Should You Write for Free?

Debates rage in chat groups, on Facebook and LinkedIn, and on writing sites like She Writes and Redroom. Should writers write for free? In a word, no. 

If you want to make writing your profession, or if you are already a professional writer, you should not – ever – write for free. Not for supposed exposure. Not for promised attention at some future point. Not for the possibility you will be hired later. Don’t do it.

As a professional writer for the past 30-plus years, I can’t afford to write for free. It’s my living. In the past two years I have been approached a number of times with invitations to write for free. The supposed advantage is something along the lines of, “You’ll get exposure!” or, well, I can’t think of anything other than that, and it turns out that could be a very empty promise. Exposure adds up to exactly what?

When the Huffington Post first started, I was invited to blog. It seemed like a great opportunity at the time, but after several months and a half-dozen blogs, it became clear I was spending a lot of my time writing for very little tangible benefit. About a year ago I was asked by Redroom.com, an author promotion site with which I have an author page, to write a column for AOLnews.com. Redroom offered to donate $100 to a charity of my choice for doing it. So I did. But when they asked me again, I said no. The time I would have to take to write a thoughtful, well-researched piece for AOLNews’ opinion or travel section (which they had proposed) would have cost me far more than I would realize in either book sales or potential clients.

Yesterday I received another “offer” to write a monthly column for a website. They promised me exposure to their members (the number of members and the number of unique visitors to the site weren’t specified), plus promotion on their home page and links to the sites where my book is for sale. Earlier, at the urging of my publisher, I had written answers to questions about publishing they posted as an interview on their site, and they seemed pleased by that. Thus the invitation to write monthly for them.

Honestly, it’s tempting. But the time it would take to write a monthly column would be time taken from the hours I would otherwise be making money by teaching, coaching or writing for other publications. If I knew that each column would result in the sale of at least, oh, I don’t know, say 100 books, it might make financial sense. But that is a very big if.

Professional writers are under siege these days. Many of us are former journalists whose newspapers have folded or downsized. We are experienced. We know our ways around a government agency. We know how to track down a scandal or root out corruption. We are expert at researching and interviewing, and we know how to nail a source to the wall if need be. We also know how to write a balanced multi-sourced story and make it interesting and informative.

Changes in the publishing industry, not least the rise of internet publications, has created a new world for those of us with longtime journalism and writing experience. Unfortunately, our skills and talents are devalued, and we are competing against people – young and older – who are willing to write for free to get the experience they need to (perhaps) get better writing jobs.

The Huffington Post has come under severe criticism for essentially profiting on the backs of thousands of bloggers who helped make the Post a major player in the world of internet media. I think much of it is justified. But we as writers have to do our part and refuse to be exploited.

Comments

[Edwin Lyngar]

What about writing for your own blog? I note that you do it here, and I blog too. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not wasting my own time on by own blog trying to create a "platform."

[Marcia]

Good point, Edwin. I think writing a blog is fine as long as it's part of a marketing strategy that you can measure. If you can tie specific outcomes to it, i.e. that someone bought your book or asked to become a client based on your blog and/or website, then it makes sense. But if you are blogging simply to entertain yourself and your friends, it might be worth reconsidering.

[Marsha Keeffer]

Many professionals do pro bono work - the surprise to me is always that people don't consider writers professionals. Must be because writing is so easy!

Blogging is one thing...writing for free another entirely. In business, perceived value dictates giving price serious consideration. Free can end up being quite expensive.

[Lorraine Devon Wilke]

Marcia:

I love your idea of holding out for paid work. I do. Sincerely, truly and deeply. That is, after all, what we all set out to do: express ourselves artfully through the written word and make our living - or, at the very least, a decent part of it - doing this thing we love so much. Yep, that's the plan.

Then there's the real world. The world where agents don't return calls or emails, where queries are returned on generic forms that don't offer even the courtesy of your name, and hard-copy manuscripts that cost $50 to copy and ship are rejected with three careless lines in an email. Where producers who "love your work" shop your rewrites out to name writers and that screenplay you slaved over ultimately gets shelved with no reasons given. Where magazine publishers don't acknowledge that really classy set of printed articles you sent as a pitch package, where text mills want to pay you $4.00 for a piece on "why men like chubby women" and the sheer crush of writers hawking their wares is not only staggering but a mob pushing against the doors of Paid Work like the crowd at a Macy's sale.

Tell me, how do you crack that code?

I'd love to have the luxury of holding out for just the paying jobs but for the life of me, I'm not finding that many of them available; at least not the ones that pay decently, the ones available to skilled writers who've paid their dues, put in their time, and honed their craft to the the point that they're as talented and capable as anyone at the top of the food chain.

