$40,000 A Year In "Editorial Services"
WHAT ARE "EDITORIAL SERVICES"
When I started out as a freelance writer the market for such
services was a bit different than today. Most freelance
writing
then was "on spec" - you wrote something, a story or an article,
then peddled it. If a publisher bought it, he or she provided
editing, typemarking, payout, and other services to prepare it
for production. Once the publisher bought it, you were finished
with it.
Today there is an entirely different market for freelance
writers, an enormous business market. You don't (usually)
get
bylined, and you don't write best sellers - but you don't work
on spec, either, and you don't starve in a garret. You get
paid
for everything you write because you write to order, at an
agreed-upon price, which you have set or negotiated. And
you
can work this entire market or you can specialize in segments
of
it, as you wish. (Most of us begin by working the entire
market
until we finally get into some specialized segment, for one
reason or another.)
Why then, do I refer to "editorial services" in my title, rather
than to freelance writing? Simply for these reasons:
Frequently, you do rewrites of someone else's bad or incomplete
writing. But the client is reluctant to admit, even to him-
or
herself, that he or she doesn't write at all well. You are
therefore advised by the client that all that is needed is a
"little editing". However, since you are going to be paid
on
the basis of whatever your time is worth, what do you care what
the work is called?
In some cases, what is needed is editing, proofing, typemarking,
layout, and/or other such editorial services. Again, if
the
client is willing to pay you what you ask for your time, what
do
you care what the specific editorial work is?
In most, if not all of this market, writing assignments do often
require more than writing itself. You may be called on to
help
conceive and plan the piece, analyze/identify/define the need,
advise about printing or illustrating, etc. It is in your
interest to be a general expert on most aspects of publishing
paper used in business - brochures, proposals, reports, theses,
speeches, presentations, publicity releases, storyboards,
scripts, and many other kinds of written communications.
Learning and using all the related skills means earning a great
deal more money. So while I may talk of writing throughout
this
report, please interpret that to mean all the spectrum of
writing, editing, and publication production services required
to accomplish your client's aim and to earn you your fees.
HOW IT HAPPENED
I decided, a the ripe old age of 12, that I would be a writer.
I had rather vague ideas, at the time, of just what a writer was
and did. I didn't really envision myself as a great novelist
or
playwright; I hadn't come that far in my thinking yet. All
I
knew was that I enjoyed explaining myself in writing.
Ultimately, a few years later, I discovered the writers'
magazines. (There were several of them, three prominent,
"the
big league" ones, and a few minor ones.) I began to read
them
regularly and to absorb from them, while I continued to practice
on a beat up old portable for which I had somehow managed to
scrounge up the money needed to buy it. Once in a while
- once
in a great while - I sold something. It wasn't much money,
but
it was satisfaction to have my name in the press and some of my
work worthy of purchase. It was vindication of my claim
to be a
writer.
I managed to get in a little newspaper experience, doing some
writing chores for a large city daily and, later, for a couple
of U.S. Army newspapers during my WWII service. I even managed
to win a few prizes in writing contests.
Eventually, with my continuing education as a writer, I
discovered the trade press, and began to sell a bit more
frequently, although at such low rates that I could not yet earn
my living at freelancing, despite the occasional major sale,
such as a book for $4,000. But that was not often enough,
either. I was meeting just enough success to convince myself
that I was, indeed, a writer. The trick was to learn how
to
earn a living at it.
With that, and eating on a reasonably regular basis in mind,
I
used the G.I. Bill to get an electronic engineering education.
And that led me, eventually, directly into technical writing.
I
was beginning to get closer to my goal, earning a living at
writing, although I was not yet ready freelance full time.
That introduced me to Government contract work, a valuable
experience that I tucked away for future reference. Too,
as a
result of my technical-writing experience, I stumbled into the
design and writing of training systems, which turned out to be
also valuable experience, leading me to the management of
writing and writers and into direct experience as a marketer and
contractor to the federal government, first as an employee and
later as a consultant and independent contractor.
