What Will Become of Professional Photography, and Why Writers Should Care

Columbia Journalism Review has a good article on how photographers have felt enormous pressure from amateur sources of images, but have just been quieter about it than writers. I'd strongly suggest that it's worth reading and then considering how often we all complain about falling rates, and yet are willing to take advantage of the analogous forces in photography that depress rates there. Freelancers often scowl when "non-writers" have the temerity to provide an article, and yet many of us look for opportunities to sell our own photography and anything else that can boost the profit on an assignment.

I'm not suggesting that there is something inherently wrong in developing multiple skills and making use of them all. Far from it. However, it's easy to fall into the "I'll do it for next to nothing if necessary" mind frame in what one sees as a sideline endeavor. Each of us is gaining an advantage from becoming a single source of story-telling, and so is the buyer, because there is only one set of expenses. However, take a look at the bargain you're making and with whom, because, done wrong, it could come back to haunt.

What Your Hourly Rate Isn't

Many writers misuse hourly rates and, as a result, end up damaging the smooth and profitable operation of their businesses. Here are points to check when you consider what you make per hour:

• Double-check your calculation of a minimum hourly rate. I've seen writers assume that they will bill a much higher percentage of their time than is realistic. Calculating a minimum hourly charge involves tallying all the money you need to make for a given time period, say a year, and then dividing it by the billable hours for that period. Most consultants and freelance businesspeople will do reasonably well if they can charge for half of their time. However, I've seen writers assuming that they would be able to charge for 70 percent or more. That is great if it can happen, but it's a terrible idea to assume it will. The higher your number of billable hours, the less money you have to make per hour to hit your financial goals. The problem comes when you find that you don't bill that many hours but have been charging as though you would. Suddenly you wind up with less money than you need. Do yourself a favor and figure that at best only half of your time is billable.


• Don't focus on the hour and forget to look at the bigger picture. If you want a sobering number, take all the money you actually make, not need to make, for a year and then divide that by the total number of working hours, not just the amount you can bill, in that year. Taking two weeks vacation, holidays, weekends, sick time/personal days out of the picture, but leaving in marketing and administration time, that should leave you with 1,840 hours. So divide a year of income by 1,840 to find out what you actually made per hour for a typical 40 hour work week. Here's a hint: if you grossed $100,000, that would be just over $54 per hour. If you're grossing $40,000, that would be under $22 per hour. When you think you're satisfied because you made $100 per hour on a given job, remember the big picture. You have to aim higher in revenue because you have to pay yourself for all those unbilled hours.


• Remember to aim high. The previous couple of calculations should suggest that it is all too common for writers not to be charging enough. Remember that when setting your pricing. If your current clients pay far lower than you need to make per hour, it is time to find some new ones.


• There is a fallacy of "market" hourly rates. There are too many variations on markets to come up with a number that is really representational; rates will vary by company size, industry, type of writing, needed expertise, and so on. You might ask another writer what he or she makes for a certain type of work, but is that what you can make? Do you offer enough value to match that number? Or is the writer charging too little, and will you leave yourself in someone else's economic hole? Focus on what you need to make as well as the value you can bring, because you can't get away with charging more than what clients perceive you to be worth.

The PITA Tax

On her blog, Heather Boerner has an amusing and useful piece on treating pain in the rear clients as a class that needs to be taxed as part of an interview with Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule. The idea is to add up all the time you spend, including the minutes you fret over dealing with the client, and multiply that by your hourly rate. This is actually a cute variation on understanding the profitability of a client. You have to calculate not only the time for which you actually get to invoice, but that part belonging to overhead and personal time. Much of this you would ordinarily write off as part of your operational expenses (for example, you don't get paid for crafting pitches to clients). But if the time is significant, it may heavily cut down the profitability, because you're actually putting in more time than you can bill for.

I'd take my target hourly rate (How many zeros can I add?), not my bottom line "must make" number, and multiple it by all the time spent on the average for the client. Then take that total amount of money and divide by the number of billable hours. Whether you express this as an hourly figure to them or merely up your project fees doesn't matter. However, do be prepared to find a replacement client, because if the size of the new number doesn't kill him or her, there's a good chance the person will walk away. Ah, how sad.

CJR Column on Blogging

It's interesting to see how blogging has become part of the professional journalistic landscape. The Columbia Journalism Review has a piece this month on the economics of blogging. Anticipating that blogging could end up with its own guild like the WGA is probably unrealistic. After all, author Chris Mooney describes a group of freelance writers, and that means no "real" union. (Here's an earlier post where I describe how the WGA writers differ.)

