The Confident Copywriter

Posts Tagged ‘freelancing’

Some people think the title of my blog, The Confident Copywriter, refers to me. It doesn’t. Actually, the title refers to you. My regularly posted rants, raves, and diatribes are designed with you in mind…You…The Confident Copywriter. Or at least I hope you will be, which is why I bother to write the blog at all.

Case in point: The Wealthy Freelancer, comprised of my friends Steve Slaunwhite, Ed Gandia and Pete Savage. Maybe these guys are wealthy. I don’t know. The point is, the Wealthy Freelancer is you, if you follow their sage advice.

And that leads me to the point of this post. The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle is a wonderful, best-selling book many of my readers were lucky enough to snag, compliments of me and various contests I promote on The Copywriters Business Network and through my newsletter, available here on the blog. (Shameless plug)

Wonderful book though it is, I read something that disturbed me. It apparently disturbed you too, since I received several comments about it. So, rather than wonder, I went straight to the source, Steve Slaunwhite himself.

I asked him, “Steve, the books list some fees, such as $500 for a blog post. I’m getting a lot of questions from people wanting to know where to find that kind of work! No disrespect, but these prices seem very inflated, even for high-level copywriters. Since the book is not written for this group, but for people trying to achieve greater success in the industry, wouldn’t it make more sense to use pricing examples that are more down to earth? According to my readers, these fees make them feel very discouraged, and I doubt that was your intention.”

To which I quickly received this encouraging reply from Steve, “Good point. There are many more clients who are only willing to pay $50 for a blog post than there are who pay $500. The trick is to find those top-paying clients. It’s takes little more time and effort to find those clients, but it’s certainly worth it. There are a lot of start-ups out there who have no money. What you want to focus on is serious businesses with serious marketing budgets. Now, when I say “blog post”, I’m not talking about a short note to the blog readers. I’m talking about a substantial article of 500-750 words. Caveat: I’ve taken my share of low-paying work throughout my career. Hey, sometimes that’s what you gotta do to pay the bills! But… the goal should always be to find and land those clients who have the projects you want at the prices you want. I know my opinions here are a bit controversial. Feel free to share what I said with your readers. And feel free to disagree with me anytime. This kind of debate ultimately helps the freelancing community.”

So there you have it. I guess I’m in the middle. I don’t charge as little as $50 for a blog post, but I’m sure not getting $500! I know some of you are probably even below the $50 mark and would be happy to get 50 bucks a post, right?
So I’d like to hear from you. How do you feel about Steve’s answer? Is it fair? Does it give you hope, or does it make you feel like you’re really missing the boat? Do you think his logic makes sense, or simply sells lots of books?