Hiring a writer

If anyone who reads that has ever hired a writer or has thought about, I would like to know how you determine what to offer in payment. Is it based on your budget? Have you researched the market to discover what a writer might charge?

I was looking for freelance work, something I do frequently, and I found a notice for a writer. The pay was a penny and a half per word. I wondered then, as I do many times when I read job postings, how that fee was set.

If you're a professional writer, how do you set your fees? Do you charge based on time spent, or per word published or some other way?

Self publishing

I interviewed an author a few weeks ago at a book signing. As a reporter (my day job), I cover a lot of events and had previously met this author when she released a new book.

At her book signing, we spent some time talking about another part of her business -- publishing books for others. She's not a traditional publisher. She takes whatever someone pays her to publish and publishes it.

I asked her a lot of questions and she talked about what she does for people who use her to publish their work. Looking from a certain standpoint, she made a lot of sense. For example, she pointed out what a slim slice of the pie actually goes to the author from a traditional publishing house. She also mentioned that publishing companies don't send their authors on book tours the way they used to do.

So I thought I'd ask and see if anyone out there self publishes or is thinking about doing so and what kind of experiences have you had?

If anyone has thought about it, what's your opinion?

Pay writers what we're worth

Recently, I was made aware of yet another website advising against paying a professional wage to writers. Look here.

This is my response, if the webster posts it.

In defense of paying a professional wage for professional services, let me first say I have, among other qualifications, five years experience as a technical editor for a major, international company who successfully competes in a global market against companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman.
In this capacity, I edited documents written by experts in their field. I’ve had numerous discussions with those experts about what they’ve written. Almost without fail, they had written something that, had I edited the grammar errors, etc., without discussing the edit with those experts, I would have edited the document to contain inaccurate information. Why? Because, as you’ve pointed out, they are not writers. They write, in my experience, the way they talk. That writing, when read as it means not as the “writer” meant, is not understood as it was intended to be. Numerous times, my experts would respond with, “That’s not what I meant.” And when I asked them to read it as someone else might, they suddenly understood how what they wrote could be misinterpreted.
That is one difference between what a professional writer brings to the table vs. experts and typists. How worse do you think your foreign experts who don’t really understand English very well would do? Another difference, and this is the one that should make you sit up and take notice, professional writers have ethics and behave in a professional manner, which means you run very little risk of being sued for copyright infringement, plagiarism, invasion of privacy and/or libel. Professional writers may not be experts in the particular subject that is the topic of their copy, but they know how to research and vet their sources.
I’ve come across a forum where web designers discuss copying information from other websites and using it for their own purposes. And if the original writer happens to come across those sites, the writer won’t sue, they advise, because it would be too expensive. Don’t bet on it. I would and every writer I know would sue.
What if your information is incorrect? What if it’s been “edited” into being incorrect? What if you get sued? Where is your $2 writer then? What about the comma placement that cost a major company $2.13 million? Google “Rogers Communications Inc.” and “Aliant Inc.” and see what you get. And you think all you have to worry about is a spelling error. Wait until you get sued and lose your business, your house and any other property you may have.
Do you truly understand your liability as the “disseminator” of what you publish?

What do y'all think? And thanks to Lori for sharing.

Working on a novel

I have been working on a novel for sometime. It's progressing slowly. My main goal right now is to work on it every day.

I've written the beginning and have made lots of notes about how I want it to progress. I even visualize the characters moving through the story as though I'm watching it happen on TV. I'm kind of excited even though it isn't going as quickly as I'd like it to go.

It seems that, for me, I'm always writing something. I think that's the way it should be. I have planned to have this finished by the end of the year. That would be great.

But as I am reminded all the time and as I have heard other writers say, it ain't easy. Maybe that's one reason it can be so worth doing.

How many people who read this particular blog are also working on a novel, several plays and other exciting projects?

What is everybody else working on? How is it going?

Hey, Arby's!

First, let me say I really like eating at Arby's. I really enjoy those potato triangles. I think they're called potato cakes. I like curly fries. I like anything with Horsey sauce on it, too.

But this current promotion the company has on TV? Maybe it's a little thing but it should be $5.95 every day, not everyday. Sometimes, it's appropriate to use the term as one word, as in everyday turn of events, or an everyday meal or something like that. But when someone says or writes every day to mean every single day, then it's appropriate to use two words. Every day is more like every night, not everything.

I don't know why this bothers me so much. It seems to me to be a very common mistake. Maybe that's the problem. Is this a reflection on our education system or does it reflect more on the lackadaisical way we look at our language?

I think it's both. Sometimes I feel as if I'm swimming upstream with a banner saying, "Grammar matters. Vocabulary counts."

Is anyone paying attention or am I sinking?

The difference a word makes

I find myself wondering when I see an advertisement on TV, or print media or hear it on the radio what people are thinking.

I know marketing companies who produce some of these ads make a lot of money but what really are they thinking?

Why don't they know the difference between every day and everyday? Or the difference between due and because of? Or imply and infer? Or even between between and among?

Or do they just not care? I was driving down the road one day and saw a homemade sign at a house. The sign read, "Pot Plants for Sale." Surely, the writer meant potted plants, don't you think? And why is that people don't seem to know the plural of their family name? How many times have you seen a family name proudly displayed on a mailbox or the front door with the singular possessive version? As in, The Smith's. What? Don't you think what is really meant is The Smiths? Or even, possibly, The Smiths'? Surely there is not just one Smith living there. Even if there is, would he or she be known as The Smith?

In my ancestral country of Scotland, the head of my family's clan is known as The MacLeod. But that's there. And besides, there's only one of him. He is The MacLeod. But in the United States, we don't recognize people that way.

I heard a radio spot advertising a company that helps people increase their vocabulary. The spot contained a grammatical error. To me, it was a glaring error. If I had heard the spot only once, I might have let it go.

Unfortunately for me, I heard that spot every day for several weeks and it simply got on my last nerve. So I searched the Internet, found the company and sent them an email.

The owner of the company emailed back, we corresponded maybe twice and his final response was, "Our editor was concerned but our marketing people love it." The result was that they were going to keep the spot the way it was.

I thought, I even explained this in my email, that because of that obvious error, created to make something rhyme or to create a catchy phrase, the company totally lost credibility with me. I wouldn't use their services and I wouldn't hire anyone who did. The president was not impressed.

So what do you think? Is it silly to care? Am I the only who does? Or we going to reach a point where English doesn't even exist as a language anymore because everyone who speaks it does so in a dramatically different way?

Is it just me?

Always in marketing mode

To any and all writers who may read this -- are you always in marketing mode? In other words, is everyone you meet a prospective client? Do you have business cards and an elevator speech?

An elevator speech is what you have to say about your business that can be said in those sometimes uncomfortable moments in an elevator. "Hi. I'm so-and-so. This is what I do. Here's my card. What do you do?"

I admire people who do that and do it well. I think we've all met someone who's obsessive about marketing and whom people hate to see coming. But there are those few who seem to always be in the marketing mode but aren't obnoxious.

I think it's because they have a sincere interest in what the other person does and make sure to include an expression of that interest.

What do y'all think? What works for you?