Pinar Tarhan, Author at Addicted to Writing

Charging for Your Freelance Writing Services: 7 Factors to Consider

Posted on January 9, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

deciding on what to charge for your freelance writing — Image via 3.bp.blogspot.com.

Pricing your work is a tricky issue. You have to know your market, how much your expertise could bring you if you found the right markets, how much you want/need to make, how much time writing for that project will last….So while tips like “Don underestimate your value“, “Know what you need to earn to make a living as a freelance writer” make for great advice, it is a little bit more complicated than that.

Here’s what you need to pay attention to when pricing your work (and deciding whether or not to take a job with a certain price tag on it):

1) How will you charge?

By the hour?

If you will be paid by the hour, how many hours are you expected to put aside for the project?

Will you be compensated if the work takes more hours than anticipated and agreed upon?

(How) will you be controlled? Will the client want daily reports, e-mails, skype conferences, office meetings….? Or did you take a job from odesk (a bidding site like Elance) and the client expects you to have your webcam on so that they can keep an eye on you?

It is all very well that you’ll be charged by the hour, but does the job take more than its giving? You have to weigh advantages and disadvantages to decide if the job will be worth it. Don’t just look at the price tag. Look at what the job expects.

By project?

If you are paid by the project, you should be clear on the terms. But you should also have a good estimation of how much time will be spent. What if you want to make $50/hour, and you end up making $25/hour because the job took twice as much time and effort you expected?

2) On how much research it will take?

Again, it comes down to how many hours you will really work on the project.

3) How demanding is it?

Do you just need to write an opinion post? Or do you need to enhance the piece with expert opinions? Do you need to educate yourself first about the topic before getting all the information you need? And are you expected to just write, or do they want you to find pictures, put the post online, optimize it for the search engines, promote it….?

4) Do you get other benefits?

Such as byline to your blog, bonus for extra page views, etc…

Some jobs offer a fixed rate, with a promise of a bonus if your article performs well on the web.

While there is no guarantee that your piece will be the next new love of social media, you might feel more motivated to help with the promotion.

For instance, popular web development site SitePoint offers a retainer of $100 to its writers, and bonuses starting from $50 for a certain amount of views. For my details, you can read the write for us page on SitePoint. They also give you a byline, which means more traffic and authority for your site.

I’d love to query them, but they don’t really cover the areas I’d have lots of ideas from. And they do expect a minimum of 1,500 words in length.

5) How do you get paid?

Will you get by check or PayPal? I’ve always preferred the latter as it is faster, and there are no cuts just because I happen to live in a different country than my editor.

6) When do you get paid? On publication or the acceptance of your piece?

It is much better to be paid on acceptance. What if you send them the piece, and they decide never to publish it. Or they publish it 8 months later?

7) Is there future? Or at least a potential for the future?

Do you think this is a one off, or you think you can (or will want to) build relationships so that you might write for them again later?

If you wrote a 2000-piece on a subject you totally hated just to make money, you might not want to return to that topic again. But if you chose an area because you loved it and paid well, you will get to take advantage of your earlier research and your passion for the subject and avoid depression in the process.

For instance, I’d rather spend 60 minutes on a small, fun project and get paid a little less rather than work on weeks for an exhausting and emotionally draining piece that takes ages and its hourly pay will just about amount to what I made from the small project.

So your decision depends on many factors including your expertise, project’s and your expectations, your level of passion for the topic, the time it will take, other incentives and more.

Below are some of my favorite resources on deciding what to charge for your work. I might not agree with every point made, but they offer valuable perspectives and I learned a lot from them:

Must- Read Posts and Resources on the topic:

7 Reasons Why I Won’t Write a $15 Blog Post by Carol Tice

Well, for the record, I’d take a $15 blog job- if you asked me to write a 500-word opinion post on where Mel Gibson’s career is going. He is my favorite actor, I know all the dates of his movies, and I’ve more trivial info on the guy then Wikipedia and imdb.com combined. So yeah, I’d.

If the job was that easy, fun and research-free. So yeah, time and fun are big factors for me. But since blogging jobs are never quite like that, I’d really stick to Carol’s advice.

Mailbag: How Much Can Freelance Writers Charge for Blogging? y by Carol Tice

In response to a reader’s question, Carol offers some tips on how you can get more out of a blogging gigs-given that you pay attention to certain factors.

How much should a freelancer charge? by Moira Allen

Moira Allen has included some great pointers that I overlooked, such as your relationship with the editor. Just like any job, relationships matter- a lot! Take a look at her post.