The diversity of my earlier experiences proved to be a most
valuable asset, an open-sesame to where I wanted to go:
My
years in working for and consulting with many major Government
contractors - IBM, GE, RCA, and others - required me to go to
whatever company had a major contract at the time. (That
was
where the job openings were!) This required me to become
an
expert writer of resumes, since they had to be constantly
updated and oriented to the latest needs. And I was meanwhile
learning how to write effective proposals, which proved to be
quite a boon to my career, propelling me into a consulting
career, which soon led to activities as a seminar leader and
public speaker.
I finally had all the tools I needed to be a successful
freelance business writer. I could write resumes, proposals,
manuals, brochures, training programs, reports, and many
other
things but - most important - I knew where and how to find the
work and what rates to charge.
Still, I didn't make the final move until an employer virtually
forced me to by victimizing me so shabbily that I felt compelled
to quit his employ immediately. And by now I was at a salary
level that made it rather difficult to find an equivalent job
quickly - one drawback of reaching above average levels in your
field! So, while I considered my next move, I began to do
some
freelancing by calling a few people I knew to offer my services
on a fee basis.
By the time I began to get some reasonably good job offers I
had
won enough freelance writing assignments to persuade me to turn
down the offers and open an office in town. That was my
preference, at the time; it was not and is not a necessity.
I had won my first assignment to write some proposals and a
sales brochure for a company, which ultimately produced several
thousand dollars for a few weeks' work. I also began to
advertise a resume-writing service and won many clients for this
at rates of from a low of about $25 to about $90, with an
occasional one running as high as $150, a good rate even in
these later days. I also turned my attention to bidding
for
Government writing projects, usually small jobs of from about
$2,000 to $5,000, although occasionally the projects were larger
and ran to much higher figures.
Once firmly established, I began to think about another idea
I
had had for some time: what I regarded and referred to as
freelance or "specialty" publishing: Printing and selling my own
small how-to publications by mail. I soon learned that my
idea
was not original, as I had thought it to be, but already had
many practitioners. (Of course, I soon added my own special
fillips to it.) And so I became and am a freelance
writer/editor/publisher, writing books and articles for
commercial publishers, still taking on an occasional
customer-writing assignment, and still writing and selling my
own little reports.
And you can do it too. You don't have to do it all or know
how
to do it all, and you don't have to make all the mistakes I made
in learning, for I will pass on what I learned. Probably,
armed
with what I have to reveal to you now, you can do it better,
faster, and probably with greater success than I did.
BUSINESS OR PROFESSION?
Freelance writing is a business. You may prefer to regard
it as
a profession, which it is also, of course. But all
professionals in private practices - doctors, dentists, lawyers,
architects, and others - must observe business principles and
methods if they are to succeed. As a freelance writer you
have
expenses - office rent, for example, even if that office is a
small room in your home. You have to spend part of your
time
finding assignments and making sales - marketing your business.
That's a business expense too because you are paying for that
time out of your own pocket. Actually, if you have a
professional accountant keep your books for you, you will earn
why you have to account for your own time as a business
expensethat you must pay yourself a salary, and that salary is
not profit; it is cost. Any of that cost - portion of your
salary that is not directly compensated by charges to a client
for your time is part of your indirect or overhead cost.
Remember that you will have to spend some part of your time in
marketing and administration of your own enterprise, probably
a
third of your time, in fact. That time, as well as all other
costs - rent, telephone, printing, automobile expenses, postage,
etc - must be considered when you set your rates to clients.
PRICING YOUR WORK
Earning $1000 for 80 hours' work does not mean that you can
afford to pay yourself $12.50 an hour. when you deduct all
operating expenses, you may discover that you have not made even
$5 an hour! You soon learn that when consultants and other
specialists charge several hundred dollars a day for their work,
they are not getting rich.
