Question: never writing for free? I wish she had said more about this, especially in relation to starting out, building an audience, a portfolio. Can anyone else speak to it?
Hope has written over the years about the subject of writing for free, and from what I gather, sees it as dragging down not only your personal value but that of writing work in general. (Sorry, I can't find a good article on this atm, but I've been following her work for a decade!)
When I teach new writers, I always say you shouldn't have to write for free *for long*. A blog post or two is enough to have clips to get your next paid assignment. And you don't have to necessarily write for someone else for free to get those; you could publish to your own blog, so you have clips that are also pieces that build your own authority and audience. Writers should never be expected to create free content for businesses that are making money off of that content ('hem HuffPost). You rarely get a benefit from that (like credibility or audience-building), even when it's a big site, because readers don't tend to pay attention to those bylines.
There's a big difference in writing to make money from assignments and writing as content marketing to build an audience for something else you're doing. So if your goal is to build an audience to sell books, courses, coaching, etc., it could make sense to write for free on strategic platforms that'll draw an audience to your business. (Even better if those platforms pay, though!) But if your goal is to make money from freelance writing, writing for clients for free doesn't serve you well. I think a lot of online publications take advantage of writers conflating these goals and let us create free content they can profit off of that doesn't provide us anything in return.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I'm new to this and am finding my way. I understand your points, definitely, I appreciate the information. I also appreciated your video offering on freelancing.
Question: never writing for free? I wish she had said more about this, especially in relation to starting out, building an audience, a portfolio. Can anyone else speak to it?
Hope has written over the years about the subject of writing for free, and from what I gather, sees it as dragging down not only your personal value but that of writing work in general. (Sorry, I can't find a good article on this atm, but I've been following her work for a decade!)
When I teach new writers, I always say you shouldn't have to write for free *for long*. A blog post or two is enough to have clips to get your next paid assignment. And you don't have to necessarily write for someone else for free to get those; you could publish to your own blog, so you have clips that are also pieces that build your own authority and audience. Writers should never be expected to create free content for businesses that are making money off of that content ('hem HuffPost). You rarely get a benefit from that (like credibility or audience-building), even when it's a big site, because readers don't tend to pay attention to those bylines.
There's a big difference in writing to make money from assignments and writing as content marketing to build an audience for something else you're doing. So if your goal is to build an audience to sell books, courses, coaching, etc., it could make sense to write for free on strategic platforms that'll draw an audience to your business. (Even better if those platforms pay, though!) But if your goal is to make money from freelance writing, writing for clients for free doesn't serve you well. I think a lot of online publications take advantage of writers conflating these goals and let us create free content they can profit off of that doesn't provide us anything in return.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I'm new to this and am finding my way. I understand your points, definitely, I appreciate the information. I also appreciated your video offering on freelancing.
Of course :) And thank you!