Writer Wrangler

Another Writer Wrangler Investigative Report By Li’l Herbert Fuchida

Those wonderful people from the Internet marketing world hire web-based freelance writers to do a lot of work. Many of us couldn’t make ends meet if it wasn’t for the “IM” crowd.

Yeah, we complain. They try to low-ball us. They expect too much and they want it too fast. Etc. We gripe, but we need them just like they need us. And we can’t really get too hacked off about the rates we’re offered, right? After all, it’s just business. They can’t pay top dollar unless the material is producing a profit for them.

That’s the story we tell ourselves about those rates, anyway. We’d like to believe that all of the people we meet out in IM land are “good guys” and that they’d pay us more if they could afford it. Maybe, we hope, they’ll hit it big and the money will follow on the next job.

Heck, sometimes they even tell us that. You’ve probably seen it before. Maybe it was in an email from a prospective client. Maybe it was on a job description at your favorite freelance bidding site. The words might have been a little different, but it probably boiled down to something like this:

“I can only pay $X for this project. If you do a good job and I’m satisfied with the work, there is an opportunity to make more money on future projects.”

Guess what, my writer friends?
Those comments might be true sometimes. In many other cases, though, it’s nothing more than a case of lying designed to trick you into working for a few peanuts less than you should.

There are actually IM people out there who are teaching new marketers to make those claims. And they’re not telling them to do that with any real plan of paying more down the line. They just want to get the work cheap and they’ve found that little carrot-dangling act will entice some writers to sign on for a project at a lower rate than they’d usually accept.

I’m not naming names right now, but there’s a fairly popular ebook out there targeting new Internet marketers that’s designed to teach them all about how they can make more money by outsourcing. This particular guide is one of a few that directly encourages people to promise “more later” in order to get work done on the cheap–whether the marketer really plans on upping rates later or not.

Hey, I’m glad someone is out there extolling the virtues of outsourcing. That means more jobs for people like me. Hopefully, it means more jobs for me specifically. However, I do take exception to the fact that a few so-called marketing gurus are encouraging their students to mislead freelance writers in order to save a few bucks.

So, what can you do?

First, any time you see anyone encouraging people to dangle the phony carrot, speak up. This kind of malarkey only thrives when it’s left in the dark.

Second, when you see one of these “I might be able to pay more in the future” comments, ignore it. If it’s true, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. If it’s not, you will have avoided making a decision on the basis of a potential trick.

Don’t take a job on the cheap because you hope that some day the joker will pay you better. Only take the gig if it makes sense from the get-go.

~WRWR

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