A good writer is worth being paid well for his or her services. It is easy to accept or reject a job based on the price quoted by the prospective client. When it comes down to deciding on advertised rates for your work that is harder to do.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Before we place an actual dollar amount on the worth of our services, we have to determine what those services are. Writing has a lot of facets to it.

Obviously, writers with more experience can ask for more money. They can provide a client with published clips and samples of their work. A writing portfolio also includes the type of work done for clients and the educational experience of the writer.

Education doesn’t necessarily mean college degree. Online writing schools offer classes for writers on a variety of subjects. These classes are conducted over in online meeting rooms, over the telephone, and through email correspondence. Time and discipline are just as important here as in a traditional college setting.

A new writer who has the education but not the experience will begin his or her freelance writing career looking for jobs to boost his or her portfolio. The writing jobs would probably pay towards the lower end of the scale but there is a plan at work here. The writer is going for experience to compete for better paying writing jobs.

Research your competition.

After you have determined where you fall on the experience and education scale, it is time to do some research. Before starting a business it is wise to scope out the competition. What are other writers who do the same type of work charging their clients? Sites like eLance display the earnings of their writers on the site in their profile. It gives an idea of how well writers are fairing in the market.

Join a writers’ forum. More experienced writers can help newer writers to adequately rate themselves and their work to come up with competitive but reasonable rates. Even if your rates are lower at the beginning, it won’t always be that way.

Don’t sell yourself short. A writer who feels that he or she is worth $15 per hour for research or per article for a multiple article project must stick to his or her guns. Clients are not always looking for the cheapest bid. If you can back up your price, they will pay it.

What exactly are you offering?

Decide how you will charge for your work. A content writer will charge per article for that type of project. For an eBook, they could charge per page or per every fifty pages.

Don’t forget about the time it will take to research the information. Many writers sell themselves short in this area. Charging a flat fee for research on each project ensures that the writer isn’t losing money.

Whatever rates you decide on are not set in stone. The beginning rates reflect experience at that time. As the business and the writer’s experience grow, the prices will need to be increased. Every six months or so, re-evaluate the writing market and skill changes.

Posted under Articles and Tips

The Dishwasher Fairy is dead.  She was squashed under a pricey stainless steel drawer dishwasher,  you know the ones that you see on those lovely home improvement shows.  She’s definitely not making it to my home.

When I was a child I used to believe that all you needed to know were the right magic words and you could make anything happen.  We’ll I’ve tried every word in the book and my dishwasher is still a busted mess.  And I’ve come to the disheartened conclusion that the Dishwasher Fairy is dead.  The Jaws of Life fairy couldn’t save her and now I’m on my own.

I’ve just spent the better part of the day pulling out a broken dishwasher and installing an ‘extra’ on we had stashed in the garage – don’t ask, it’s a weird story.  We’re not the kind of people who horde appliances but it just so happened that we had an extra dishwasher.

Being a take charge do it yourselfer type of person I thought, why can’t we take the old one out and put the newish one in?  Well we did it and I might add that while it took about six hours – yes six hours to do something a real plumber could have done in 20 minutes – we accomplished our goal.  We installed a dishwasher correctly.  It was perfectly aligned with the counter top and cabinets and it looked great.  We even ran it and marveled at how quiet it was.

No good deed goes unpunished…

And then…I had the forethought to remove the panel at the base of the dishwasher.  You know that little thing that hides all the gunk which ends up collecting under your appliances.  I pulled it up and much to my horror there was a small lake forming beneath the dishwasher.

Seems our extra dishwasher was pretty much broken – had a hole in what looked to be the reservoir which heats the water but don’t quote me because I’m clearly NOT a plumber.

Needless to say we were now in need of a lifetime supply of paper plates and takeout or a new dishwasher.  Being a good little environmentalist and not a fan of Kentucky fried chicken five nights a week we opted for the dishwasher.  That means an expenditure of between $500 and $1500 dollars depending on how fancy we want to go.

Here’s the great part about being a freelance writer…are you ready?

At a modest rate of $50 to $75 an hour, I can take on one additional project and I will have the cash to buy a new dishwasher – and have it installed, I”m not going through that again.  No money taken out of savings, no chunk of change charged to the credit card companies.  We don’t have to stop paying the children their allowance or start eating generic cereal – unless we want to because really Scooters taste exactly the same as Cheerios. All I need to do is contact one of my wonderful and friendly clients to see if they have anything in the works or bid on a job or two and viola – beautiful new dishwasher.

That’s the great thing about being a successful writer.  You have the freedom to work when and how you want.  If you want to keep your day job and use your writing skills to build your savings or to take that luxury vacation you can and if you want to quit your day job and build a full time business, well you can do that too.

The Dishwasher Fairy may still be dead but you don’t really need her anyway.  You can make your own magic and get paid for it too.

Posted under Freelance lifestlye