Where he's right, though, is in understanding that publishers, whether print or online, cannot assume that they can reach significant audiences and reap the advertising economic benefits while continuing to assume that writers shouldn't be paid. Unfortunately, too many writers - not just the casual ones, but the professionals - have gone along with this nonsense, buying the arguments that the publishers "aren't making any money on this - it's the web, after all." Do you realize that traditional print magazine business models assume that publications run in the red for three years? Does that mean the writers, designers, and printers are all supposed to work for free? No, it's called an investment in the business by the publishers.

That's what web sites and blogs are: investments. Until writers start thinking like business people and stop thinking that they have to be grateful that someone allows them to provide value, they will continue to undercut themselves and all other writers.

Free Media: Who Pays?

In keeping with getting paid for reuse, let's have a look at an article on MediaPost, via a note from the BoSacks Reporter. This is a must-read for creatives of all disciplines, I think, because it quotes a simple and brilliant summation of the issue of media and their cost. In this formulation by Shelly Palmer, there are only three models for paying for media (with an obvious fourth):

• I pay - in which the creator absorbs the costs of producing and distributing the material


• You pay - in which the reader pays with a subscription or some other type of purchase


• They pay - in which a third party that typically wants to associate itself with the content pays


• Somebody pays - a combination of two or three of the above

The reason this is such an important formulation is that it clears your thinking of all the details - Google ads, per copy pricing, selling through Amazon, and so on - that keep you from understanding the fundamental problem. And when you look at the fundamentals, suddenly some innovations aren't so that different from what we've seen in the past:

Palmer scoffs at the notion that Radiohead's "pay-what-you-want" album sales model is at all a breakthrough. While a third of consumers who downloaded the band's latest album paid something for it, the real point of the model was to get the band's music heard to generate residual sales in the form of concerts and merchandising.

"It's really the Jerry Garcia model," says Palmer, referring to the late lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, who encouraged deadheads to record the band's live performances and distribute and share the recording for free, because it would generate a broader marketplace for the band's music and concert tours.

When you blog or give away material, you are either underwriting everything to promote yourself or, more likely, you hope to eventually sell something to the people who come by. Again, it's that give it away and make up the promotional activity in another area model.

This reminds me of a conversation I recently had with one of my book editors. She mentioned another writer she had used - polished, capable, understanding material, but unwilling to promote. Therefore, the books didn't do that well and when he wanted another assignment, she said, "You really need to be willing to help promote, otherwise I can't give you anything."

What she said goes right back to the three models. Each part of the publishing industry has the same issue: someone has to pay. The book publisher currently depends on the audience bearing all the costs, and the greater a response, the more readily it can undertake a new book idea. The writer gets paid by the publisher, but might have to do some self-supporting work to help bring the audience to the venture that eventually pays. If there are ads, people must pay enough attention to the ads to make the third party advertisers feel as though they are getting enough for their money. Instead of sweating all the details, take some time to get to the fundamentals and answer these questions:

• What do you offer?


• Who pays for your work?


• What must you do to ensure they get what they need?


• Are tehre classic examples of business models that might work for you?

Danger of Hourly Rates

I'm a big fan of smartly using hourly rates. You must know how much you need to make per hour, and viewing assignments in the light of your hourly minimums can be a good analysis of whether they are economically worth your time.

However, when it comes to financial business planning, looking only at hourly income can be limiting. Many writers grossly under estimate and misattribute the time they spend on assignments. You can't count just the writing. Time includes all the research. Maybe you did some interviews before and you think you can easily spin off another version of a story. The hourly rate on the new version may only seem good because you're pretending that there wasn't time and, so, cost associated with it. Those interviews took time to land, set up, and conduct. To not count that time is to literally subsidize the cost of producing the assignment out of your own pocket.

Another problem with looking only at hourly rates is that you forget that you're interested in making a certain amount of money each month. (You have done your basic financial planning, haven't you?) But if each of the assignments is relatively small, you'll need more volume to reach the income you need. For example, you might argue that 25 cent a word assignments are acceptable because you can do them quickly, making the hourly amount attractive. Yet, if you have to write 6K words at $1 per word to meet your monthly goal, you'd have to churn out 24K words at 25 cents a word - and that's a significant amount of work to nail down and complete in 30 days.

I've found that to do a good job of a given type of article at a certain length takes about the same amount of time, no matter what the pay level is. You could cut corners, but that affects the quality of what you do, which, in turn, affects the chance of your getting into better paying markets, because now your clips won't support what those markets want. Overall, the most efficient way to make more money is to get paid more per assignment, not to add on more assignments.

