Demand Studios Responds

Yesterday, I posted a criticism of pay rates at Demand Studios, calling them "nothing more than intellectual sweat shop piece work." I received a comment from Jeremy Reed, senior vice president for content at Demand. Because I didn't want this to be buried, and also wanted to directly address his points, I decided to treat it in a separate post. Here is the entirety of his response; my points will follow:

I want you to consider this argument.

I freelanced for too many years in my twenties. As a writer just out of college and with no (or few) clips, I hustled to get as much writing experience as possible and as many bylines on different topics in multiple publications. I did not make a lot of money, but it did lead to a good career in publishing.

Looking back, I came across a number of parasites and just generally bad people along the way in the freelance world. There were many publications that paid nothing. There were many publications who checks arrived months late or never. There were many publications I pitched tirelessly for years w/o ever having any article see the light of day. There were many publications with untrained or tired copy editors who butchered my content and sometimes even added wrong facts - but kept my name on the article. Those are just some of the bad experiences - there are plenty more.

We can argue whether or not we are paying a fair wage at Demand. It is a valid point. But, consider all the other time sucks and hurdles Demand cuts down or removes: 1) You don't have to pitch, if you remain qualified you can grab work at any time, any hour; 2) you get constructive feedback on every article you write. We invest in making the writer better because it also makes good business sense; 3) we pay every single Friday for all work done through the Wednesday of that week -- yes, that means you can get paid as early as two days after turning in work; 4) we've offered the chance to get your original work - video and text - published on LIVESTRONG.com, Trails.com, GolfLink.com, and eHow.com -- both also third parties like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and 5) we are smart about how we've built this so you can expect more work (and have) as opposed to less work from week to week.

I do agree it is not for every writer or even for certain ones at different points in their careers. But, it does fill a need for a writer who wants a steady paycheck, who wants to get better at their craft, and who wants unlimited amounts of work at any hour of the day.

Thanks for considering my thoughts. I only took the time to write because I respect the points you made.

Best,
Jeremy Reed
SVP, Content at Demand Studios

Now I'll address the various points in his post:

I freelanced for too many years in my twenties. As a writer just out of college and with no (or few) clips, I hustled to get as much writing experience as possible and as many bylines on different topics in multiple publications. I did not make a lot of money, but it did lead to a good career in publishing.

Certainly when you have no experience, you need to get some, and I understand that you see yourself as having a background in freelancing. But to assume that a new freelancer cannot make money is an invalid assumption. Yes, you need a few clips to get started, but as those in the business know, you can almost immediately start moving up the value chain, to use some business-speak. Each piece you do goes to leveraging your knowledge, talent, skill, and craft into better markets. To that end, low-paying and low-prestige markets have to go to the wayside quickly. These are the simple mathematics of the business.

Looking back, I came across a number of parasites and just generally bad people along the way in the freelance world. There were many publications that paid nothing. There were many publications who checks arrived months late or never. There were many publications I pitched tirelessly for years w/o ever having any article see the light of day. There were many publications with untrained or tired copy editors who butchered my content and sometimes even added wrong facts - but kept my name on the article. Those are just some of the bad experiences - there are plenty more.

Yes, there are many bad, incompetent, insensitive, and untalented people in the business. One of the best ways out of such experiences is to generally move up the value chain as quickly as possible. The more people are paying you, the more they value you and, paradoxically, the better they tend to feel like they need to treat you. Markets that require more capable reporting and writing cannot afford to develop a bad name, or they risk alienating the writers they need to create the content that will attract the proper reader demographic and advertising that follows.

We can argue whether or not we are paying a fair wage at Demand. It is a valid point. But, consider all the other time sucks and hurdles Demand cuts down or removes: 1) You don't have to pitch, if you remain qualified you can grab work at any time, any hour; 2) you get constructive feedback on every article you write. We invest in making the writer better because it also makes good business sense; 3) we pay every single Friday for all work done through the Wednesday of that week -- yes, that means you can get paid as early as two days after turning in work; 4) we've offered the chance to get your original work - video and text - published on LIVESTRONG.com, Trails.com, GolfLink.com, and eHow.com -- both also third parties like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and 5) we are smart about how we've built this so you can expect more work (and have) as opposed to less work from week to week.

