Web writing: to be paid what you’re worth, act like you’re worth it

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Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

When it comes to Web writing, both new writers and experienced writers seem to struggle with setting their rates.

Setting your rates is not difficult. If you’ve been published offline, then you’re looking for similar pay for online work. If you’re unpublished, set a reasonable rate to start with, depending on whatever qualifications you have, and create samples of the kinds of Web writing you want to do.

There are millions of Web sites. Out of all those millions, several thousand sites will be happy to hire you at the rates you wish to be paid.

Excellent point from “How to Get High Paying Freelance Writing Jobs”:

“Web writing” is not a market. It’s a collection of markets. There are low-income sites that simply can’t afford to pay higher rates. There are higher-income sites whose owners don’t know how to effectively use higher quality content for their own purposes, so they won’t pay more to have things expertly written. And there are high-income sites that are not only willing to pay higher rates to writers, but they need to pay for the highest quality content from niche expert writers to maintain their authority, repeat visitors, and deals with high-paying advertisers.

To be paid what you’re worth, you have to act like you’re worth it. This means that you’ll need to market yourself effectively, and you have to assess what people need, and send out proposals. See my ezine article “Get Famous”.

A final point: when you’ve decided on your rates - STICK TO THEM. Yes, you’re going to get “clients” who tell you they can’t pay your rates, and this is sad. For them. It has nothing to do with you - YOU decide what you can afford to work for, and what you can’t.

[tags]Web writing, fees, rates, writers’ pay, get paid to write[/tags]