Selling Articles and Photos

I'm actually writing this at the request of someone on Freelance Success, who had a question about selling photography and writing together to a magazine. The writer/photographer wanted an opinion on the wisdom of selling the two as a package and how to price photos when also writing the story. For example, should you round up the price of the story by 25 cents or 50 cents a word? The person also provides six month rights to photos and then resells them on a web site.

Let's break things down into two areas: payment and rights. Obviously, you want to maximize the pay you get. Remember that the photo department and its budget are usually separate from editorial. It always makes sense, then, to ask the photo department what it would normally pay for images.

Sometime publications will pay a daily rate plus expenses. Some pay by the image. Some have a flat fee in mind for a certain number of images. Generally, the amount is going to be significant in comparison to the writing. I've personally had assignments where the photos paid about as much as the writing did. In the worst case that I can remember, it was still about a third of the fee. There are cases where the photography could run more than the writing.

Only after you've understood the publisher's photo pricing can you know if a bundled price give you more money or less. The publication wants to minimize the total, because then it saves money is is more profitable. You can also reasonably guess that the publication is unlikely to pay you more in total than it might otherwise. Unless you have a sense of how the photo department pays, you won't know if you're maximizing your income. I wouldn't give a break in pricing for getting both parts of the business. By having only one person go to an event, the publisher is already saving on expenses. You want that to be the source of cost reduction.

When you bundle two services together in pricing without explicit acknowledgement of each contribution, you effectively devalue both. If the publication decides to use some extra photos, well, it's already paid for them in the word rate and doesn't need to pay the addition that it might. You've eliminated an argument for getting a future rate increase because the editor thinks that should include something additional - more photography. But for all you know, some writers might already get a higher per word fee than you.

Now lets discuss the rights portion. When you bundle things together, you also start lumping together rights. But photographers generally give less generous rights packages. Why should you be unable to sell the photos for six months? Because you think the publisher should have that long with the story? The idea of exclusive use for a period of time is usually to keep something away from competitors. But if you treat photography separately from writing, you can possibly get more nuance in negotiations. For example, if you sell directly from a web site to people who might like an image, that shouldn't be competitive, and so, shouldn't be part of an exclusive run. (I'd actually think six months was too long even for writing. Try three, or even two.)

In summary, by bundling, you impair your ability to get better terms on rights, and you potentially devalue your work. I think separate pricing and rights negotiations are usually the better choice to sell both writing and photography.

As for publishers who expect writers to provide photos for a single fee, consider what you're actually doing. Say that the photography would typically run half of the writing fee (and, again, that's not wildly optimistic). So you're selling 1.5X, where X is the writing fee. Now divide the package price the publisher offers by 1.5. If the amount is, say, $1,200, then your writing is actually bringing only $800. If someone offers $600, then the writing is only bringing $400. Ask yourself if the amount you get seems reasonable for the writing alone. If not, then pass on the project.

Breaking the pay ceiling mentality

One of the big questions that writers ask other writers is "How much does market X charge?" The other is, "How much should I charge to do Y?" Notice a trend? So there's no wonder at conversations on how much money you can get. But recently I followed a discussion in which some writers were lamenting the payment "ceiling" at publications.



There may be averages, but if you're going to be smart about this business, you don't start thinking in terms of ceailings. Language constrains thought, and when you use the term ceiling, you set the subconscious assumption that you can't do better. It's a terrible way to go into negotiations because you're undercutting yourself, and you don't even realize it.



To get away from the ceiling mentality requires a more effective approach to sales and negotiations. Here are some of the techniques:

• Show value. Writers often fall into the fallacy that the business is completely supply and demand - that another writer will do fine, so paying more isn't necessary for a publication or corporation. Ban that thought from your mind! You don't sell time or standard billing. Sell value. Work on your skills and knowledge and simply offer more than most other writers could deliver. I recently picked up a corporate assignment where I was one of four writers under consideration and my estimate was fairly ... robust. But my writing sample was strong because I not only got what they said they wanted, but I understood what they needed that they didn't mention. Hence, I got a significant fee, because I sold on value.

Price by the project. Every time you price yourself by the hour or word, you literally have put a ceiling on what you can charge. That's why so many savvy writers charge by the project. There is some danger, because if you do a poor job of estimating the necessary time and effort, you can be working for hamburger-flipping wages. But if you are careful, you can get a more reasonable fee based on what you figuratively deliver, not literally. And many clients, particularly on the corporate front, like flat pricing. There is no surprise for them to explain, and no time sheets to review. Life is easier for them and an assumption among their bosses that this is a smart way to control costs. Yup - only you're the one controlling the costs, and generally in your favor.