In other words, if you want to make, say $20 an hour, you must
know what your expenses are and allow a margin of error in
making the estimates of overhead and other costs. That is,
if
you estimate a 75% overhead, a quite reasonable rate, in fact,
you must charge $35 an hour for your time. You will probably
not charge by the hour usually, but "for the job", so you
estimate the number of hours the job will take and multiply that
by $35 to arrive at a price (adding other costs, such as
printing, illustrating, or anything else required.)
At the same time you can't simply ignore "the market" - the
average price charged by others for similar work. On one
contract I may have charged only $20 an hour because that was
the market price - all I could get - and I wanted the job enough
to sacrifice a bit. On most jobs, however, a flat price
is
called for, and I decide what the job is worth, as well as how
long it will take me.
Here, there is another consideration: How efficient you
are.
If you are a fast worker and can do the job in far less time
than most competitors can, you can turn that to your advantage
in two different ways. You can be highly competitive without
working below your desired minimum rate, and you can earn more
than that minimum rate, even then.
You are not cheating a client when you charge $50 or $100 an
hour if your end price is still competitive and within the market.
You should benefit from your productivity. So hourly rates
are really a rough measure.
THE PRODUCTIVITY FACTORS
If you are highly productive, you are better off to charge by
the job as often as possible. You might earn $75 an hour,
while
charging no more than a competitor who earns only $40 an hour
because he or she is far less productive than you. Clients,
however, tend to rebel at what they think is a high hourly rate,
regardless of the total price for the job. Keep information
about your productivity and your hourly earnings to yourself;
they are proprietary and confidential information.
Your "speediness" as a writer/editor is only one factor
affecting productivity. Familiarity with the subject - or
the
lack of it - is another factor. If you are somewhat expert
with
the subject, your research time is lessened, and the reverse is
true too, of course. The ease or difficulty of finding the
source information is another factor.
And these considerations apply with respect to the kind of writing
- e.g. your familiarity with storyboards, report formats, proposals,
or
whatever it is you have undertaken to write. And your personal
resources are still another factor. If you are equipped
with a
good computer system and adequate software, you have advantages
that help you achieve a high rate of productivity. (I manage
to do most of my research without leaving my office, by utilizing
the mail, the telephone, and my access to other computer
databases via my own computer and modem-telephone links.)
HOW SPECIALIZED OUGHT YOU TO BE?
These are arguments for specializing in subjects and/or kinds
of
written products, and many writers do so. I personally do
not
undertake to write books that would require what I consider to
be excessive amounts of research, for example. But that
is a
personal decision you must make for yourself.
Of course, in the beginning you tend to undertake almost
anything and everything you can get a purchase order or contract
for, and you don't worry overmuch about how profitable the job
will be or how much your net per-hour earnings will be.
But
after a while, when you can get enough work to keep you busy
most of the time, you begin to consider specializing to at least
some extent. You decide that you like certain kinds of
assignments and dislike other kinds, and you may very well begin
to specialize gradually, without a conscious decision to do so.
WHAT IS "RESEARCH"?
When your freelance in the traditional manner, you decide for
yourself what you will write, speculating, in the hope of
finding a buyer after you have written it. The research
is then
entirely up to you, of course: You visit libraries, interview
people, search through old records, and otherwise delve wherever
you can. And you start with a rough outline of just an idea.
As your research progresses, you begin to develop a more
detailed outline or "book plan".
This is not usually the case when you are working on contract.
In that case the client provides you with a requirement and
usually at least some beginning information in the form of rough
notes, perhaps an outline, or even a rough draft. You may
get
all the information, in some form, but, again, you may get
nothing more than the bare requirement. "Research" may
therefore consist of nothing more than sorting out and reading
everything provided, or it may be a total, "from scratch" effort.
SOME TYPICAL CASES
To illustrate the above more clearly, we'll look at a few cases
of my own: training development office of OSHA (Occupational
Safety and Health Administration, Labor Department), gave me,
as
my first OSHA assignment, the task of developing a curriculum
guide for use in junior colleges teaching the OSHA program
"Voluntary Compliance". The guide was to assist college
faculties in preparing a relevant course of instruction.
