What Peter Bowerman Said
December 11th, 2006 by WellwrittenwordsSo many people have commented on Freelance Writers Manifesto. I’m going to post some of those comments as quotes over the next few days. Here’s what Peter Bowerman of The Well-Fed Writer had to say:
I. APPETIZER: NON-WELLFEDWRITING & THE FREE MARKET SYSTEM 101
Whos to Blame for Low WritersWages? NOT Clients!Got an email recently from Amman, Jordan-based FLCW Patricia Skinner, asking if I’d be willing to give an EPUB plug a new pet project called the Freelance Writers Manifesto. Its goal? To encourage writers to stop working for peanuts and get what theyre worth. Sure. My whole well-fedrap dovetails nicely into that sentiment.
Then I noticed this bit of copy on the page: Together we aim to create a blacklist of employers who are scamming writers into working for a pittance, and to help and support freelance writers so that they demand to be paid what theyre worth.
Uh-oh. That doesnt work. I wrote her back with my objections (below), she was most gracious, realized shed pushed it a bit too far, and the offending passage went bye-bye. Heres what I wrote. If the above passage seemed okay to you, perhaps this will help you understand the economic paradigm involved:
Patricia, this is wrong-headed thinking. Employers don’t scam anyone into working for a pittance. It would only be a scam if that employer promised X wage, and then when it came time to pay, paid them less than the agreed-upon amount. What we’re seeing is nothing more than the market system in action. That writer is agreeing to work for the low wage that that employer is offering. It’s a fair market transaction that both sides have entered into willingly and without coercion.
Setting up employers as the scammers makes the writers out to be victims, and they’re not. They’re full partners in the transaction. And you KNOW that, as evidenced by your calling THEM (the writers) to task for working for peanuts. And that “calling-to-task” is fine. But, it’s also their right to work for whatever wage they choose. You can certainly appeal to their more global concern for prevailing wages in the profession at large, but you can’t make anyone do anything.
I’m going to go a step further here, and absolutely stick up for that employer paying the low wages. He has every right to, and as a responsible businessman, arguably, the responsibility to find the most economical services he can find to get the job he needs done. He has ZERO responsibility to pay some arbitrary rate just to preserve the “financial integrity” of our profession. THAT responsibility falls solely on our shoulders.
It’s up to writers to put their feet down, and when enough do, then wages overall will rise. That should be your message. People should stop trying to get the low-payers to become high-payers, and simply do what they have to do to go out and FIND the high-payers (and they’re out there). How do we do that? In addition to simply stepping up our marketing efforts, how about we become more marketable by developing a specialty in a particular project niche or industry, which can elevate us to a smaller, more elite group of writers, who, by definition, command higher rates?
Questions? NOW I can give that plug. If this resonates with you (and Im guessing it would), check it out: http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/freelance-writers-manifesto.htm.
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