So what do you do? You want to write. You want to keep doing that thing you do, with the hope that if you build it they will come (God, I'm sick of that phrase...). You want to put stuff out there to gain some attention, accrue some new fans and followers, and sometimes just speak your mind about one topic or another because that's part of who you are and why you write. So you write, you write your ass off, and you do it because you're a writer and if you don't, if you wait only for those golden opportunities that come with dollars attached, you won't be honoring this gift you have and this voice you need to speak.

I get the concern about spending so much time writing for free that you don't have time to pound the pavement for paying jobs, but that's never been an issue for me. I've been a self-generator my entire adult life and have never once stopped the forward motion toward compensation in lieu of unpaid work. I kept the hunt going AND I kept writing, singing, recording, writing songs, etc. Did I accomplish anything meaningful in that shared time? I think so:

8 screenplays - yes, only one I've been paid for and had produced; another I've made some option money on and is currently "in development" (code for: "we're busting our butts to get it into production but who knows?"). The rest....warming a back burner in my creative library. But I loved writing them and they're actually really great scripts. Hope springs eternal.

7 stageplays, all of which have been produced on Los Angeles Equity Waiver stages. Meaning: great productions, wonderful audiences, tremendous performances, accolades as the writer and...no money. But SO fun and I really learned a lot about the format and the medium.

Countless songs, some of which have soundtracked movies, TV shows and industrials, some paid royalties, most beautifully recorded and occasionally played on IPods the world over. Co-wrote/arranged/produced my own CD. Sold a bunch, still available online, and, unbelievably, I hear some people are selling it privately on Amazon.com. Go figure. I still haven't recouped but I'm not sure I've ever done anything more fun in my life.

One novel. An amazingly creative and personal experience; I truly love this book, it's been extremely well-received by freelance editors and readers I've given it to, and it's been through several tough, relentless drafts; may the pavement pounding commence! I've now contacted almost 100 literary agents...just so far. Some have sent that generic form letter with the "Dear Author" rejection template. A few have read pages or the manuscript itself (though I suspect, based on the lack of specifics in their responses, that none have actually read the whole thing), a few have said things like "great writing but not for me"; most have not even responded to my query letter. Which I've been told is a stellar one. Still pounding away. Quite the journey.

I've sent packages of writing samples, resumes, links to published articles, links to my blog and website to countless online papers, including The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch's new online papers, most brick n' mortar papers in major cities (including the one where I live), several magazines that run the kind of thing I write and a few online magazines.

I heard back from only one person: Arianna Huffington. She's the only one who took the time to read my work and get back to me.

And because I DID want to reach out beyond the so-far limited audience share of my personal blog, with very opened eyes I took her up on her invitation to write as an unpaid blogger, that great, much-discussed and now class-actioned violation of the writer's code. And in doing so, I've met and been contacted by hundreds more people than I would've been otherwise, I've written some great pieces that are now a part of my wider online portfolio, I've added followers to my email list that I didn't have before and the cachet of having a page at the Post has punched my profile in ways I'd not been able to do on my own. I've been contacted by people who found my Post articles online, even Twitter followers have found me via the Post. I've enjoyed the forum and people think I'm cool because I write for the Post. Kinda fun.

Does that contribute to the downfall of the writing profession at large? Nope. Until the writing profession sits up and pays more attention to the talented writers in its midst who are putting out great work and putting in the time and effort to be excellent and achieve success, writers have no choice but to do what they need to promote and advance their careers in whatever ways they can. Even, sometimes, blogging for free.

Does that compensate for no pay? Some of it does, at least until Pay makes itself known in ways that allows this writer to feel commensurately acknowledged.

Will I do it forever? No. I'll know when I've gotten everything out of it I can. Hopefully that will overlap with a fabulously paying writing job!

Will any of that actually translate into a fabulously paid writing job? I don't know yet...I hope so. I just don't see how it prevents it.

Does it make me "unprofessional"? No, absolutely not. If money was the only arbiter of professionality there'd be a whole hellava lot of truly talented people reduced to that pejorative. Pro bono has its place, sometimes even when the recipient of the bono is you.

Truth is, up till now Paid Work hasn't shown much interest in me and what I do. It hasn't sought me out, been on my side or even returned my calls. Oh, I'm open, I'm forgiving, I'm still willing to date, but there's got to be at least a little show of interest from the other side before I'll be literary-celibate for the sake of principal.

But I do get your point, Marcia. Clearly you're in a different place in your career than I am in mine (dammit! :)...because I'd love to be able, like you, to categorically state, "I refuse to so work without pay." I'd relish having the kind of work-flow that was so lucrative that I COULD snub my nose at anything that didn't pay me well. But I don't have that luxury. I wish I did; I've worked hard to get it, I believe I deserve it, the quality of my work warrants it, and when and if it arrives, believe me, Paying Work and I will be completely exclusive!

Until then...I write.

Thanks for letting me vent.