Getting Paid
by, mr strauss
Copyright 2005, mr strauss, pop goes lethal, all rights reserved.
Getting paid. It is an important issue.
Especially for those of us who are desperately avoiding getting a real job.
I read an article this morning. The article, by one Ms. Angela Hoy, discusses the sin of writing for free. She is quite vehement in her politics regarding the business of freelance writing. The article, called "The Ultimate Insult to Writers," calls unpaid writing, you guessed it, "the ultimate insult to writers." And, I must say, it is a fairly convincing stretch of text, if only because she feels so passionately about the subject. But eventually, I came to the following conclusion.
To refuse to ever write for free is both absurd and impossible.
It’s impossible because everyone writes all the time.
Should I ask a friend to pay me for the email I send?
Should I ask a visitor to my blog to throw a dollar in the virtual hat?
It’s absurd because the idea is built upon a misconception.
(This is worth considering carefully, as it generalizes well):
Hierarchies are a misguided holdover from an authoritarian age.What this means, in practical terms, is that a division between, say, amateur writers and professional writers is wrong-minded and arbitrary. "Professional writers don't write for free. Amateurs do. Editors know this," says Angela. Well, I’m not sure that’s entirely true. In fact, I’m sure it’s entirely untrue. By any reasonable standard of measurement, "Professional" writers do write for free. But that’s beside the point.
It's not about the writer. It's about the writing. "The Ultimate Insult to Writers," in my opinion, is to afford him special status. If I write a good piece, I am gratified when someone says "hey, that thing you wrote is the shit." I would be distressed, however, if someone were to tell me, "Because you wrote a good piece, your writing in the future will necessarily be better than the writing of others.” And that is what is conveyed by the distinction between professional and amateur. The only purpose of the division is to ascribe to some writers the status "lesser." It’s both untrue and anti-democratic. I mean, to put it simply, it is unfair.
I certainly wouldn't take being called a professional writer as a compliment. I would just take it as a misconception. It takes the focus off of the art, which matters, and puts it onto me, where it might do damage. Also, it implicitly denies my work the opportunity to compete fairly for a spot freely against the work of everyone. Anyone deemed "amateur" makes supposedly lesser work. Open competition, on the other hand, is the experience that's best for me as an artist and that's best for the art.
A level playing field. The world is moving to a level playing field. Ideally, it would always be the art that competes for the showcase and the money, and never the artist. But of course the practical realities of any commissioned work prevent this in many situations, because rhe work hasn't been written yet. If you need a specific thing written, you are going to have to choose an artist from amongst the throng to do it. And of course, sometimes people want to hire a person to do a regular piece. A “staff writer” or a “columnist,” so to speak. And if that’s what they want to do, great. But then that ain’t freelance, is it?
Money. So let’s talk about money then. If everyone writes for free, how can anyone make money? Well, not everyone writes everything for free. I wrote this for free. But I am currently ghostwriting someone’s psychology dissertation. And to motivate me to do that, the woman has to pay me. She could probably have paid someone else less, but she chose me because I demonstrated a body of work that convinced her that I would do the job well and quickly.
Types of writing.
Here’s what it boils down to. There are many different kinds of writing. The three big ones are:
.......1. Art.
The kind of writing that we'd all love to get paid for is our own art. Maybe you've got a novel, or poetry, or maybe you write a blog. No one tells you what to write. You write what you feel like. And maybe, if it is super ultra compelling, you can eventually finagle some money out of it
. .......2. Crap.
The kind of writing that is purely labor. Like that dissertation that I’m fifty pages into. It’s sucky work. But it is better than a real job. And it pays the bills. Other examples include writing someone’s undergrad English paper. (One of my biggest sources of income ;-) Or writing really dry, instructional or corporate content. Crap like,
"As a respected member of the design community, we consider our reputation to be our greatest asset. And we know just how fragile our good name is. That's why we bend over backwards to ensure that every client feels like they're our only client. We build relationships, and we aren't satisfied until you are."
You know what I am talking about. Stupid crap. The kind of writing that nobody ever does for free.
......3. Content.
Filling slots in someone else's concept. This is the kind of writing upon which Angela is focused in her article. She wants to write articles for someone else and she wants to get paid to do it. So, as an example, maybe there is a webzine on golf. She wants to query them, saying, "hey I got an idea for an article on these new kind of golf shoes. Here's what I have done in the past." They say yay or nay, and offer her x amount of dollars. That's what she wants. And she’s mad because sometimes they say "we want it, but we can’t or won’t pay you for it."
About Content
Let's talk about this last one. Well, Angela, in this situation, I'd suggest saying no. But at least the guy didn't just use it and not pay you. And if his request to publish your work for free offends you, I'd suggest telling him so. But don't expect it to have any effect other than irritating the guy. The publishers that make money, be they online or be they brick and mortar, have compelling content. And the bar for "compelling" keeps getting higher. In a world of media saturation, nothing short of genius is adequate. I mean, nothing short of genius has ever been anything but adequate, but it’s a very different world nowadays.
What I should have said is, "in a media saturated world, nothing regularly sells magazines or advertising except consistently super clean, interesting, and generally just, well, great, work." So, let the golf magazine get their content for free. And if they can get content of sufficiently high quality that way, then more power to them. And if they can consistently fill the spaces they need filled, then double more power to them. Because if they can keep their zine filled with rad text, they'll probably make money. And if they make enough money, they'll probably get sick of scrounging around for free content and they'll hire someone consistent and great to write for them regularly. Or they'll start paying for the best of the pieces that they can’t get for free. And once that happens? We have one more paying market.
An Underlying Presumption The mistake in Angela's article that I hope to have highlighted, (sorry Angela, I don’t mean to pick on you, but it illustrates a point) is: to “presume”: To presume that others ought to do this or ought to do that is a mistake. To presume that we have some a right to paying markets is a mistake. To presume that others are going to be willing or interested in colluding to artificially support a price floor is a mistake. To do all that presuming? Well, it's presumptuous.
Conclusion
The free market will take care of itself.
If you generate stunning work, and a lot of it, you’ll make money. Otherwise? Then the ecosystem will have deemed you unfit for survival. And in that case? Well, you're just going to have to go get a real job, I guess.
Copyright 2005, mr strauss, pop goes lethal, all rights reserved.
