4 Pricing Mistakes That Make Freelance Writers Broke & Burnt Out

Want to get paid a good rate as a freelance writer? Looking for solid strategies to help you avoid bargain bin clients and attract the ones who are happy to pay you a fair sum for a job well done?

I’m here to help! We can talk all day long about how much we love writing and what a joy it is to spend time doing stuff that lights us up – if you don’t feel that way, you’re probably barking up the wrong career tree. But at the end of the day, getting paid is pretty damn good too.

You don’t have to work for peanuts, and it’s very possible for freelance writers to create a very generous income. But you do need to give some careful thought to how you approach pricing, and avoid some of the common bumps in the road.

Let’s have a look at the four biggies that have the potential to make you broke and burnt out, and consider how you can avoid them… 

1. ASSUMING THAT BEING THE CHEAPEST WILL GET YOU ALL THE WORK

When you get into the swing of sending out pitches to your prospective clients, you need to think carefully about what’s going to give you the edge over all the other people who are firing across their own proposals and trying to beat you to the post.

Your prospect is probably going to hear from a lot of people, so you need to know what it is that makes you the best possible candidate, and effectively communicate that.

It’s pretty safe to assume that pricing is going to be a factor in their decision-making process. But here’s where it gets interesting, and becomes a little counterintuitive…

The best clients are NOT looking for the cheapest freelance writers.

They’ve been around the block a few times. They’ve had their fingers burnt by people who promised the world for $5 an hour, and kicked themselves when they realised they couldn’t deliver, because really, they knew that all along.

They don’t want a bargain. The want someone who can do a professional job.

And on the other side of the coin, the clients who WILL often give you a shot purely because you’re the cheapest – and those exist, of course – are probably going to be a bloody nightmare.

They don’t value you. They have no real appreciation of what a good writer can do for them. They’ll be unreasonable in their demands, and ultimately, that doesn’t make for a good working relationship. You’re no more than a commodity to them, and if someone comes along who can do it for a few quid cheaper? You’re out on your ear.

Undercutting your competition is a race to the bottom, and it’s one that you can’t win.

The fact that you’re here, reading this, and eager to learn more about building a successful freelance writing business than can stand the test of time, tells me that you take pride in your work and that you care about delivering a quality service to your clients.

Own that, and make it a factor when determining your prices. You’re worth more than a few quid an hour.

2. NOT UNDERSTANDING – OR SIMPLY IGNORING – LEAP-FROG THEORY

I’m guessing that you’ve spent some time in the traditional world of work. This means that without realising it, you’ve been conditioned into the employee mindset.

You see, we’re lead to believe that we need to start at the bottom and work our way up the ranks. That we have to wait around for someone to give us permission and deem us worthy to move up to the next level.

If you continue to keep this mindset once you venture into the world of self-employment, then to be frank, you’re buggered.

If you’re waiting for someone to tell you that you’re good enough to charge more, or work with a higher calibre of client, then you’re going to be waiting a bloody long time.

There’s a book by Robert Ringer where he introduces the idea that all of this, really, is just nonsense. He calls his concept ‘leap-frog theory’, and he encourages us to consider that we have the right to self-proclaim. At any time, we can choose to jump up to a higher level, and enjoy the benefits of doing so.

Really, what it all comes down to is giving yourself permission.

I’ll have you consider that the freelance writers who are commanding the highest levels of pay aren’t necessarily any better at writing than you are. Because at the end of the day, how good of a writer you are doesn’t really have a great deal of significance when it comes to how much you get paid. Or at the very least, it’s not the ultimate deciding factor.

What’s stopping you from leap-frogging? You can spend years telling yourself that you need to build more experience before you raise your prices, but it’s not true. The ladder only exists if you believe it does, and you can choose to kick it out of the way completely if you wish to.

[As a side note here, Robert Ringer’s book is called Winning Through Intimidation, and I really wish it wasn’t, because it makes what really is a book full of good and thought-provoking advice seem pushy and aggressive, and that means that the folks who could benefit from it the most probably won’t read it.

It’s primarily aimed at sales folks working in real estate, but it’s relevant to anyone who’s willing to reconsider what success looks like, and how they can achieve it. Definitely a good read for any budding freelance writer, if you can get past the title!]

3. SETTING UNREALISTIC PRODUCTIVITY GOALS

Okay, so let’s do a little bit of maths around the various ways in which you can achieve your income targets.

You’ve no doubt seen posts on freelance writing job boards that offer you the likes of £5 for a 300 word article. And on the surface, especially if you’re new to this game, that can initially sound like it’s not too bad of a deal.

Because let’s say that you estimate that you can churn out 300 words in 15 minutes. With a bit of practice and if quality isn’t your main objective, you probably can. So you can write 4 of those short articles in an hour, and your hourly rate is £20.

That might not sound too shabby.

But very rarely is it actually going to work out that way.

You’re not a machine. You’ve forgotten to take into account stopping for a cup of tea, and having an off-day, and the amount of time that it takes you to get into the swing of things each morning, and the million-and-one other things that mean that this way of thinking won’t build your freelancing income to where you want it to be.

And really, this churn-it-out mentality is the kind of treadmill that’s difficult to ever escape from once you’ve been sucked into it.

I’ve been freelance writing for more than seven years now, and I know that I can only produce quality writing for a maximum of a few hours per day. It’s a creative and technical process, and that means that it’s mentally taxing.

So I simply don’t try to cram in all the clients that I can find. Instead, I work with a very select few clients who pay me very good rates. This way, I know I can deliver top-notch work, hit my income goals, and not lose the will to live in the process.

Working hard is essential at some points and in some circumstances for freelance writers, and it’s admirable to an extent, but don’t put it ahead of working smart.

4. NOT REALLY UNDERSTANDING WHAT CLIENTS ARE PAYING FREELANCE WRITERS FOR

Your client couldn’t really give two hoots about the fact that you’re going to be writing them a blog post. So if you never scratch the surface beyond ‘I can write you a blog post’ when you’re sending pitches or creating content to promote your own services, you’re leaving money on the table and sending potential clients away.

The trick is to think about what your clients really do want.

What’s that blog post going to do for them?

Maybe it’ll make more people aware of their business and what they do.

Maybe it’ll generate leads in the form of enquiries from potential customers who want to know more.

Maybe it’ll create more sales.

Maybe it’ll put more profits in their pockets, take away their worry of where their next chunk of business is coming from, and allow them to get away from their computer and actually eat dinner with their partner and kids at a reasonable time, instead of being tied to the office until midnight 6 days a week.

Go back over that little list there and notice how each point dives a little deeper into what your writing is really all about, and the kind of benefits that you can help people to realise through your work.

Understanding what you really deliver, and being able to frame it in a way that makes sense to your prospects in terms that actually mean something to them, is the key to getting paid the very best rates.

Selling your services is really just about being able to effectively demonstrate that you solve a problem that your clients really do have.

Freelance writers who avoid these pitfalls make it way easier for themselves to earn a good income from their writing. Are you guilty of making any of these mistakes? And how will you be aiming to change your approach so you can earn the rates you really desire and deserve?