The title of this blog and the book I’ve written is Writing Without Rules, so naturally enough I’m going to talk a bit about a writing rule, and how it changes over time.
The thing about a lot of writing advice, whether it’s about career or craft, is that rules change meaning over time, depending where you are in both. For example, a good rule of thumb for freelance writing is to never say no.
No Habla No
When you’re first starting out as a freelance writer, this advice is good because you need the one thing you don’t have: Clips. You need to get experience, examples, and to prove that you can hit deadlines and write to someone else’s style guide. You need jobs, so you really shouldn’t be too picky unless you have the platform and/or connections to just dive into well-paying, high-profile work.
That’s solid advice when you’re just starting out, but what about when you’ve advanced your career a little and you have more choices? Surely you have to start saying no to low-paying jobs, or jobs that involve subject matter or workflows you don’t enjoy?
Yes, that’s true. But the rule of Never Say No doesn’t go away—it changes. I argue you still shouldn’t say no to jobs. You should instead decide how much money it would take for you to do it. In other words, saying no ends the conversation. Saying, I’ll do it, but you’re going to have to pay me a mint might have the same effect but it keeps your options open.
Say an old client you used to write boring catalog copy for a penny word contacts you; they have a dull writing project and they want you to help out. Your instinct is to say no—you make too high a rate now, and you’re writing about subjects you enjoy—why would you ever go back? But instead of saying a flat no and ending the conversation on a sour note, think about what they would have to pay you to make it worthwhile. A dollar a word? Two dollars? Don’t get into the weeds of whether or not it’s a reasonable ask, or whether or not they’ll accept it. Once you decide the rate you’d need to take the work you can’t lose: If they turn down your pitch, you didn’t want it anyway, and if they accept you’re getting a ton of money.
Best of all, even if they turn you down they don’t think of you as the person who simply laughed at their job, they think of you as someone who’s out of their price range.
To do this at a Somers level, of course, you have to go beyond your per-word rate and demand the client supply free whiskey and address you as Lord Somers in all correspondence. So far no one’s taken me up on it, but a guy can dream.
I actually have a question for you, Jeff, and not just some half-useless attempt at humor. You have to admit, the humor attempts were at least half-decent. Or not.
My question: How do you start freelancing? I read your WD article on the subject more than once. Twice, in fact. And I’m still not sure how I approach someone and say, “I have no platform, no writing credentials (unless you count my recently published story in Empyreome–October, 2017 issue… which you probably don’t), and I probably don’t know anything worthwhile about whatever it is you might want me to write about. Let me write for you!”
Please advise. 🙂
Congrats on the story! I’m going to read it pronto.
As for freelancin’ the key is to remind yourself that they NEED you. They need content. You can provide it. It’s that simple. Sure, The New Yorker might not return your calls if you lack platform, but Bob’s Blog probably will. I took some seriously wacky jobs for seriously little money, and any time I wasn’t certain I had the experience or knowledge to write something I told myself I could probably Google my way to a finished article (spoiler: you totally can).
Get out of your head and stop telling yourself you don’t have the right whatever. Just go after every job that looks do-able or fun, and it all works out in the end.