I am glad that you acknowledge the criticism of low pay. However, your arguments as to the benefits of Demand Studios are actually incorrect, for the following reasons:

• When you are paid little, you must do much more work to try to keep afloat. This keeps you from putting proper attention into marketing that can help you move up the value chain. So, effectively, you become an indentured servant or a worker who must live in company housing and shop at the company store, because you don't make enough to walk away.
• Pitching ideas is one of the key ways to establish additional value to publications. Yes, it's nice if someone hands you a story topic, but it's far better to create your own and develop your own market. That way you are less dependent on the kindness of strange editing. Or something like that.
• The best feedback generally comes from the best publications. Given the rates you pay to copy editors, you aren't paying enough to get the amount of attention required for really solid insight into copy. And given the volume of articles in which you traffic, your in house people cannot have the time, either, to provide really useful feedback on any kind of a consistent basis. Either your entire operation is based on massive volume, or you're marking up the work of writers to an unconscionable degree. Given the markets on which you seem to focus, I strongly suspect the former. And so the entire operation is trapped by the need to churn out copy. In effect, it also lives in company housing and shops at the company store. There are no resources to improve things.
• You say you invest in making the writer better, but that is also contradictory, because you only survive through writers getting starvation wages - and given the rates I've been hearing, and you seem to acknowledge them - I'm not indulging in hyperbole. You can't afford for the writers to improve to the extent that they can make a living elsewhere.
• Quick payment is nice, but given that you lose maybe 2.5 percent value for each month delay, even a three month wait, which would be 7.5 percent, still leaves you far ahead if the assignment is paying at least 10 times more than Demand Studios will pay. That would still leave the writer making 9.25 times as much, including the time value lost.
• When you talk about the chance to have work on a number of sites that apparently are your own as well as third party sites, that's a variation on the "do it for the exposure" argument. As I've demonstrated in the past, working for exposure is foolish. You need exposure to the right markets (that is, editors who might pay), and that comes in the greatest degree from the highest prestige publications in your given niche. Exposure value is roughly directly proportional to pay, and the better paying markets don't have to mention the exposure value because it is an added benefit.
• Of course you are smart in how you've done this, because you're getting copy at dirt cheap rates and presumably selling it at a good mark-up. But smart for you isn't smart for writers.
• To say that this fills a need for writers who want a steady paycheck is disingenuous. It's not a steady paycheck, which would mean guaranteed work, like a job. It's a steady flow of absurdly priced work that leaves you stuck where you are. In business and marketing classes I've taught to writers, I've seen people get stuck in this way at even 25 cents a word, and that would be a huge step up from your rates.
• Unlimited work doesn't exist, because people have limited time. Better to do one piece well than to rush through and do crap jobs on ten pieces for the same amount. You have more time to think, to market, to live. And, to avoid the anticipated argument, getting $300 for a single article is still chicken feed.

I do appreciate Mr. Reed for having written, but I simply could not allow it up as an unchallenged comment. Such arguments need to be clearly deconstructed so writers can see what it is they are being asked to do.

Why Low Pay Is Bad Pay, No Matter What the Hourly Rate

I recently saw another discussion on a writers' board about pay rates and whether it matters for periodical writers how low the amount per word is so long as you can do the work fast enough. That argument may be fine for the occasional piece, but it doesn't hold up over the long run for a few reasons.

I've written about one of the reasons before, the overhead inherent to obtaining, scheduling, and managing assignments, comparing long assignments to shorts:

But say that you are accurately monitoring your time. Why not then do a lot of shorts to make your income? Because there's another consideration - the time for marketing, billing, and overhead. If you make $500 for a short, then four of them pay as much as one 2000 word article paying $1/word. The amount of writing time might even be comparable. However, figure that a 500 word piece really needs two to three sources to come across as sold. You're now booking 8 to 12 interviews, versus the 6 or 7 that might be all you need for the longer piece. That means more time interviewing and scheduling your time.

You're also going to spend about as much time writing a query for a short as you would for a longer piece, plus you have to generate the ideas and pitch editors. So your marketing and sales time has just quadrupled. If you make a lot of your income from shorts, then you're probably spending many more of your hours marketing, interviewing, managing your time, and billing (and collecting). Now you see the real drawback - not the hourly rate, but the time you must invest to do enough shorts to make a living.

Instead of shorts, substitute low-paying assignment and the point is even more applicable. Not only is there the overhead, but, presumably, you still have to do a credible job on what might be running 1,500, 2,000, or more words.

