TheWritersBag.com

As promised, today is the day I’m launching what I hope to be the first of many “Word Shot” exercise-competitions at TheWritersBag.com.

As I mentioned a few days ago, my plan is to run a human interest photo in each Monday’s blog post. That’s my job. Your job is to take a few minutes, really look at the photo and then write and post a comment that relates to the photo. It can be a word, a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, several paragraphs, a full story … whatever. You can write something funny about the photo, something insightful about it, something touching about it … it’s completely up to you. Be as traditional or as “out there” as you wish.

Then, as a writers’ community, readers of TheWritersBag will have the opportunity to post comments on what you’ve written.

The object of this game is to (1) hone our skills and talents by participating in the valuable exercise of writing about a photo, and to (2) help each other out by reviewing what other people have written and then offering constructive suggestions, encouragement or sincere praise.

In next Monday’s Word Shot post, I will run the photo from this post, together with the written comment that has been submitted for it that I feel is most notable, along with the writer’s name (unless requested to keep it anonymous). I will also run a new Word Shot photo to keep the exercise going.

Did I mention a prize? I will e-mail all three of my e-manuals to the person whose written comment I select each week. If you win, and you already have the manuals, I’ll e-mail them to the person of your choosing as a gift from you. (In the future, I may be able to swing other prizes as well.)

Please don’t be afraid to participate! I’ll moderate the comments and weed out any that cross the line from constructive suggestions to mean-spirited criticism. So you don’t have to worry about being roasted. (However, judging from the previous comments of those who read this blog, that shouldn’t be a problem.)

And so, without further ado, here’s the first-ever Word Shot. Look at it intensely, then write something about it and submit what you write in a comment. Here we go….

Don’t forget to check back with TheWritersBag during the coming week to read what others have written and to see if anyone has commented on what you’ve written.

Let’s make this a powerful, constructive and fun writing exercise that we share every week! Take a shot!

I’m going to try something new on this blog that I’m really excited about….

Every week we’re going to have a Word Shot exercise and competition, with the objective of stimulating our writing abilities.

Here’s how it will go:

1. I will include a human interest photograph in the weekly Word Shot blog post.
2. Anyone who wants to participate can write something that relates to that photograph and include it in a comment to that blog post. It can be a word, a phrase, a paragraph, even a full story. The only restriction is that it must in some way relate to the photo.
3. Everyone is invited to submit their “Word Shots” as comments. They are also encourages to submit comments regarding the Word Shots other have submitted. (Don’t worry – I will moderate these comments and screen out any comments that are not positive, instructive or helpful. In short, you don’t have to worry about attracting mean criticisms.) The fact is, hundreds of talented writers read this blog regularly and we should all be helping each other improve our writing. A forum like this offers a great opportunity we would be fools to ignore.
4. I will review all the Word Shot comments that have been submitted and choose a winner. (They will all be “winners” of course, but one will receive a prize.)
5. In the following week’s Word Shot post, I will announce the winner from the previous week and run the winning text with the photo, along with the name of the winner.
6. I will give the winner a prize. Initially, the prize will be all three of my e-manuals. If the winner already has the manuals, I’ll send them to someone of his or her choosing, in the winner’s name.

Why am I doing this? Years ago, long before I started working as a full-time writer, I bought a book called Stop, Look and Write! by Hart Day Leavitt and David A. Sohn. On the first page, it said:

“Here is a unique new method of learning to write that is as revolutionary as it is simple. Based on the principle that all effective writing depends primarily on accurate, insightful observation, it teaches the student how to see life with the perceptive eye of the great photographer. Then, the student learns how to express himself and what he has observed in an entirely fresh and original way.”

The book was filled with human interest photos. My task was to stop what I was doing, look intently at the photo and then write something about it. The key was to really look at the photo – in fact, focus my attention on it intensely until I became absorbed into it. This was a form of meditation, which centered me on the subject and allowed me to write about it at a level I would not otherwise be able to.