My research consisted of studying the two volumes that made up
the course material, a student manual and an instructor's guide,
and discussing their content with several OSHA experts.
I decided, after this research, that something more than a
curriculum guide as necessary. Two hours' study of the manuals
showed me that more information for the instructor was needed.
I therefore recommended the development of a "study guide" of
about 60 pages (about 15,000 words), which would include the
curriculum guide, estimating the job at $2,400 (1974 prices!)
The job was approved and a government purchase order issued.
I
then took the materials home and did the job there, expending
about 100 hours on the job, including research and writing.
(In
1991 I would price that job at about $7,500.)
A General Services Administration task called for rewriting an
aborted script for a 15-minute slide/tape presentation of a
value engineering program. The client furnished the information
and the original script that had never been completed. This
took only about two days and paid me $300.
A client who organized training seminars for government agencies
often retained me to prepare the brochures. The client
furnished all the reports on the seminar or conference, and I
wrote a brochure of perhaps 500 words, for which I was usually
paid $150.
When I write on subjects in which I am already reasonably
expert- electronics, for example - most of my research is in the
client's outline or book plan, because most of the technical
knowledge is already in my head, and I need to refer only to
standard technical volumes in my own office library.
On the other hand, I took on the job of preparing a two-hour
presentation of the history and culture of the American Indians.
I had no prior knowledge of the subject at all, and I had to do
complete research. This was a $9,000 project for which I
had to
develop my own outline and plan the extensive research required.
I bought a number of books, begged many more from the U.S.
Bureau of Indian Affairs, visited with officials of several
Indian reservations. It was not a profitable job, and could
only have been made profitable if I had won additional jobs
writing about American Indians so that the research could have
been made to pay.
WHERE (AND WHAT) ARE THE MARKETS?
The markets for this kind of service are everywhere - every
business, every organization, for-profit or non-profit, uses
written products. And the markets are enormously diversified,
far beyond anyone's capacity to pursue them all. But it
is
necessary to review them and gain an appreciation of the scope
and breadth of the opportunities. For example:
A non-profit corporation near my office sold a "prepaid legal
services", group plan (analogous to group hospitalization
plans). I was hired to handle their publicity, writing
newspaper articles and other PR for them.
I happen to be a professional writer in the most literal sense
of the word; no other work is as satisfying to me - I have a
driven need to write - and I have felt that way most of my life.
However, many of the freelance writers making a good living in
this kind of writing work are not professional writers at all.
Many just happened into this field by chance and found it
profitable.
The point is that you do not have to be an author, in the
classical sense of that word, to succeed at this business.
You
do not have to be one who has the psychological need to be a
professional writer. Anyone who can handle the language
with
reasonable facility and fluency can do this kind of work
adequately. One person I know, for example, was an illustrator
who found himself preparing advertising art for most of his
clients.
Before long, he discovered that he could write acceptable copy
for that advertising. And soon he found himself spending
as much time writing as he did illustration. Another writer
I know started as sign painter, and still another managed one
of a chain of hardware stores. And still others are former
teachers, psychologists, sociologists, junior executives, engineers,
clerks, and others who became freelance writers without realizing
that that was their new profession! They just gravitated
into the work without realizing immediately that it was actually
for writing that they were paid.
In actuality, in this field of freelance writing we are more
writing consultants than freelance writers in the classical
sense, and you will probably be able to see that more and more
in the various cases and examples that follow. Bear it in
mind.
The training field is an excellent example. There is a
substantial market for developing training programs of many
kinds. With technology developing rapidly, almost everyone
who
isn't a day laborer requires specialized training of some kind,
beyond high school and even beyond college, frequently.