Write longer. On the magazine front, depending on the type of publication, you might well end up writing more than the assignment calls for. If the topic lends itself to a longer treatment, then push for some extra words. The editor may not be able to raise the word limit, but might OK the additional length, which means additional money.

Don't assume that your budget is their budget. When you assume that there is a ceiling, you don't ask for more, but the assumption may be flawed, particularly if you've worked for the publication for a while and have proven your value (speaking of an earlier point). Try asking for additional pay and see what happens? The chances are virutally zero that the client will take such offense that you can never get work there again. Realistically, the worse you'll hear is the word no. But you might hear yes. And if you wait for the client to decide to offer you more money, it might be a long time. After all, if you're not complaining, why should they offer?

Low-Balling Pricing is Bad Business

There are a lot of writers who take low-paying work. If you're one of them, know that it's killing you and your business - for no good reason. Here are some of the results of this business strategy:

• You get caught in a trap. When you take low-paying business, it means you need to do more work to make what you need. That leaves you with even less time to do marketing and to pull yourself out of the hole.


• It's the marketing of need. People who are willing to work for little send off vibes of being needy, because the client generally knows that what it's offering is less than the market might generally demand. If you're willing to take it, that must mean you are ripe for the picking.


• You drive down the average. The more writers go for low pay, the more they help drive down average rates, and so actually create a condition for lower pay for everyone.


• You miss the power of value. People and businesses buy things because they perceive that they want or need them. They want value for what they pay. When you charge low amounts, you say through the action that you don't offer much in the way of value. If you're talking to an entity that has a real need, there's a good chance that you'll lose the business to people who charge more, because they communicate that there's something of value to be had.


• You feed low self-esteem. When you work for too little, you feel like crap. By taking more work at too low a rate, you only feel worse. That turns into self-pity (keep a look for it as it hovers near), which likes even more such experience. I once heard self-pity described as sitting in a tub of warm piss. Keep that in mind next time you're feeling sorry for yourself.

Getting out of this rut is easy - charge for the value you can deliver. If you can't deliver enough value, learn how to. I recently got a large chunk of corporate work that will pay very nicely over a month, without even being full time. I know there were three other people in the running, and I doubt I was the low-bidder. When they wanted a sample to compare to the other writers, I said sure - at my regular rates. And they agreed.

If you have respect for yourself, your abilities, and the value you can bring to someone, then you charge a reasonable amount. When you have true respect for yourself (not defensive attitude), then others start to as well. Remember the saying that the way to get respect is to earn it? This is the big first step.

One Time to Ask for More than Enough

I'm a firm believer in understanding your own bottom line pricing based on your business needs and on value pricing - charging for the value you can deliver, and not the time you spend. But even then there can still be a gap between what you'd charge and what the client might be willing to pay on the upper end. I was reminded of this a couple of times this last week. Once was for a speaking engagement, when I quoted a significant sum, as I'd be out of the office for at least two days in traveling and through that it would be a discouragement. It wasn't and now I find myself getting a good chunk of cash for something where I could too easily have quoted something far lower and found myself resentful that I had gotten tied up for relatively little.

The other occasion was similar in a way. A corporate client asked if I'd be available for a project reworking a web site, but said that it would want to see a sample of how I'd do a page. I knew a bit more about the situation from other sources and understood that the company wanted more "editing" than writing, and so a lower hourly price. I thanked them for the opportunity and added that I wouldn't work for spec, but would be willing to discuss a price for a single page - probably on a flat rate for the whole thing. In ending the explanation, I asked a question about blending information with marketing that I figured would communicate my knowledge of how to bring the two together. Unexpectedly, I received a reply asking for the rate. I came up with something reasonably high, given the actual amount of work as well as the need for some expertise. Again, I was surprised - I was asked to do a fast turnaround on the sample for the pay I requested.

In the second case, again, had I not shot high enough, I would have been irritated because I wasn't getting value for the value I thought I could bring. Furthermore, going lower would have meant indicating that the entire project would be inexpensive. Not the type of corporate writing I'm really interested in doing.

There are many factors in pricing, and one has to be whether you are excited about a a project, both because of the material as well as the conditions. If not, it's generally the time to think outside your personal pricing box. Don't assume that your finanical view of the world is shared by your clients. There's always the very good chance that the client is willing to spend more than you'd ordinarlly think of asking, and there are times that you need to make that kind of money so that the project is worth your time.

