour in another.

This is something I grapple with every day when I put togther our freelance writing jobs roundup. I tend to just ignore those jobs which seem to me to offering offensively low rates of pay, but perhaps it's wrong of me to try and judge what is and isn't acceptable to the writers who read the listings. After all, we all have our reasons for charging the rates we do, and my idea of what's "acceptable" may not be the same as everyone esle's.

In order to try and get some sort of idea about what you think constitutes a "reasonable" rate of pay, then, and also in a bid to get a rough idea of what the "going rate" is for certain types of job, we're going to be running a series of polls over the next few weeks, asking you what you'd charge for certain types of freelance writing work.

Clearly this is a very unscientific survey as it doesn't take into circumstances such as where each person lives and what type of living costs they're faced with - not to mention the all-important fact that every writing job is different - but the results could be interesting all the same.

For the first poll, then, the piece of writing in question is a 500 word web content article. For the purposes of the survey, assume that the subject is one that you're familiar with, so research is minimal. You should also assume that the deadline is three weeks from today, and that you're not required to optimize the article for any particular key words.

You'll find the poll itself in the sidebar to the right of this article.  Tell us: What would you charge?

(Note: this poll is anonymous, so no one can see your answer, not even me. Please feel free to elucidate on your answer in the comments if you wish.)