Companies and government agencies want their employees to learn
such things as data processing (even grammar-schoolchildren are
being taught the basics of computers today), value management,
supervisory principles and practices, basic accounting
principles, safety, energy conservation, and hundreds of other
subjects considered to be a necessity for modern living.
But they cannot always find off-the-shelf or proprietary programs
(e.g., seminars, audiovisual presentations, and other "canned"
programs) to teach these, and so must develop their own
programs. Many government contracts are let for the writing
of
training programs and related materials.
Manufacturers need manuals for the equipment they manufacture.
Sometimes these are technical manuals, but quite often they are
simple, brief instruction manuals - brochures and booklets,
even- for the buyers of a small calculator or kitchen blender.
Manufacturers also need such things as specification sheets,
catalog sheets, sales letters, marketing brochures, product
releases, news releases, circulars, and many other such items.
They need advertising copy written, slogans invented, signs
designed, all work for writers. Some of the larger
organizations have their own writers on staff, but even those
are often overloaded or need someone with special skills and
experience and send writing work out to freelancers. Many
large
organizations, if they do a great deal of advertising, have an
advertising agency handle their writing chores, but advertising
agencies often hire freelance writers to help them.
For example, one large corporation, who didn't do a great deal
of national advertising, paid me over $4,000 to develop a
marketing brochure of 20 pages. I had to arrange for
typesetting, art work, layouts, and printing, which were at
least as much work as the writing was, but I was paid for all
this work.
I have often worked by the day as a proposal specialist,
generally charging from $150 to $300 a day in the early days,
then $500 a day, as inflation progressed, and now $1,000 a day.
But that is based on a short-term assignment, usually a few
days, often 14-hour days, that are typical of proposal
schedules. For the occasional long-term assignment. I sometimes
negotiate a special arrangement.
That is consulting work and billed appropriately as such:
I am
hired for my abilities as an expert in marketing to the
government and as a expert in proposal-writing. I charge
and am
paid accordingly. I prefer a flat day-rate, and I have a
most
flexible scale as to how many hours make up a day; I simply do
not count the hours, but only the day. (My daily rate considers
that many days will be well in excess of 8 hours.)
But that is not necessarily how others work. Some charge
by the hour, others for an 8-hour day and bill time-and-one-half
for overtime and double-time for weekends and holidays worked.
Others negotiate a flat price for each job. You make your
own rules, because each situation is different and each individual's
preferences are different.
One of the great inducements you can offer, if you are willing
to, is a "quick response" service. Many organizations find
themselves in difficulty meeting a deadline - a scheduled
delivery day - for a proposal, report, or other obligation, and
they suddenly realize, as they approach the deadline, that they
are not going to "make the date" without some extra help.
That may require working evenings or over a weekend, but if you
are willing to make a few sacrifices you can usually win such
jobs
(rescue operations!), get paid premium rates - you are fully
entitled to charge premium rates and clients will usually pay
them cheerfully under such circumstances - and win the gratitude
and future patronage of the client. It's worth doing, and
some
individuals specialize in such services.
If you wish to take advantage of such opportunities, advertise
your "quick response" or "quick reaction" services. A number
of
individuals built up substantial companies offering such
services.
Bear in mind at all times that you are not selling your writings
in this kind of undertaking; you are selling your services. The
client is buying your time, your energy, your talent, your
effort, your expert knowledge. You are satisfying a need,
and
the better you satisfy it, the more valuable your service is.
You are, in fact, at least as much the writing consultant as the
writer.
So far, we have talked mainly about organization - corporation,
companies, associations, and governments. But individuals
often
need writing services too. Professionals are called upon
to
prepare and deliver papers at conventions and conferences, to
make speeches, and to write articles for technical and
professional journals.
Students must write term papers, theses, dissertations.
Working people must write resumes and special letters of many
kinds. (Yes, I and others are others are often hired to
write letters for individuals, especially letters to organizations.)
One individual hired me for an unusual job: She had been
appointed to the school board of her county and needed to become
knowledgeable in school affairs quickly, in preparation for her
first board meeting. She hired me to review several school
journals she supplied and abstract all the pertinent articles
fo
her, as a kind of briefing paper!
