We are an industrial trade publication and currently pay freelancers $0.75 per word. Our circulation is 72,000. For that I generally expect 1,500-2,000 words, and 5-6 quality sources on a trend/issue article as an an example.

I used to work on a book that paid $1 per word where the circulation was 200,000.

I've recently inherited some folks from previous editors who we are paying $1.35 or so per word. Of course you always pay more for special talent/situations, but I'm wondering if we're paying too much. What is everyone else paying?

D.

We ask for the same length articles, with 3-5 sources minimum, and pay about a third of what you do! Our circ is only 16,000, but still...We pay about $400-$450 per article.

I also freelance, and get paid around $500 for a 1,750 word article.

Do you think the variation is due to the circulation?

What you pay freelancers should have NOTHING to do with circulation, unless circulation is paid revenue. Your editorial budget and the monmey you pay freelancers has to do with the revenue/profit your publication expects. If one is in business, one must determine the cost of business. If getting quality material cost $X, then you must budget that much money. If you want less quality, pay less. You can't pay a writer too much. Content is your lifeblood. If your publisher doesn't want to spend what you budget, then the publisher must face the possibility that the content will be weaker. Pure and simple.

As a rule of index finger (I say index finger because if your publisher doesn't like what you pay, he or she will be pointing an index finger at you), my understadning of them arket is that $1 a word is a good rate. 75 cents a word is OK.
But the word method does not take into account how much TIME it takes for a writer to do the research, write the article, and then re-write the article when the editor does not like it. Few freelancers get rich, and they are often faced with editors not knowing exactly what they want or changing their minds in the middle of the project. Not fair to the writer.

We have a two-tiered system for freelance pay. We pay 60 cents per word for copy alone, or 75 cents per word if the freelancer also wrangles artwork for the story. This usually isn't too difficult in that most of the sources in our area of coverage (the hotel industry) have a lot of images readily available.

Having been on both sides of the assignment desk, I feel that a per-story rate is fairest, rather than by the word, taking into account the publication's budget, the difficulty of the assignment (how many sources? how in-depth? how much expertise is required on the topic), whether or not art is supplied, etc. A 1,500-word piece that's a single-source interview on an interesting person is a lot easier than the same length article on a controversial topic that requires a lot of legwork, and the latter should command a higher rate.

(Had to sign in again for some reason, hence the name change.)

Circulation is a good indicator of a magazine's overall budget, and therefore freelance rate. Except for boutique books, they are linked. Mass market freelancers earn upwards of $2 to $3 per word.

I like the extra pay incentive for getting artwork.

Any freelancer who is paid less than $500, or $1,000 per article for that matter, can't be doing a very good job (or money doesn't matter to them) because of the time required to do quality work. I spoke to one of our freelancers recently on this topic and he said that he accepts anything down to 50 cents/word. The less he's paid the less effort, in terms of interviews and writing, that he devotes to an assignment. So I started paying him a little more.

DD.

We pay $800 for a ~1,200-word article, amd our freelancers are always willing to take on a job. I agree that under $500 is a joke unless it's an essay (or a press release).

Wow. This has been a good lesson. We're a fairly small pub, 50,000 circ., but we pay about 0.50/word. 3,200-word features pay $850, and 4,000-word features pay $1,000. Occasionally we run a special 10,000-word supplement and pay $2,500. Our free-lancers also have to wrangle up photos for the pub.

I actually thought this was a great improvement over my last editorial gig, where we never paid more than $300 per 3,000-word article.

Now I know I can go to our publisher at the end of the year with a pay-raise proposal for our free-lancers.

I don't mean to be cranky but this comment really suprised me:

A freelancer

quote:

said that he accepts anything down to 50 cents/word. The less he's paid the less effort, in terms of interviews and writing, that he devotes to an assignment. So I started paying him a little more.

Really? I'd have fired him. If you're going to accept an assignment, you're making a promise to put 100 percent effort into that assignment. If the pay is not enough, negotiate for more or decline the assignment. But to accept the assignment, then do a half-baked job because you're not getting paid enough? That's outrageous and totally unprofessional.
Imagine going into your publisher's office and saying, Listen, boss, I think I'm getting paid only about 75 percent of what I'm worth. I'm not quitting, but I'm letting you know that if you don't pay me more I'm only going give about 75 percent effort.
Does anyone really think they wouldn't be fired on the spot for a statement like that, and deservedly so?

You're living in a fantasyland if you don't think that people do and should work harder, and produce a better product, for more money. Almost every business has different price/product quality levels for different customer segments, which reflect the materials, time and other inputs.

Assuming a baseline writing ability, editorial quality is a function of one thing: time. That can be further broken down into the amount time spent doing research/reporting, and the time devoted to writing. Most of it comes on the front end in my opinion. If you interview 10-12 people for an article, and do several site visits, and use 5-6 of those interviews in a 3,000-word story, that article will be better (however you define quality) than the 3,000-word story for which the writer quoted all of the 5 people that he interviewed for 10 minutes each over the phone. On the backend, a creative lead takes a lot more time and re-writing than a stock, "Webster's dictionary defines...." Both meet the outward word-count requirement.

The freelance rate that your publication pays reflects the amount of time that you expect your contributors to devote to a story. The freelance rate may even be the best indicator of editorial quality. If you don't pay contributors anything, as some trade publications don't, that indicates something as well.

I agree with your last comment that in general, you get what you pay for. Of course. If you pay poorly, you aren't going to be able to attract top-notch writers; you're going to get inexperienced writers looking to build a portfolio. I'm under no delusions about that, and that's why I insist we pay the going rate.

But when you say 'Almost every business has different price/product quality levels for different customer segments, which reflect the materials, time and other inputs,' that is true -- but unless the business is upfront about this, it's unethical. If you negotiate a lower-than-normal price on a new car than, a reputable dealer is not going to remove the transmission! If I talk a contractor down 10 percent off his normal price to build a deck, should I expect him to use faulty materials?

Any article submitted by any writer to me (staff or freelance) that doesn't meet my writing and reporting standards -- too few sources quoted, for example -- will be returned with requests for changes. No one has ever refused to make these changes. Occasionally (rarely) I have hired a writer who just wasn't very good. I pay them, fix their work, and don't rehire them. Even more rarely, I hire someone who is offended that I ask them to work hard even though we "only" pay .65/word. Again, we pay these folks for the work they do, fix their work, and don't rehire them.

But that is no way to make a living. Freelance writers are business people. They are in business, just like a publisher. (The best ones understand this fact.) If the work they produce is shoddy, they will not be rehired. It really is that simple. On the other hand, if their work is great, they can bargain for more money and many have done so. But to lower their effort based on the belief that the contract they negotiated, agreed to, and signed is not good enough? That's risky -- if they lower their effort so much that I'm unhappy with their work, they won't get any more work from me.

And not getting hired pays very, very poorly indeed.

hmm, stumbled on this forum on my internet travels, and it makes very interesting reading.

I've been freelance writing for five or six years now for a number of international auto magazines, it appears my rates are well below what i thought was average.

Hello,

Can anyone help me with freelance writing projects. I am based in India.

What type of work are you looking for?