Two other incentives for you to devour her post: Writing-World is an amazingly thorough resource for any question to you might have about writing, and it is a paying market. So not only you’ll find helpful information, it will also help your research- should you decide to query the site about writing related topics.

Oh, and on a similar note, Carol pays for guest posts on her blog, so you might want to check my post 5 Authoritative & Popular (Writing / Blogging) Sites That Accept Guest Posts for details.

Writer’s Market’s How Much Should I Charge E-book

Now, I believe this is only free for Writer’s Market members, and it includes a successful survey including low, average and high rates for almost any kind of writing. If you are thinking about become a member of Writer’s Digest’s online market database (Writer’s Market), complimentary e-books is only one of the perks.

Straw Dogs: Creating the Perfect Writing Environment and The Writing Retreat from Hell

Posted on January 2, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Straw Dogs-movie poster-2011 — Straw Dogs starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, AlexanderSkarsgard & James Woods. Remake of the 1971 Dustin Hoffman movie Straw Dogs.

Straw Dogs : Creating the Perfect Writing Environment, and The Writing Retreat from Hell

This post’s writing character comes from the 2011 remake of Straw Dogs. This new version stars James Marsden and Kate Bosworth.

The Writer Character and The Perfect Writing Room

James Marsden in Straw Dogs — James Marsden as David Summer in Straw Dogs. Image via aceshowbiz.com.

American screenwriter David Summer is working on a movie script that takes place during WW2. His actress wife Amy’s old family house in the south sounds like a perfect writer’s retreat. And it is indeed beautiful: It is big, has a gorgeous view of the lake and a wonderful study room.

Soon David transforms the room into a writer’s haven: the pool table is covered with models of WW2 houses and streets, the walls now carry a large green board for all his notes and he has even surrounded himself with books about the era. He listens to classical music as he writes- not necessarily because it is his favorite, but because it goes with his story.

The Writing Retreat from Hell

The problem is, the house is in a remote area of a small town. The house doesn’t get cell reception. I missed why they don’t have a phone in the house. Yikes.

The town folk are not very tolerant or open-minded, and soon they gain enemies without trying. It doesn’t help that David’s world views, and his wife’s behavior is enough to trigger the animals in their employees- the Amy’s ex Charlie (played by True Blood’s Eric-Alexander Skarsgard) and his crew, who were hired to repair the roof.

As great as the house and his room is, their life turns into a nightmare. They’re terrorized, and David decides to fight off their attackers one by one, even if that’s the last thing he’ll live to do. For the details on the terror, you can read my Straw Dogs movie review.

The Writer’s Story and His Life Overlap

In David’s story, a country’s soldiers beat the other country’s soldiers even though they are outnumbered.

In the end (yes-here come the spoilers), David manages to get rid of (=kill) a group of armed and irrational men with the help of his brains, and his frantic wife.

james-marsden-straw-dogs-poster — Starw Dogs, James Marsden poster via horror-asylum.com

Finding The Perfect Writing Retreat in Real Life

Of course in the end, the perfect writing retreat wasn’t worth it. He and his wife were probably scarred for life.

But then again, as much as I like my lake views, I could never write alone in such a place, with just one person to keep me company, unless of course that person is Nikita or Sydney Bristow or John Reese…

But why leave the city? You can always opt for a nice holiday resort where you can be as alone as you want, and you can deprive yourself from technology only as much as you choose to for those flowing writing periods.

Yes, I often mute my cell-phone when I work. I try not to pay attention to the internet. And no, I am not always successful in turning off my distractions. But I like the fact that there can be distractions, and several ways of communicating with people outside my house.

Maybe it has a lot to do with growing up in a city, where we lock our doors and bolt them, even in the safest neighborhoods. Where there are houses and shop nearby. Where people don’t really care what you do, or what you believe in.

Or maybe it is and reading about and watching way too many “cabin-in-the-woods”, psychos-attack-ordinary-couple type of stories. But remote town houses freak me out. No technology? In the middle of nowhere? No thanks!

How do you feel about writer retreats? How isolated do you like to be while you are writing?

Would you like a cabin in the woods, or a town house like the one in Straw Dogs?

And If you have you seen the movie, what do you think Amy and David should have done?

