Pam Neely

Being broke sucks. 

It especially sucks when you're working really hard and not getting anywhere. When you're cranking out thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of words every week and making barely any money. 

Have you seen the pay rates for freelance bloggers lately?

"$15 per blog post."

"Our budget is around $225 per week for (4) 1500 - 2000 word articles." 

That second listing works out to $56.25 for each post. 3.7 cents per word if you give them 1,500 words per post. 

And that's more than the 2.8 cents some of the content mills would give you.

It's enough to make me cry. 

When I look at freelance job board listings like that, it's no wonder so many freelance writers are happy about the idea of a $100 blog post.

But that's still a terrible pay rate. 

Here's why:

If that $100 blog post takes four hours to write — an "average" amount of time according to Orbit Media's 2019 blogging study — that's $25 an hour. To start.

But your writing time is only part of the pay equation. There's also the time spent going back and forth with the client. There's sending the invoice, then maybe sending reminders about getting paid. There's filling out the W-9 IRS form and getting it back to them. And then maybe the client wants a few revisions. 

Or maybe this is a one-time client, and it took you four hours of work just to land the gig in the first place. 

If it takes you four hours to find the work, and four hours to write the post, that $100 took you eight hours to earn. 

You earned $12.50 per hour. 

Add in one hour of back and forth with the client, and you're at nine hours of work for your $100 blog post, or $11.11 per hour.

Now let's talk about taxes. Most financial advisors (and Dave Ramsay and TheBalance.com) recommend setting aside 25-30% of every freelance check you get to cover your taxes. 

This brings your earnings down from $11.11 per hour to... $7.78 if you set aside 30% for taxes.

Give yourself a very modest budget of 53 cents per hour for your overhead (your computer, whatever services you pay to run your business) and you are down to $7.25 per hour. 

Which is the Federal minimum wage.

"But I'm super-efficient."

"I'm a lean, mean writing machine," you say. "I can just plow through those blog posts."

Great. Because you're going to have to plow through those posts just to keep the rent paid and feed yourself.

Let's say you need to earn $4,000 every month to cover your expenses, including taxes.

Even if you earn $100 per blog post, that means you need to write 40 blog posts every month to pay your bills. 10 blog posts every week. 

That's 1.7 blog posts every day, assuming you're indulgent and give yourself one day off a week. 1.4 blog posts every day if you don't get one day off per week.

Just don't ever have to stop.

Don't ever have a family emergency. Don't ever have to move, and make sure your computer never breaks. Never get sick — either sick from a cold or sick from writing until your hands ache. 

Don't ever stop, you lean, mean writing machine.

Sounds pretty awful, right? And it is. 

But it doesn't have to be like this. 

$600 blog posts exist. 

People pay $600 for blog posts all the time, every day. 

There — somebody else, just now, paid a freelance writer $600 for a blog post. And it could have been you. 

If you still don't believe me, here's proof. These are some recent invoices I've sent to my clients. 

I have hundreds more. If you're the skeptical type, I could also show you the emails I've sent to clients outlining my rates, and the responses my clients have given accepting those rates. I can show you the bank deposits mirroring the invoice amounts. 

This is not a scam. But I can see how, if you've been getting paid $15 to $50 per blog post, it might seem too good to be true.

So here's the truth:

If you've been writing $15 to $50 blog posts, and you want to earn $600+ per blog post, you are going to have to change a few things. 

1. You're going to have to start thinking less like an artist and more like a business person. 

2. You're going to have to learn how to identify the type of clients who can pay you $600 per blog post. 

Because yes: Some clients will just go dead silent when you quote them $500 per blog post.

These clients have no idea how to monetize content, and so they aren't really earning anything from the content they buy from you. So they can't afford to pay you any better.

And this is all fine. Because there are tens of thousands of other clients that can pay you $600+ per blog post. 

These clients know how to make money with the content you write for them. You just have to learn how to find them. 

3. You're going to have to pick a subject area that you can write about with authority.

You have to start thinking of yourself more as a subject expert and less like a struggling "I'll-write-anything-just-please-pay-me" freelance writer. 

4. You'll have to approach these new clients and look like the type of freelance writer who charges $600+ per post.

In other words, you're going to have to look and act like a pro. 

5. You'll have to deliver a blog post worth $600.

At this pay level, basics like avoiding spelling mistakes are table stakes. You'll need to do way better. But you can, and it's not that hard. Just basic stuff like including a meta description tag for the post will help. As will including a couple of interior links to relevant pages on the clients' website.

6. You're going to have to do just a little bit of content promotion (because most clients are terrible at promoting their content).

You do this because you want your content to be successful for your clients. So your blog posts have to get seen. Most blog posts, if you didn't know already, get four social media shares and no inbound links. Your content is has to do better.

7. You're going to have to manage your hours and your finances efficiently enough so that you keep your earnings high.

Those are the sorts of changes you'll need to make to earn $600+ per blog post, or at least $75 per hour. Only 10% of freelance writers earn $75 or more per hour, but you can be among them. 

$600... even $1,000 blog posts exist. 

Not only could you be earning a lot more money — you could also start rebuilding your self-respect.

Earning $600+ per blog post is much better financially (duh). But it's also much better for your self-respect.

It sucks to see your work undervalued. It sucks to be undervalued. 

It hurts to hunch over a laptop, day after day, until your neck is stiff and your hands are sore from cranking out content. 

So this is about more than you just writing $600 blog posts. 

When you charge more, it also allows you to spend more time on what you write. So you end up writing better and delivering much higher-quality work. 

Because you're a writer, and you're probably at least partially a perfectionist, it feels good to submit better work. Writers tend to put a lot of love and labor and pride into their writing (as we should), so it feels really good to turn in A+ work.

It feels good to write the kind of stuff you're proud to have your byline on. Pieces you can use for your portfolio... or to land more $600 blog posts. 

So instead of just pumping out words at a breakneck pace, you could be working like you want to. You could be delivering copy and content with the depth and skill you know you're capable of. 

Or you could just keep pumping out more $15, $50, maybe even $100 blog posts. 

It's your call.