The Los Angeles Times recently published an article that might qualify as the most unscoop-worthy story so far of the barely birthed decade. Its finding: Freelance writers are underpaid!
Actually, to be fair to the author, James Rainey, his point was a bit more nuanced. The fees commonly paid to freelance writers working in both traditional and digital media have cratered dramatically over the past decade, he notes, as publishers have watched their own revenues plummet under the combined weight of the Great Recession and the secular shift from dead-trees to digital media, with its far-less rumunerative ad rates.
“What’s sailing away, a decade into the 21st Century, is the common conception that writing is a profession—or at least a skilled craft that should come not only with psychic rewards but with something resembling a living wage,” Rainey writes.
You can read the entire article here.
(And while you’re at it, can someone please explain to me—with a straight face—how Arianna Huffington can be acclaimed as a savior of Journalism based on The Huffington Post’s business model of not paying journalists?)
Of course, writers with marquee names will always be able to name their own price. But for everyone else, it’s getting tougher to find honest work that will pay the bills. (Don’t ask me how I know.)
Rainey points to freelance writing jobs posted on Craigslist, offering Web-writing assignments paying $15 to $30. That’s a pittance, surely, but hardly the most egregious examples I can find. Indeed, an increasing number of Web publishers have embraced the attitude that writers’ work is to be compensated at rates less than the going price of a frappucino. (That’s a small frappuccino, by the way.)
On Freelancer.com, an online exchange where Web publishers place writing assignments up for bid, there’s no shortage of work—as long as you’re willing to churn out a four- or five-hundred words for no more than $1.50. Per article.
Yes, per article. Really.
To cite a few random examples of the writing jobs proffered on Freelancer.com:
“I need 20 original articles between 300 and 500 words about nail fungus (toenail fungus and fingernail fungus) which must be completed within 5 days. I will provide the titles for all the articles. My max budget for this project is $85.”
I will abstain from opining what a fair rate for writing 6,000 to 10,000 words about nail fungus, but I’m pretty sure that it’s more than $85. (In fact, I’m pretty sure that writing 20 original articles in five days about nail fungus is prohibited under the UN Convention Against Torture.)
Here’s another one:
“We have an online casino guide with over 200 listings. We need copywriters to visit specific casinos and
1. Write a 2-300 word unique description of the casino
2. Fill out a spreadsheet of fields with information available on each casino site (owner/contact email etc.)
We will pay $3 per completed casino according to our requirements.”
To recap, they want some poor hack to get in his car, drive to a specific casino, inspect it and take notes, and then write an enticing blurb about the joint—for a fee that barely covers the price of a gallon of non-leaded? I do hope it’s close-by.
And lastly:
“My company is looking for 75 articles to be used for building links for article marketing. They will be used towards increasing the site’s search engine ranking.
Our client has a website based on “how to save money during a recession”, so any content that would be relevant is what we are looking for. It will be the writers [sic] responsibility to provide the following:
- average article expected to be at least 300 words
- SEO Friendly titles
- of high quality
Our budget is not to exceed $300 for this project.
Paying $4 for each finished 300-word piece makes this one of the better paying jobs I turned up on Freelancer.com.
There are a couple of factors at work here, I believe:
1. Words, Schmerds. One of paradoxes of the Internet is that while we’re continually remind that Content is King (Gag!), nobody wants to pay for it online. That now includes publishers as well as Web users. Sure, these stingy bastards putting assignments up for bid on Freelancer.com will probably receive drek for their few shekels invested, but my hunch is the quality of the work received is irrelevant. Good, bad or mediocre, it’s all the same: the only thing these Web publishers care about is obtaining prose-by-the-pound that they can then sell oodles of Google ads around, as the reference to “SEO [Search-Engine Optimized] Friendly” titles in the third item makes clear.
2. Globalization Hits the Scribbling Class. Even if you write as fast as Stephen King and are as prolific as James Patterson, there’s no way anyone can financially support themselves working at such appalling, subterranean freelance rates. Not even if you live in the middle of Nebraska. These payment rates are at Third-World piecework levels.
In fact, I’m willing to wager that many of the “writers” bidding on these assignments reside in places closer to Mumbai than Manhattan, Miami or Minneapolis. A quick perusal of Freelancer.com reveals eager bids received from “Israr,” “Faruk Ahmed,” “Baijnath Kumar” (“Hello Sir I have 3 excellent article writter [sic] which can write high quality within minutes, so please consider me for this job,” he pleads), “Praveen,” and “Rama.”
I’ve personally espoused the benefits of free trade for years, but I get a lump in my throat now that my own livelihood is threatened as a result. Writers are now learning a bitter lesson that U.S. factory workers were forced to swallow a couple of decades ago: their jobs can be shipped overseas to a low-wage country and there’s not much they can do about it. Sure, the final product might not be much good, but it will be good enough to sell ads around.
After all, it’s just words.
Update 2/1/2010: Here’s an allied take on the issue from Alan Mutter, who writes the always interesting “Reflections of a Newsosaur.”
Update 2/8/2010: The New York Times’ David Carr examines the cheap-and-ubiquitous-content business model exemplified by Demand Media.
Brave New Whirl 