For more writer characters, you can read:

The Kovak Box’s Writer Character: Timothy Hutton

Writing What You Know/Live: The Movie Daydream Nation, and its Writer Character

Castle TV Series: Recommended for All Writers

18 Movies with Writer Characters featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jennifer Aniston, Anne Hathaway and More

E-book Review: Crafting Unforgettable Characters by K.M. Weiland

Posted on December 24, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

creating-unforgettable-characters — Cover image via kmweiland.com

Like any writer who is passionately and desperately addicted to the act of writing, I love devouring good resources on any aspect of writing, be it fiction or non-fiction. Author K.M. Weiland, whose blog (Wordplay) I discovered while I was going through WritetoDone’s list of Top 10 Blogs for Writers. I can’t say I fell in l love with all of the blogs while some appealed more to me than the others. Weiland’s blog was one of my favorites.

Here’s what I liked about Weiland’s blog:

It is on blogger, so it goes to prove that you can actually have a well-structured, monetized blog even on a free platform. Yes, a hosted blog has its advantages (but also its disadvantages) and her blog looks informative, concise and it possesses all the right widgets. It actually inspired me to take a second look and revitalize my blogger blogs.

P.S. This is not to say she doesn’t own her domain name and run a website under it. You can check her website at kmweiland.com

She offers articles and video. And with her video, she also offers the video transcript so she appeals to different types of readers at the same time. So you can learn a lot about blogging just hanging around her website and observing.

You can browse through her blog posts and pretty much find good tips on whatever problem you are trying to tackle. Instead of generalizing, she has gone to the trouble of giving pros and cons, and examples of good results. One my favorite posts is Most Common Mistakes Series: Are Your Flashbacks Flashy or Flabby? as I am working on a novel with a great deal of flashbacks. Most writers advice against flashbacks, suggesting that only a selected few can actually pull it off.

Well, that is just picking the easy route and generalizing. And guess what, I got the guidance I needed from Weiland’s post without feeling depressed about my choices for my story.

Here’s what I liked about the e-book

– When she talks about creating unforgettable characters, she doesn’t just talk about novels, but she also gives examples from movies. As a movie fan, this makes the advice more memorable to me.

As a writer, I appreciated the fact that she used different examples from different story media- this makes her writing down-to-hearth, diverse and fun.

– Just because she talked about Jason Bourne, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t quote from William Shakespeare. Or Graham Greene. Or Joyce Carol Oates. You get the idea.

– She has included fun and challenging writing prompts that will help not only with our characters, but our plots and future stories as well.

– She has given examples of truly great characters, and the reasons for why we love and remember them. If you have seen/read the work mentioned, you want to go back to it. If you haven’t, you’ve just found something substantial to study. And it makes you visualize.

– You will find at least a couple of useful tips, regardless of what you write, and how your mind works.

– It includes a comprehensive set of questions for you to ask your character.

– It talks about the relationship between theme and character and it also gives guidelines on picking the characters’ names and jobs.

and more.

If I had paid for this book, I definitely wouldn’t have regretted it. This pdf will stay on my laptop, and will be referred to as I keep creating fiction.

I’m off to interviewing my characters now. How’s your character creation going?

5 Reasons Why I Love Writing for the Web

Posted on December 19, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Research is easier and cheaper. If you are writing for a publication that is only internet based, all you have to do for research is to go to their website and read their previous posts. This helps when you are pitching, and this helps when you are writing. You need to get an idea of the target audience, the tone of the writing, word count, titles, format, the style, the vocabulary, amount of jargon…etc. You also so what’s been written and what’s not.

It is free, and it is all there. Sure, it is still hard work, but with a little organization, it is managable.

Even if the magazine is both print and online, the online stuff is already on the web.

*If you are looking to write for the print version, you’ll need to see if previous issues are available online. You might need to pay a little fee, but if this is a magazine you truly want to write for, it is worth it. Sometimes you can subscribe to the digital versions of the print issues, and this saves a lot of time waiting for the issues coming through regular mail (this is is of course true for the publications that are not readily available at the local library and/or at nearby bookstores).

The article/post you write doesn’t have to look like a short story. Let’s face it, magazine articles, especially features, are long. You need to be compelling and fun and/or professional for over 2.000 words. It takes a lot of time and effor to write it. I am not saying I am not pitching to magazines. Or I can’t write an article that long. But there’s something really fun about pouring your heart, knowledge (and depending on the publication, your sense of humor) in mostly 500-1500 words.

The publication is likely to pay via PayPal. Which is my favorite method of being paid.

You have lots of options. All you have to do is dig into the search engines with the right keywords, and subscribe to the current list of online markets.

It is relatively easier to get into. My first job was writing for a travel blog in 2009 (which got published later). You just have to keep looking at the right places.

Do you like writing for the web? Do you prefer the print? Or are you a freelancer who combines both media?