A graduate student paid me nearly $1,000 to write a master's
thesis, for which he had already prepared an outline and drawn
up a rough draft, going as far as he could go without some
professional help. A city employee hired me to write a letter
appealing a decision of the civil service board. (He got the
decision reversed!) And many individuals, some of them chief
executives of important companies, paid me to write resumes and
cover letters for them.
A placement firm paid me to develop an entire marketing
approach, including the presentation to individual applicants,
addresses to groups, a contract form, and a resume workshop for
clients.
An association paid me to prepare a newsletter for them every
month. In this case, I developed the newsletter idea, then
went
out and sold it to a national association. (An idea you
might
borrow.) They took care of the printing and distribution
(mailing); I merely wrote, typed, and delivered the camera-ready
copy to them every month for a fee which averaged about 25 cents
per word, a good rate for those days.
A federal government agency hired me to answer their mail and
to
design a complete set of standard replies to the most frequently
asked questions. (Not exactly a form letter, either.)
It came
out to about $20 per letter!
Another government agency paid me $1,800 to attend a week-long
training session and critique the program, with my
recommendations for improvement.
HOW TO GET WORK
Now comes the critical question: How to get assignments
and
orders - how to get started doing business. A few initiatives:
Many individuals begin by placing small classified
advertisements in the daily morning newspapers. That works
reasonably well - sometimes remarkably well - in seeking orders
from individuals for resumes, term papers, and the like.
It is
usually not effective in getting work from organizations.
That
is better pursued in other ways:
Advertising in trade journals that the organization members read.
By making in-person and/or telephone solicitations.
By mailing or otherwise distributing brochures and sales letters.
Mailing can be difficult. You need to collect names.
And it
can be expensive: postage costs are high and still climbing
steadily. Far better, I believe, is to simply distribute
your
brochures in office buildings, since almost every office is a
prospect. Get enough brochures/circulars/letters out this
way,
and you are almost certain to begin getting calls.
Call every acquaintance, business and personal, and tell them
about your service. (You will be surprised how many people
want
and need professional writings services.) Ask them to recommend
you to others. Ask them to take a handful of your brochures
and
cards to give to their business associates, friends, and
acquaintances.
Post notices on public bulletin boards in supermarkets,
libraries, community buildings, local colleges.
Write up press releases for yourself and send them out to
newspapers, magazines, trade journals, newsletters, local
companies, business clubs, other organizations.
Follow up. Many people throw a brochure away the first
time it
comes into their hands, but hang on to it as it arrives for the
second, third or fourth time and becomes familiar recognizable.
(Why is that? Who knows? Ask your psychologist. All
we know is
that it is true. Repeat mailings to a given list are almost
always more effective, in the long run, than single mailings to
new lists.)
Be highly specific in your literature. Tell the prospect
exactly what you offer to do. Stress service - fast, efficient,
convenient, accommodating service. Make your telephone number
prominent, easy to find. Make it easy to do business with
you
e.g. one simple 'phone call and you will do the rest. Call
some
of the prospects later - as many as you can; many who hesitate
to call because they never take the initiative will hire you if
you take the initiative.
Persistence is important, of utmost importance. The individual
of average talent and ability, but blessed with great
persistence, will almost always do better, in the end, that the
brilliant individual who is not persistent.
When you have completed a few assignments, list references,
either by name or by general reference (e.g., "...written
speeches for prominent, local architect"). Or specify
references available on request.
Make personal calls with your literature. When you get
the
"Sorry, I don't have a thing for right now, ask for referrals
or
suggestions as to whom else to call. You'll be surprised
at how
much help you can get this way, for reasons too complex to
explore in this limited space.
Start small. Take on jobs you know you can handle swiftly
and
with good results. Build a reputation, and before you know
it
you won't be seeking assignments; they'll be seeking.
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