Monthly Archives: November 2009

Editors like money too

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I realize there’s next to no money in writing erotica, as I run an erotica website myself and make no money off of this project, but this is simply ridiculous. Here’s a copy of an email I just sent to Ellora’s Cave Publishing’s Editor-in-Chief, Kelli Collins, upon reading this unbelievable “job posting,” and its insultingly low payment.

Dear Ms. Collins,

I recently saw your ad on JournalismJobs.com in search of copy and content editors, but I believe there must be a typo in your posting. Does your company really only pay $0.0075 cents per word (i.e. less than 1 cent per word) for content editing, and $0.00175 per word for copy editing? This seems unbelievable, as you say the typical project is a minimum of 10,000 words, which by my account works out to a pay scale of $75 per book edited, content-wise, or $17.50 per book for copy editing.

Are you aware that this payscale is far below industry standards? According to Writers.ca, the website of the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC), the average payment for editing is between $500 and $20,000 per project, or $30 to $60 per hour. These are figures that have not changed substantially over the past 30 years, and I would certainly hope that rates for professional editing would not have dropped so significantly!

Please let me know if these are, in fact, your rates for editing work, or if there has been some mistake, as I would certainly like to know why “the premier publisher of erotic romance novels” cannot, seemingly, offer their freelance editors a more competitive wage.

Sincerely,
Laura Roberts
–
Writer, editor, button tapper

http://buttontapper.com

If you’re going to pay people for their work, you should pay them at least the minimum by industry standards. If kids flipping burgers are guaranteed a minimum wage, then why shouldn’t writers and editors receive equally fair treatment? Ads like this make me mad, not just because it’s all about quantity over quality, but also because it shows just how little the person offering the job will respect the person who does the job. I don’t expect respect, but I do expect to be treated like a human being, rather than a wage slave. If I wanted that, I’d go take some office job pushing papers in a cubicle, à la Office Space.

What do you think?

When freelancing sucks

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“I hate my job, and I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore.“
“Are you going to quit?“
“Nah, I’m just not gonna go anymore“
—Office Space

I don’t know what to write anymore. For the most part, I’m frustrated with my current employers, who either give me terrible assignments, pay me less than I’m worth, or just straight up don’t respect the work that I do for them. (Except you, Quill & Quire; you are the only employer I actually like. Wanna go steady?)

On the one hand, I feel like I shouldn’t complain, because being freelance means that even when my assignments suck and I make shit money, at least I’m my own boss and get to set my own rules about when and where—and what—I will write. I like that part of my job a whole lot, and I’m not sure I could ever deal with doing a “real” job again.

But on the other hand, yes, goddamn it, I am dissatisfied! I hate making shit money, I hate getting all the worst assignments, and I hate feeling like I am just wasting my time doing busy work rather than making some kind of difference in the world. I like to learn new things, to talk to interesting people, to write things that matter—even if those things ultimately only matter to me. Currently, most of my employers don’t do diddly-squat in the way of helping me to learn or to grow as a person. They certainly don’t care about nurturing my soul, and they aren’t doing nearly enough in terms of nurturing my physical self, with respect to fair wages that pay my (very freakin’ minimal) bills.

So I’m fed up, and I’m not sure what to say about it, because I feel like freelancers aren’t supposed to bite the hands that feed them, no matter how many times those hands also slap them in the face. I keep writing and erasing notes to my bosses–the ones that keep on asking for more and more, while giving me less and less. I keep wanting to call bullshit, to stand up for myself. Because, honestly, who else will? And yet every time I tell my husband when I’m doing, he tells me not to burn my bridges.

But I ask you: If I’m on a bridge to nowhere, what does it matter?