It was a wonderful technique to learn and has served me well ever since. I hope the Word Shot exercises will do the same for you.

Stay tuned. It begins this Monday!

(Note: I wrote this post a few months ago before I decided to “retire” from accepting jobs from commercial clients. Still, it is applicable to freelance writers in general.)

Ah yes … we work for money, don’t we.

And we should. After all, you wouldn’t choose to spend your afternoon writing a press release announcing ACME Balloon Rental’s new vice president of inflation instead of working on your novel, would you? Nor would you pop out of bed in the morning thinking, “Finally, today I get to write a brochure about widgets instead of finishing my screenplay!”

The fact is, as freelance writers, we work to eat, and to eat, we must charge for our work. But there’s the rub: What should we charge?

Let’s cut to the chase. I currently base my fees on $75 per hour for anything clients ask me to do, whether it’s writing, ghostwriting or editing. It doesn’t matter whether it’s for a brochure, Web site, book, press release or what. It’s $75 per hour. (That rate is higher than some writers charge and less than others charge. The geographical market has a lot to do with it.)

My fees are almost never discussed when I work with repeat clients. They know what to expect and seem to be okay with it. If it looks like a project is going to cost more than the client is used to, I bring this up for approval. The last thing I want is to give a good client an unpleasant surprise when he or she opens my bill.

My fees are always discussed with new clients. I usually don’t tell them what I charge per hour. That really tells them little, because it’s only half of the equation. One writer might take five hours to do the project while another would take 10 hours. So simply saying “I charge $75 per hour” means nothing. That’s why with new clients I estimate what I would charge for a project, based on all the information I have been given. I also let the client know to expect changes in the estimate if the project’s parameters change midstream. An up-front estimate eliminates sticker shock when the client receives the invoice. (By the way, you could call it a “bid,” but I like “estimate” because it seems a bit more pliable.)

Ultimately, of course, you can only charge what the market will bear, but the fee structure I’ve just described has worked for me for years. I have, of course, periodically raised my rate.

Don’t be afraid to turn down clients who aren’t willing to pay you what you’re worth. If you keep saying yes to these people, you will get locked into a low-level of clientele and will always be underpaid. Believe me, there are companies and individuals out there who are willing to pay the price for a good writer. If you are a good writer, you just have to find them. But you won’t find them if you’re swamped with jobs that keep you perpetually unpaid and overworked.

I have a pet peeve: writers who low-ball their rates just to get work. They make life difficult for other hardworking, professional freelancers, and ultimately they cut their own throats. I recently went online to check out what writers were charging and being offered for online articles and content. I was appalled and frankly infuriated to read that some online publishers were offering 1/10th of one cent per word! Once cent per word was fairly standard. That sort of compensation is a slap in the face to serious writers, and any writer who accepts it is doing real damage to the profession as a whole.

Let’s put things in perspective: Yesterday a garage door repairman charged me $89 to fix one of our garage door openers. He spent – I’m not exaggerating – less than five minutes! The day before, my sister paid a plumber $180 to fix a leaking connection. He spend just over 30 minutes on the job. And they’re asking writers to work for maybe $2 per hour?

And some writers will do it? I can’t think about this without wanting to break something.

One last thought. Some writers wonder whether to charge on a per-word basis. This may work for magazine articles and the like, but is lunacy for most types of projects. It doesn’t take into account the time you might spend on research and in meetings, or the approval process and other variables. I once spent three days in meetings and creative time to come up with a small college’s three-word billboard headline. Had I charged per word, I would have had to charge over $400 per word. Had I told the client I would charge $400 per word, I wouldn’t have landed the job. But telling them that I would charge about $1200 for three days of work seemed reasonable to them. And it was. In fact, it was a steal. They used the headline for years in all their marketing materials.

By the way, I regularly get $400 per word for 2,000-word travel articles … in my dreams.