There are a whole lot of people writing for free these days. My question is why? Why would you give away your time? Yes, I believe there are plenty of situations that warrant donating your time to a cause. Open source software projects like WordPress are just one such example. Even contributing blog posts to a charitable website makes sense to me. Writing unique content for a profit-making venture and not being paid for it? Nonsense.
Getting noticed
Sure there are exceptions. You’re just starting a business or a blog and need to grow your audience. In such a case, you would seek out guest posts on large successful blogs in the niche you intend to serve. In this instance, the compensation is the eyeballs that will see your writing. Also, remember that in this example, you sought out the opportunity to post on their platform.
How about when you are an established writer or blogger and you are contacted and asked to submit content with no compensation? Are you kidding me? How about I approach you and ask for a free advertisement on your blog, website or in your newspaper? It doesn’t pass the smell test when you turn it around, does it?
Control your free content
I was not paid or even asked to write this post. My compensation is twofold. First, the satisfaction of completing another post to fulfill my goal of publishing five days a week every week. Second, the potential that someone who reads it will want to do business with me and then reach out to me. It may not today or even next week or next month, but sometime in the future they will see that working together makes sense.
I don’t produce this content for free. I choose to not do other productive sales and marketing activities when I write a post. The cost is an opportunity cost and I must weigh that against the potential future revenue this post and my entire body of work will generate.
You get to read what I choose to write for free. Please don’t ask me to write what you want to read for free. Instead, let’s work out an economic exchange that makes sense for both of us and doesn’t leave one of us feeling used and cheap.
I have to agree with you but just like you I find satisfaction in writing. Although on the other side things are so tight economically I need to look for sponsors and some income coming while I write.
You get it Raul. We can’t work for free.
In college, my journalism adviser told me to never work for free; even for internships. He said people who work for free are not respected as much. I remember him saying, “You don’t want to just fetch coffee, do you?” I can somewhat understand writers/bloggers who are just starting out taking on an unpaid writing gig to get some experience. But I hate seeing laid off reporters or other more experienced writers being asked to write for free. I like Jim’s point in this blog that a newspaper or magazine wouldn’t let you advertise for free if the shoe was on the other foot. That’s exactly right.
I fetch my own coffee 🙂 Your professor made a great point. I may add “who’s fetching the coffee in this relationship?” to my questions when negotiating. Of course, the correct answer is neither party.
Agree with this post 100% Jim. I spent most of last year giving it away for free and now I’m much more careful about which projects gets my “free” time. The first person who should value my time is ME and if I don’t think enough of myself and my talents to how can I expect anyone else to. I heard a great saying a couple of weeks ago and I will be using it everytime someone asks for a freebie – “Is there a true trade of assets in this transaction?”
Great question to keep in mind Sue. Thanks for sharing that one – “Is there a true trade of assets in this transaction?”
Makes me think of things I do in the field of speech pathology. Done most of it for free in the area of stuttering. Maybe I should start thinking this way. When to do it for free-when to do it because it will help others. I am employed by someone else-so this is in my spare time. Others do both-free and for pay. ??? Lots of questions for me to think about.
“Spare time” is a valuable asset all of us have and many forget to consider the value of. For me time is more valuable than any other asset I possess.
Good for you. I think it’s very important to be clear about what you will and won’t do. I’ve put up a clear policy about just that, including product reviews, on my about page and it goes a long way to reducing those requests.
At the same time I do make it clear that people/companies can hire me. Chris Brogan got a lot of flack when he became successful and started charging high fees (totally justifiable high fees). I think the heat is largely because people weren’t thinking of what he did as a business.
There will always be people that ask you to do work for free, but many of them simply don’t think of what you do as a business. I’m in the same boat, but I am direct and clear and it’s rare that there are any hard feelings.
Direct and clear is always good Randy. Great reminder. I think many of us pussyfoot around the what is costs to work with us question. Just throw it out there and if they don’t like it – move along.