A national glossy offers to pay you 25 cents a word for your article. A major daily newspaper demands Web rights in perpetuity along with the usual first North American serial rights. Your book contract includes an indemnification clause should any lawsuits result from your work. Sounds dubious. But you're a freelance writer, and you need work, right? Guess what--"good, reliable writers are hard to find." Empower yourself with a copy of the National Writers Union's Freelance Writers' Guide. You'll soon be demanding--and commanding--higher fees, better royalty rates, and more control over your work. For each field (books, journalism, electronic publishing, technical writing, corporate writing, instructional writing, writing for performance, the literary market, and academic writing), the book includes information on how business is generally conducted, how the union would like to see it conducted, and the likely attainable compromise. Articles by veteran freelancers and other professionals report from the frontlines. (We defy any over-30 freelance journalist not to be lured by Keith Watson's compelling argument in favor of corporate writing: "A steadily employed freelance writer [makes] five times what a freelance journalist earn[s] in a year," Watson finds. "And freelance business writers [are] treated with much greater respect.")
Throughout the book, a strong case is made for membership in the National Writers Union. Members' benefits included a magazine pay-rates database (with numbers submitted by writers, not editors), contract advising, grievance resolution, a group health-insurance plan, and a "media perils" insurance policy (for those indemnification clauses that just won't go away). --Jane Steinberg
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
Probably not the first freelancing book you should read...:
I finally finished up the last freelance writing book I had checked out from the library. This one is the Freelance Writers' Guide put out by the National Writers Union. And all I can really say is "eh"...
It's a series of chapters written by different authors on various issues related to the publishing industry. Because the NWU is a group advocating the rights of writers, the tone and direction is more militant and confrontational than most of the other books I've read. There is plenty of "we believe... more info
A Primer for Neophyte Freelance Writers:
The problem I have always had with freelancing was placing a fair value on my work. In the more than 12 years I have been doing this I have found the organizations that employ freelance writers are diverse and the work they contract varies.
It seems impossible to develop standards for the broad range of opportunities, that I as freelance writer find myself confronting.
This volume attempts to fill that void. It attempts to give the creator benchmarks by which to judge the market marketplace. It... more info
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