That leads me to my other major point, which, I'm sure, will tick off some people. To make money at a low rate, you generally have to cut corners. You don't undertake the extra interviews and research, put in the extra draft and polishing, nor do the other things that let you create better pieces. I know this because much of the language I hear from those who tout the high hourly figures of their low pay rates is how they "knock these assignments off."

If you're depending on speed to make a good hourly rate to make up a bad word rate, then you'll have to cut corners eventually. That's because the client doesn't value the higher level of work enough to pay for it, and you can't provide it without subsidizing that work out of your own earnings pocket. But if you do too much of this, then all of your clips are of those 1,000 word pieces with one or two sources, which are probably not going to get you the higher paying work because it's not just about how well you write, but how well and how thoroughly you research and report. On those occasions when I assign and edit, I wouldn't consider someone whose samples were filled with pieces like that, because I assume that the person isn't willing to make the effort to do something better. In the past, I've found that when someone has spent time wanting to quickly get articles done and get out the door, they start to lose the work ethic necessary to produce higher quality results.

For those who want to disagree, start by asking yourself how many sources you use for a normally reported piece (not a Q&A). The lower the number, the less you bring to an article, and no amount of clever writing can make that up. And those who stress that they make money with low-paying assignments should look at two figures: their annual income and the percentage that these low-paying assignments represent of their total assignments. All the writers I know who make reasonable amounts of money (enough to support you and your family if necessary) focus on higher paying work and not rationalizing why low pay is really not that bad.

The Tyranny of the Going Rate

When it comes to work or markets that are new to them, many writers cast about for the "going rate." This is the magical average number that is supposed to inform them on how to price their labor. Although I do agree that, when used wisely, market information is a great help. But wise use is difficult and often overlooked by writers. And then, going rates do more harm than good.

There are a few ways in which going rates can hurt the marketing and business planning of writers. The first is that without a number of qualifications, they are illusory because there is no single market. Here are some of the questions you would need to ask before knowing whether the money one writer received was applicable to your situation:

• What is the level of experience or specialized knowledge necessary to do an assignment?
• What are the expectations of the clients?
• What are the demands of the work?
• How large is the client and what will it demand in working processes?
• What is the industry?

In answering the questions, you cut the market down to a more specific segment. When you can accurately describe the work and the circumstances, a market rate may exist, but that's rarely what you get from other writers, who also may not be considering whether their experiences and circumstances match yours. In the end, you could have a situation in which you're effectively comparing a local lunch counter with the largest fast food chains as clients.

Focusing on a going rate can take writers out of the necessary consideration of their own personal rates. Do they have the experience to charge higher numbers that more seasoned colleagues might command? Have they even calculated their own bottom-line hourly figures to know the smallest amount they can accept while adequately funding their own businesses? If the going rate for a type of work is smaller, then it won't matter unless you're already making the money you need and you're taking the assignment for other reasons, like getting clips on a new-to-you topic.

Immediate attention to the going rate can also play havoc with your negotiation. In negotiation theory, you first look at what you need and want. By starting with prevailing rates, you assume that the rates are as universal as you think, allow others to set your business model, and put yourself at the mercy of a general atmosphere in which supply has so outstripped demand that the average pay is ridiculous. This can subconsciously bias your negotiation strategy, even when you're absolutely sure that you're a clever negotiator and that you wouldn't be adversely affected. Not only could you, in all likelihood, you will because it changes your emotional state.

One major reason that people ask about a going rate is that they don't want to leave money on the table. In a well-conducted negotiation, you look at what I call the value equation -- what you want, what the other person wants, what each of you can offer, and the value you each hold for what the other has. No seasoned businessperson is going to pay you more because others are getting more. That line of argument is no more useful today than it was when you said to your parents, "But everyone else gets to do it!" You can only get more by showing enough value that the client is motivated to pay to get it.

Finally, even if you do get answers from writers, it's generally two or three, and they may be repeating some numeric mantra that they have heard in the past. That does not make a representative sample, so you still don't know the going rate.

Can you use going rates? Absolutely, but only when you can precisely determine them, your negotiation practice is solid, and you are confident in your abilities to ultimately please a client. Ironically, at that point you have far less need of market rates because you know your own worth and are confident in asking for it.

