A Veblenesque Gorge

I Am Writing This Blog Post for Free

I’m sure by now every freelance writer in America has read the post by Nate Thayer documenting his exchange with an editor at The Atlantic, who asked him to write 1,200 words for free. It looked completely familiar to me. Examples: I’ve let the Huffington Post, against every fiber of my being, reprint materials for free that I’ve written for other publications; The New York Times asked me to blog about the 2010 Winter Olympics for free (I’m a former competitive figure skater, so came not only with the writing chops, but also expert knowledge of that event’s most popular sport). I can say that the HuffPo editors are shameless on this front. The New York Times editor was not, and I appreciated it, even though I declined the “work.”

The resulting hubub over Thayer’s post inspired The Awl to host an online forum yesterday in which mostly editors, and some writers, tried to have an honest discussion about the Freelance Condition. There’s some really interesting info in there and I’d encourage every freelancer to read it in its entirety if only to better understand the weird nuances of the losing battle you’re currently fighting (although it starts to implode near the end).

Which brings me to my next point: I’m no longer convinced that it’s a losing battle. Like, the New York Times is profitable today, yet still slashing staff and freelance rates. At some point, it starts to feel like they’re sliding it in there while they can still get away with it. Also, HuffPo could surely afford to pay freelancers something. It seems like publications are in the beginning stages of finally figuring out the new model, and that writers should benefit from that. I’d like to see a larger picture breakdown of publications’ finances. My hunch is that many of them can now afford to pay freelancers again.

And I want to make one other note that was not addressed in the Awl forum:

Fee Negotiations: As a rough but I think pretty accurate estimate, I posit that in 75 percent of my commissioning conversations with editors, which happen exclusively over email these days, I am the one who has to bring up money. It feels like a game of chicken in which I am destined to cave. No, it feels like if I don’t bring it up it will not be mentioned until publication, at which point my bargaining chips will have evaporated. As far as problems in the journalism industry go, this is an easy fix. Freelancers would feel far more respected if editors were up front and honest about the money.

Along this same thread, I loved Slate Book Review editor Dan Kois’ very honest breakdown of how he determines fees:

I never ever pay more than $500 to a freelancer for a books piece. Usually I pay less. What I offer to pay a writer is based on a complicated mathematical and emotional calculation that involves
1. How much I love or think I will love the piece

2. How well I think the piece will do

3. How high-profile the writer is (though this doesn’t always work the way you think; sometimes famous people don’t care)

4. How little I think I can get away with paying

5. How bad I will feel about myself

6. Whether the writer has friends who I have also assigned pieces to who might tell her how much I paid them

7. Whether the writer is a fulltime freelancer as far as I can tell, or a nonprofessional writer just doing it For Love Of The Game

8. How fucked my budget is this quarter because of paying Choire $600 for the double review of the Bissell and the Lewis-Krauss

I don’t like telling people how much I pay because I want to be able to lowball like crazy. That said, I don’t ever mind when writers ask me for more money, as long as they don’t mind when sometimes I have to say no.