What is a good payment in freelance writing?

Writing is a passion. If you are in it for the money then you are delusional. Because:

a) You won’t get rich quickly by writing articles; it takes time – a lot of time and patience.

b) If you are not passionate about writing, you will falter and ultimately fizzle out. And finally,

c) If you do not write from the heart it will show in your work – and your articles will be good examples of what not to write!

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get paid for writing. So the question arises, ‘How much should I ask for?’

What is a fair price?

There is no ‘fair price’. There are some freelancers that are so arrogant that they will not accept anything beneath $0.05 per word and then there are the others that will slave away at $1.00 for 400 word articles. It all depends on how much you intend to earn through your work. There is no entry payment scheme and there is no growth chart that you can make notches on.

Having second thoughts about writing? Well there is good news. If you’re still reading this then you might be able to make it yet. You see, the secret with writing is time. You have to invest a lot of it and only then will it start to pay off.

So, when you first start writing swallow your pride. If you are just starting out, then it is more than likely you are not that good at writing. Even if you are a native English speaker or lived immersed in an English speaking society for a long time you may still not be able to express yourself in writing as much as you would wish for. So swallow that bitter pill, bite down and just jump into whatever work you can find.

Hubpages and Triond – good places to write

There’s an alternative of course: you can submit articles to sites like Hubpages or Triond. You then keep experimenting on your grammar and composition skills until you have become very good. You can tell by the number of traffic that will be coming towards you and the money that you will be making. Also, comments from other readers will be a great eye-opener.

oDesk and eLance – good places to find work

While you are writing there keep looking for customers to work by searching for writing jobs at places like oDesk (a very good place to work, by the way) and eLance. Use the articles that you have written on the previous sites (Hubpages and Triond) as samples of your work. Remember to keep working with one customer for as long as you can, because the longer you work with people the better you get at predicting what you want from one another. In other words, the longer you stay with your customer, the better he or she is going to pay you: you both grow together. But that doesn’t mean you should stay on with one that is trying to rip you off.

Keep increasing your worth

Now, once you’ve gotten a job, keep adding a few dollars to the payment you expect to get. Don’t be too greedy and add a substantial sum. Keep it steady. Make sure you separate on amicable terms when you part from an old customer and move up – you will never know when a simple argument will come and bite you in the, well, you know. Some customers will even offer to be references for future jobs, so remember to be nice!

Don’t rush

Needless to say, don’t ever leave a job before you are 100% sure you have got a new one. And even then try it out for a few days before burning all your bridges and committing to it. Many a times the job looks delicious but you find that the customer is a real pain to work with. So, test the waters before jumping in.

It is a slow process. It will take time. But you will make money.