Here's what 300+ publications have recently paid freelancers
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Join me on July 22 for a workshop on everything that goes into writing the perfect pitch! See below for more details, and click here to register. If learning about writing longform narrative features is more your style, I’ve got you covered — on July 24 I’m hosting a workshop covering how to structure a longform feature. More details below, and click here to register. See you there!
Hello friends, great to see you again, and I hope you had a lovely Fourth of July weekend!
This week, let’s just get straight to the point: At long last, I am thrilled to present the initial results of my ongoing project to collect up-to-date freelance rates for hundreds of publications. These range from tiny, niche blogs and trade magazines to national publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Science, CNN, The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, National Geographic, Wired, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Guardian, Forbes, The Boston Globe, Travel + Leisure, Time, and literally hundreds more. All of these rates were paid within the last 12 months or so, and I’ll remove outdated rates on a rolling basis.
(And if you’d like to contribute some recent rates you’ve gotten, click here to share. Transparency about money helps us all out!)
Before we dive in, I want to throw out some quick thoughts and caveats about this whole project, as well as rate databases in general.
The first thing to keep in mind is that, as we all know, budgets industrywide have been in freefall for years, and it’s only going to get worse. But remember that your editor at a given publication doesn’t typically have a ton of control over what they can pay. Decisions about budgeting and establishing rates often happen many layers above your editor, so in a lot of cases their hands truly are tied. They want you to get paid just as much as you want to be paid, and good editors will fight for your rates. But sometimes awful rates are, tragically, just how things go.
That said: Always ask! I wrote a newsletter a while back on how to ask for more money, but the gist is that it never hurts to ask, and good editors will do everything they can to get you more. It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a shot. (And if the editor makes you feel bad or greedy or weird for asking, that is not an editor you should work with, and you should tell all your freelance friends what a dick that editor was.)
Next, the rates in this database reflect what a specific freelancer was paid, but there are a lot of factors involved, including story type and scope, amount of reporting, whether a freelancer has worked with the publication before, and so on. All praise and admiration to that industrious freelancer who got $3/word from Bloomberg Businessweek, but a rate like that is the exception, not the rule.
Finally, this database will be continually updated as more rates come in, so again, please feel free to contribute here. And for paid subscribers, this Thursday we’ll take a deeper dive into the data and do some analysis.
With all of that out of the way:
Here is the database of freelance rates for 300+ publications!
And if you’re looking for somewhere to start, here is the freshly updated list of pitch guides for more than 100 publications.
Now go forth and get paid!
Oh, a few other things …
• Join me on July 22 for a workshop on writing the perfect pitch! This session will be an in-depth examination of what goes into a fantastic story pitch. How do you structure it? What must be in it, and what should you leave out? How much pre-reporting should you do? How can you head off the follow-up questions an editor will inevitably ask? How do you even find editors to pitch or know which publication to shoot for? We'll cover all that and much, much more in this workshop. Click here to register. (All attendees will receive a playback of the full session.)
• Wanna learn how to write a longform narrative feature? Join me on July 24 for an in-depth workshop on the art of structuring a longform piece. In this Zoom session, I’ll lead a deconstruction exercise of a longform narrative feature story and give you tips on how to use those tools in your writing. It’ll be structured like a grad school-level class, with participation encouraged (but, of course, not required). We’ll analyze a published longform narrative as a jumping-off point, and go into detail about what it takes to go long on a story. Click here to register. (All attendees will receive a playback of the full session.)
• If you like what you’re reading, please consider subscribing to the paid version of this newsletter. Paid subs get access to all past and future paid-only posts, including the archive of recorded Zoom panels, an expert panel on launching and growing a newsletter, a post about the 10 best things I did for my freelance career, the exact text of a pitch I sold to The Atlantic, practical tips for diversifying your freelance income, 50% off all Zoom workshops, and much more.
• I offer one-on-one coaching! Need help developing an idea or sharpening one you already have? Or want to talk about careers and building your freelance business? Just want an edit on a story you’re working on? I’ve got you covered! Click here to book a one-on-one coaching session to talk about pitch reviews, story development, editing, and anything else you might need help with.
• Got a question about freelancing or the wider world of journalism? Let’s hear it! Once or twice a month I’ll be doing Q&A posts in the newsletter to answer all of your questions, comments, and thoughts about freelancing and journalism in general. Drop any and all questions in the comments section below this post or email me at tim@freelancingwithtim.com, and I may feature it in a future newsletter.