Never sell your creative genius for a pittance has been some of the best writing advice I have ever received. Yet sadly, I all too often see freelance job sites with job offers demanding that you do just that. If you visit many freelance writing sites these days you might see what looks like a wasteland of low paying job with high output demands. Sometimes I run across jobs that pay fairly and the job sounds like something I can sink my teeth into, and best part is I retain the rights to the creative writing that I do. Most times though, I see things as ludicrous as asking the writer to compose 50 thousand word original stories for $300-$500, all rights to the story forfeited upon delivery to the client. Extra points to the ones that have the audacity to ask for it in less than a month.
I cannot stress how sad, and how absurd it is to place such demands on a writer. To not only ask them to while away the hours working on a story, but to tell them they have no rights to earnings from the story once it is delivered--for me that would be like asking me to give up my kid once she was smart enough to be in grade school and never get to see her again. Before I get any farther, I want to make it clear that this is not meant as a rant against "unfair wages" or whatever the lingo would be. Just that I wish those putting up the job offers would actually have an iota of reasonableness in their offers. It is those types of offers that give businesses a bad reputation. Anywho, I digress.
I am sad when I see this kinda of thing pop up, because often with these freelance writing sites who I am up against when bidding for a job. The very fact that there are several people who are already applying for these types of jobs just makes me sad. I privately hope that most of them are brave enough to challenge the exclusive rights demands, even if they ask for only a small portion of any and all profits that are made when the book is sold that would be something. Now, I think it is important that I make a thing or two about selling your stories and writing before I go any further with this.
When I talk about low paying writing jobs, I'm not talking about the ones where you are writing a short blog about kitchen knives, or the best winter clothing, or a variety of topics on which you may not be an expert but can research for an article. I've done this myself, I don't get much money for it, but these are not exactly beloved possible masterpieces that I've sold the rights to. I have what might be best called "no emotional attachment" to those writings. I think a skill that all of us who write and write well have is the ability to produce quality "product" for clients in need. You need to sell propane and propane accessories and would like a 500 word article but can only pay eight bucks? Not a problem, that's grocery money for me and I don't mind doing it. I would feel no loss in selling that writing and not being able to claim it as my own. However, that isn't what the people who post the pittance jobs are looking for. They seem like they could care less about short articles on propane, hiking, or cooking or whatever else. What they are looking for, in my opinion, is a jackpot.
Those type of jobs seem to crop up for the sole purpose of getting a million dollar story for pennies per word and claiming it as their own. After all, if some one produces the next Harry Potter, Hunger Games, or Twilight or some other high-selling and popular series; what does it matter that $300 was spent on buying the book? After all, if you are the buyer in that case you've just captured lightening in bottle and have all the money you spent and more back in the bank. Maybe it sounds like I'm being too cynical here, but the funny thing is that this thought process doesn't come from cynicism but from hope.
The fact that there are people out there looking for a veritable cash cow within the freelance community, that there are people hoping to get rich quick (at least in my opinion) with some one else's work--to me that means that there is a chance that it could happen and that it could be me who has the opportunity to write something great. It can happen to someone else as well. I'm not saying that this can only happen to one person and that there is only one prize to be won, so to speak. I'm thinking that there is something to be found. Something to be done. Multiple possibilities of something awesome just waiting to be discovered. Maybe it will be me. Maybe it will be you.
Just please, please, if you get that big break and write something truly awesome and eye-catching that fills a reader with wonder and you think you know it in your heart that it become something--don't trade it away for a pittance. It might be hard to tell at times what are the winners and what are the ideas that just aren't going to go anywhere, but holding on to the right to claim what is yours is something we as writers need to do more of.
I know that I have more to say on this, but it will have to wait until another time. Life is happening around me, so to speak (ie I have my little girl to take care of) and I need to get to that.
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