The ‘Free’ in Freelancing: A Few Lessons Learned From Writing for Free
Whether you’re just starting out or knee-deep into a career as a writer, there’s a subtle thrill that comes with receiving that email advising your pitch or piece has been accepted. It’s fun spending time crafting together the requested ‘writer’s bio’ and carefully selecting the photo of yourself that will accompany your words. Then comes the follow-up email from the editor: we aren’t currently able to pay our writers for their work.
When the offer for unpaid publication arrives in your inbox, it might throw you into a bit of a crisis. What should you do? People in other professions get paid for their work, shouldn’t you? Is the ‘exposure’ really worth it?
In my last role, I worked with creative students across a few different mediums, and the question of not-getting paid and whether to do it or not always came up. There’s a pretty straight forward list of pros and cons for each answer:
Pros: bylines, exposure, and ‘getting your name out there’, building a network and relationships with editors and publications, building your portfolio, getting work published in new areas of interest, developing your craft and skills as a writer, building resilience and confidence, getting feedback etc etc.
Cons: well, not getting paid appropriately for the time and work you’ve put into your writing.
So. Should you give away your hard work for free?
Speaking as someone who has been there and done that as a writer, I say yes. Yes, you should.
But not all the time and not without first considering your boundaries as a freelancer and what you’re prepared to do without pay.
I’ve spoken a little about this before, but as a freelancer my work is divided into two core streams. One is focused on my work around careers, personal and professional development and the other is more general (writing, freelancing, book reviews, interviews and personal essays).
I’ll talk about my writing in the careers stream of my work as an example. This stream is where I make the majority of my monthly income (essentially, all my monthly income). The projects in this space aren’t just blogs and articles. I write online courses, resources, e-books, academic articles, and handbooks for training - these writing projects are chunkier than a standard blog and the fee I charge around these reflect the work required from me.
I would never do any of these projects for free. They’re time consuming, require dedicated research, need to meet occupational standards and they utilise the past decade of front-line work I’ve had employed in schools, colleges and universities delivering this type of work in person.
On the flip-side, if I’m invited to write a blog or two about my work in this space and it’s unpaid, I might say yes. Exposure and bylines in this industry are a valuable component of me securing further paid work. Sharing my knowledge and expertise in this way helps build trust that I do know what I’m talking about (at least a little). For example, I wrote one unpaid blog a month for a year on a huge women’s business and leadership site. I stopped writing for them about two years ago, but I still get clients every now and then reaching out to me with paid work because they enjoyed my articles on that site.
When it comes to the second stream of writing that I’m interested in, well it’s a pretty mixed bag in terms of getting paid. If I’m pitching a piece, I’ll only pitch it to somewhere I know will pay me. I find pitching and then converting a successful pitch into an article a longer process so I know for it to ‘pay-off’ (financial or other) for me, I like to be paid for this work. Full pieces (book reviews, short stories, short personal essays) that are accepted for publication I don’t feel so concerned about getting paid for. It’s nice when I am, but in terms of my financial needs, they’re taken care of. Writing is something I love to do, so as long as the writing I do for free isn’t preventing me from earning an income elsewhere, then I'm happy to drop the ego and get published without payment.
These are my boundaries around what I’m willing to accept around writing for free. Yours might be different but I’ve included this as an example. I’m not aiming to create a full-time career of writing personal essays or pieces about writing and freelancing in general - if you are, then you’ll need to think about how your boundaries look for you.
A couple of other things that come up regularly when I speak with students about getting paid for creative work, I’d like to advise on:
“You wouldn’t work for free in any other industry, so why should I just because I’m a creative?”
News flash: You would. In every industry and job role there’s an element of ‘unpaid’ work that goes on. Whether it’s putting in some time outside the office to meet a deadline, unexpected overtime, or ‘going the extra mile’ (as they like to call it in customer service) - In every single job I’ve had, I’ve done work that was outside my job description and above my paygrade. But I still did it, because that’s … work. But like with writing, in any other job I’ve had, I’ve had to weigh up what’s ‘worth it’ when it comes to the work I do unpaid.
“Publication’s should pay writers and not ask for free work.”
In an ideal world, yes they would, but this is the world we’re in. The internet has made it possible for anyone (and I mean anyone) to create a digital magazine or publication - which is a great thing, and as a writer, it means a limitless list of options for sending your work to. As someone who worked as the head editor for a digital magazine for just over a year, I know from first-hand experience that even those with the very best intentions are often just breaking even on the running costs of such endeavours. Paying writers a ‘fair’ amount for their work isn’t always viable. And near-impossible when everyone has a different idea of what ‘fair’ constitutes.
“Only bad writers write for free.”
Well, I write for free - a lot less than I used to - but I still do occasionally, and I’m pretty confident I’m not a ‘bad’ writer. I wholeheartedly put my hand up and say that when I first started writing, yeah. I was not a great writer. But writing for free taught me loads of great lessons, got me heaps of feedback, and helped me build a better idea of whether writing was something I wanted to commit to (yes, please) and what I needed to do to get better (some online courses, workshops).
Writing is a competitive field. You have to start somewhere - and that somewhere might not be paid, but it gets you out there. Set your boundaries and remember no one will ever know how good you really are if they never see your work.
Put it out there.