Craigslist Scams and Other Cheap Ass Lowlifes

If you've ever looked at Craigslist posts for writers (and, to be fair, they're not all scams), you've probably seen calls for writers to send in sample content to show how well they write. Before even considering sending a sample (and I'm sure the experienced pros wouldn't get as far as consideration), check the following web post:

Heyya peeps, haven't been on in a long while since the hack attacks, but got into this AC thing. So far its shit cause they're real big bloody assholes about what kind of articles they want; kinda like a little kid who picks at his food.

Well I guessed they couldnt turn professionally written articles down so here's what I did short and simple. I went to craiglist put up a job listing in suburbs and shit like that (since the cities cost $25), it was for a writing position on how-to's and guides. I instructed them to send me a newly written sample 500 word article on a topic that I chose for each ad. I also asked for a resume to make it look more authentic.

Took about 4 days, but I got maybe 10 to 20 articles on good subjects that I submitted to AC and got paid a good $35 bucks total for the articles since they were very nicely written.

Yup, there are people who put up such notices just to get articles and then to resell them. The best way to avoid such crap is to ignore the postings.

But that's not the real problem, because this is so obviously a scam. The real problem is all the businesses and organizations and individuals that want every writer to take a flier with them because they think they have some God-given right to impose on anyone who seems even remotely literate.

Not long ago, the -- get this -- National Endowment for Financial Education, a freaking non-profit "that helps Americans from all walks of life gain the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve their financial well-being" was emailing writers to see if they were available to work, but wanted two articles rewritten so they could decide which approach they liked best and choose the writers they thought were a fit. Do free work for the possibility of maybe getting some work. Is this their idea of financial well-being, or even borderline intelligence?

Screw that. I'm absolutely sick of it. In the words of Goodfellas, "Fuck you, pay me." You're not sure that you'll like what I do? Fuck you, pay me. Not sure what you really need, but figure you'll know it when you see it? Fuck you, pay me. Want to be able to sample everything on a restaurant's menu and then decide afterward what you'll actually order? Fuck you, pay me.

Most of us try to be pleasant, polite, and profession. But there's no getting through to people whose skulls are as thick as the Earth's mantle. To such people, I say:

1. This isn't a pastime. I actually have to work for a living.
2. Do you get paid? If not, do you own a piece of the company? No? Jeez, you really are as stupid as you look, aren't you?
3. You want a guarantee? Pay extra money at Best Buy.
4. Do I look like a trust fund baby?
5. If you can't say it with a straight face to the electric company, don't try me. I have less money and understanding than they do.
6. Maybe you can live with yourself in asking people to do free work for your convenience, but not in my office or on my dime.
7. Have you ever read The No Asshole Rule?

When some moron who thinks you were born yesterday suggests this kind of bullshit, because there is no other word for it, say this:

Don't tell me about getting exposure to a bunch of deadbeat bums like you. Don't tell me that I can get enough money for hours of my work to buy a pack of gum. Don't tell me that you might pay me at some time in the future. Pay me for the work you're asking me to do or go fuck yourself, because I'm certainly not going to let you fuck me.

About.com Gets Hit With Staff, Freelancer Pay Cuts

About.com, part of The New York Times -- which isn't having a jolly financial time, as I've mentioned -- is cutting just under ten percent of its staff. That's quickly becoming an old story for media companies. However, apparently About is also cutting the pay for its guides, the people that create the content. Page view rates will supposedly drop by 7.5 percent and the monthly guarantee goes from $725 to $675. Given that the money didn't seem that great in the first place, I wouldn't be surprised to see another wave of "help wanted" postings by the site.

On Rate Cards

I recently took part in an online conversation about rate cards. A writer had a client asking for one and didn't know what to put on it. My suggestion was to avoid rate cards entirely. When clients ask for rate cards, what they really seek, whether they think of it this way or not, is control over what you do and how you charge.

An hourly rate could potentially vary depending on the nature of the project ... and the client. And how can you quote a project rate when you don't know anything about the project's details? Recently I was asked for a corporate rate and I mentioned a range within which I'd typically work, but I can't offer a single number Some projects rquire me to deliver more value - not time, but value. They may require specific expertise or information. Why should I offer that at the same rate a simple press release or front of book article might take?

If a client wants something that completely predictable without offering any details as to what the work entails, then perhaps finding another client would be the best thing.

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?