Want to Keep Good Writers Away? Say This.

Looking around Kathy Kehrli’s Irreverent Freelancer site (which I highly recommend), I came across a link to a press release from this joker. His press release gives advice for hiring writers on Elance, a bidding site where I sometimes pick up extra work. The advice he offers makes me laugh—because he tells people to say exactly the type of things in their bid descriptions that will drive the high-quality writers away.

It’s inspired me to give some advice of my own to people looking for experienced, qualified, fluent-English-speaking professional writers to craft their website content. So, anyone out there thinking of hiring a freelancer: If you want us to stay away from your job posting, here are a few things you should say.

This is an easy job for someone who knows what they’re doing. This is the first one I look for. It tells me the client either underestimates the job, or doesn’t respect the work that goes into it. It also tells me that if I get hired, investigate further, and find out the job is more work than the client’s letting on, he’ll tell me I don’t know what I’m doing—and possibly, since this is Elance, broadcast that on my feedback. It’s an indication of drama I don’t need.

Heck, you get a free education just listening to us. This is another thing the press release suggests clients say. It comes off as arrogant, for one thing. I've learned plenty of interesting things from client projects, but I'm working for a living, not a free education.

I also had a bad experience with a client once who wanted me to write a lot of very high-level content for a technical audience. He resisted paying me a wage that would cover the research time. His claim was that I was getting a “free education.”

Payment only upon completion. This tells me the client has unreasonable expectations or hasn't worked with freelancers before. 50% deposits are the norm in the freelancing world. Most pros are leery of working with those who don't do deposits, especially first-time clients.

Will be willing to pay up to $5 per article. This isn’t the type of wage that will attract a decent writer. This is a slave-labor-in-India wage. If you want to attract professionals, you have to be willing to pay professionals. An experienced and skilled freelance writer generally has plenty of well-paying clients. What incentive does she have to take on a project offering a third-world rate?

We can’t pay you, but you’ll get lots of exposure. I do sometimes write for free, if I think the exposure I get is worth the time. But in general if a business doesn’t have enough money to pay freelancers, chances are it can’t offer much in the way of exposure, either.

There are plenty of excellent writers out there who can do a lot for your business. But most pros tend to be at least a little selective. And these phrases are guaranteed to drive the good writers away. You may get third-world labor, moonlighters who don’t make a living at it, or even brand-new writers trying to break in and build a resume. But you won’t get high-quality expertise. To do that, you have to respect the writer as a businessperson and pay a reasonable fee.