The Dangers of Big Projects

At some point in your writing, you'll get involved with a project that seems great - a large sum of money (think five or six figures), work guaranteed for a period of time, and all looking right with the world. But the big-ticket job can, in its own way, be as dangerous as the assignments that pay too little:

• No client should be too important. You don't want any one client to provide too much of your income; losing it can become a devastating financial blow. That's what can happen with a big ticket project, particularly if it's out of scale with the rest of your work. If something like this does seem likely to happen, then consider pushing to expand the rest of your business to keep it in balance. After all, few clients offer such projects on a regular basis, and you don't want to become used to nice money only to see it dry up.


• Emphasize the client, not the project. Real success comes from relationships. A big project may seem a delight, but keep it in perspective. Big projects just don't happen as often as smaller ones and so are harder to find. Clients that provide significant revenue over smaller projects year after year are always worth more.


• Keep projects in their places. When you have the chance of a big project, there's always that temptation to do nothing else. But that has its price. If a five figure project keeps you from maintaining ties with important long-term, high-value clients or from ongoing marketing, it disrupts your work flow after it's over. And then, 30 to 60 days after it's over, you'll take a hit to your cash flow because you didn't keep your business pipeline filled. Always have projects and customers fit your business model. See if you can negotiate and schedule the work to be part-time over some number of months. In any case, always keep marketing so that when the project is done, you aren't done for.


• Clients cancel. Many contracts have termination clauses, which means there's always a possibility that the project will suddenly end. Even if there isn't a provision, if someone stops paying, you can go to court, but it can take a long time to get satisfaction. Manage your risk so it's at a level you can tolerate.

I'm not suggesting that writers shouldn't take large projects by any means. Just use some caution and common sense so that the offer that seems to be too good to be real doesn't turn out that way.

Value and Pricing

Pricing seems one of the most contentious business issues that writers face, if posts on every writing board I've ever seen are an indication. People want to know what others charge, what they should charge, how to bill it, when to bill it, and in what form the invoice should be.

Unfortunately, while the information someone gains could be useful, it often isn't. Pricing is an individual thing, not a regurgitation of all that the market will bear, because what it will bear for one it will deny another. A large company in the high tech industry is likely to pay significantly more for a press release than the mom-and-pop local business, largely because they will require a significant level of experience as well as relevant knowledge on the part of the writer. A corporate writer experienced in navigating the regulatory requirements of the SEC will command significantly more to write an annual report for a public company than one with less experience. That's because there is a difference in the value offered.

Price is the compromise between the value a writer can offer and the value the client perceives. You start with your own hourly price and then do research to try and find what equivalent work from writers with equivalent background and experience for similar types of clients might command. That tells you if there is additional you *could* charge because the client is likely to expect it. Then you layer on the specific value that you bring. For example, I've charged companies $150/hour and more at times to write marketing materials, but I had significant experience in the specific type of work and could bring a lot in specialized knowledge of the customers and products. I can think of a time that I literally got 20% more than another experienced writer because of a specific value edge.

But there is another part of the value equation - what value you receive. Value is more than the money you receive. I've recently embarked on a large project (not the speechwriting I previously mentioned) for less than I might ordinarily charge, but then I'm gaining a credit in a particular type of project that will let me win more bids in the future and charge more. Don't just look at what the market will bear when pricing a project. Consider the value you offer, the value you gain, the money you need to make for the time invested, and market realities. Then you can intelligently use the feedback you get from other writers.

Will Write for Experience

I just wrote a 2,200 word speech for less than I'd typically charge for a front-of-book magazine short, let alone a press release. That might seem crazy to many. Obviously I could have researched the market, determined how much such work "goes for," and then priced accordingly.

But I deliberately shunned the "smart" approach and charged a pittance. However, i did so for solid reasons. I knew the person and her likely available resources, so knew that charging more wouldn't work. She sent the payment ahead of delivery, so getting stiffed wouldn't be a problem. And, most importantly, I went through the value calculation.

Clients determine whether they are getting value for their money. Most work with budgets and have an idea of how much they're willing to pay for something, depending on the value to them. But the value has many components: specialized knowledge of the writer, ability to provide material in specific formats, time pressures, and so on.

Writers have to make a similar calculation. yes, money is important, but is there reference value to client, so getting work from others becomes easier because you have a marquee accomplishment? Do you learn a new skill or area that increases the value you can provide in the future to others? Are you getting a first chance to break into a new type of writing? Will you be paid faster than usual?

In my case, I was breaking into an area that I knew I could do, but where I had never done professional work. Saying, "Oh, I write plays and give public talks" doesn't necessarily translate into confidence that you will produce a decent speech. But now I can give a reference to a real client who needed to speak before a prestigious national legal conference.

That alone brings a lot of future value - potentially many times more than the money I didn't get, as speechwriting is usually a pretty well-paid type of work. Don't generally do cut-rate work, but consider it when the results are a solid investment in your business.