www.inkthinkerblog.com — Q: I’ve been charged with finding a freelance editor to review some procedure manuals for my company. I posted an ad on Craigslist and got more than 50 e-mails in the first hour (and then I deleted the posting). How do I weed through these to find a good editor? I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

A: Ahh, there’s the rub. Craigslist is great, but the volume of responses may make finding a freelancer pretty time consuming. Here’s a quick three-step guide for narrowing down the selection:

1. As soon as you get to a misspelling, hit the delete button.

2. As soon as you start to think you’ve received a form letter, hit the delete button.

3. The moment you question whether the respondent has the skills or professionalism to get the job done, hit the delete button.

The remaining e-mails are your hiring pool. In reviewing these folks, look well-written resumes (and websites, if they provide any), similar or relevant past experience, and an overall sense of professionalism. When you find a few people you’re comfortable with, get in touch with them to negotiate for timeline and pay, and hopefully you’ll find your perfect match.

Good luck!

– Kristen

Do you have a question you’d like Kristen King to answer in her Notes in the Margin newsletter or award-winning Inkthinker blog? Send an e-mail to kristen@kristenkingfreelancing.com!

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

Figuring Out Freelance Costs

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Q: Why does hiring a freelancer cost so much? I thought the whole point of outsourcing work was to save money, but the quote I just got on a project was a lot higher than I thought it would be. What gives?

A: That’s a great question. Because I don’t know anything about the project or the person who bid on it, I can’t say exactly why there was a disconnect between your expectation and the number the freelancer quoted you. What I can do, though, is explain how a lot of freelancers calculate their rates, and that may give you some insight into why the freelancer quoted the price he or she did, and why it may not be as expensive as it sounded.

The first thing to remember is that freelance writers and editors are independent business professionals, not folks who write and edit as a hobby. The work they do is how they pay their bills, not only for running their office (space, utilities, Internet and phone, computer, fax, copier, paper, pens, etc.) but also for financing their lives (mortgage, groceries, utilities, insurance, braces for Jimmy and Katie, etc.). Translation: Freelancers need to earn a living wage.

A case study: A full-time editor at a middle-of-the-salary-scale nonprofit just outside of Washington, DC, makes about $38,000/year. With sick days, vacation days, and health/vision/dental insurance, total compensation package may be about $51,000. With a 40-hour work week, the total compensation (including benefits) is in the neighborhood of $24/hour. Without benefits, it’s under $20/hour. Factor in commute time (one hour or more in the DC metro region) and expense, it drops to about $12/hour. Minus taxes, employee insurance contributions, etc… That $24/hour “total compensation” barely meets living expenses, even for a minimalist.

Add the cost of doing business (all the overhead I already mentioned, plus marketing and your own, unsubsidized, benefits) onto the cost of living, and even a modest lifestyle requires the majority of freelancers to charge at least $50/hour out of the gate. And that’s before factoring in the value of the work the freelancer is performing.

There’s a lot of experience and training that goes into high-quality writing and editing work. Think of it this way: If just anyone could perform a root canal, would your dentist be able to charge you a couple thousand dollars for it? Probably not. I wish my dental care were less expensive, but I would never try to talk my dentist down in price because I know he’s an experienced professional and is worth every penny. (That, and he’d probably laugh in my face if I said, “Hmm, $2,000 is a little steep for a root canal. How about $250?”)

When your freelancer bid on your project, he or she quoted you a price that factored in the cost of the project (what he or she needs to earn on it to make a reasonable living) plus the value of the project (the expertise that he or she brings to the table).

Assuming that your freelancer is working from his or her own office, the price you pay includes all overhead expenses, all benefits, all training, all liability for injuries on the job, all 401(k) matching contributions, all incidental office supplies – all the expenses you pay for every full-time employee. Not to mention the fact that hiring an already trained, extremely well-qualified freelancer with experience in the type of work you need done mean that you’ll get your finished product much more quickly than someone with no or little experience – saving you more time and money from all of those hidden expenses.

So the bottom line is that although the number your freelancer quoted you may have seemed high at the outset, it covers far more than the final result. It frees you and your staff up to focus on your company or organization’s main task while offering you an outstanding final product at a fraction of what it would have cost you to produce it in house.

– Kristen

Do you have a question you’d like Kristen King to answer in her Notes in the Margin newsletter or award-winning Inkthinker blog?  Send an e-mail to kristen@kristenkingfreelancing.com!

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

The Right to Write
by Julia Cameron
Penguin Putnam
236 pages, 1998

reviewed by Hope Wilbanks

www.inkthinkerblog.com — In The Right To Write, author Julia Cameron explores the writing life. She covers every imaginable topic, from bad writing and letting yourself write to being an open channel and beating procrastination.

The thing I love most about The Right To Write is that there is a constant “welcoming” theme. Cameron welcomes the writer to take the leap to begin. She welcomes writers to meet the page daily. She beckons writers to create a habitual practice of writing regardless of time or circumstance.

I’ve read this book twice, and each time I’ve taken away something different. When I pull this book from its shelf, I bring along a stack of Post-It notes with me to jot notes as I read. In fact, if you could see my copy right now, you’d see a colorful splash of those sticky pieces of paper peeking out from countless pages.

The first reading was like sitting down to a huge, thick steak, juices flowing and steam rising. I gleaned great inspiration from The Right To Write; so much so that it motivated me to sit down at my desk and start writing again after a long dry spell. The second time around was as if feasting on a dessert of hot fudge cake with piping hot fudge sauce melting pools of ice cream. It’s that good.

The chapter “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” delves into a popular theory among writers: “disciplined” writing. I have personally struggled long and hard with the issue of perfection—writing at the perfect place, during the perfect time of day, “perfect” writing…period.

It’s easy to become trapped in a mindset of telling yourself that your writing must be “perfect” in some sense or fashion. Cameron suggests however, that writing is perfect in itself. There is no perfect way to do it. The key simply lies in writing. Or, to quote Cameron, “Writing is about making brain children. When it comes to conception, it can, but doesn’t need to be in missionary position.” This clear-cut, unpretentious statement opened my eyes to the simplicity of the writing process.

In another chapter called “Making It,” Cameron discusses every writer’s fear, the fear of not “making it” as a writer. I believe this single chapter was probably the most inspiring one to me the first time I read it. “Think of it like making a chair,” says Cameron. “You make a chair and someone buys it. You write something and someone buys it.” Every writer would be less stressed and enjoy writing more if we could embrace this ideal.

The Right To Write is food for a writer’s soul. Cameron has a special way of turning ordinary everyday occurrences into deep, spiritual learning lessons for writers. In this book, writers are invited to become rooted in the process and take ourselves seriously.

If you have reached a place where you feel like you just can’t write any longer, grab a copy of The Right To Write. You will be encouraged to begin again, to enjoy the process, and to write from your heart.

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Hope Wilbanks is an inspirational writer living in central Louisiana. She is the author of The Self-Empowered Woman and publisher of Cup of Hope Magazine.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

Scrivener 1.0 (Mac OS X)
by Keith Blount
Literature & Latte
$34.99 (30-day free trial)

reviewed by Melissa Barton

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Keeping research notes, outlines, and drafts of long documents organized in an ordinary word processor can be daunting and time-consuming for writers. Those who write and outline out of order or who have large amounts of research material to handle can be frustrated by flipping between multiple documents and keeping track of file versions. Since most of us aren’t programmers, we had to live with the limitations of word processors. Fortunately, Keith Blount had the same problem.

Blount designed Scrivener to organize his own writing, incorporating new features as suggested by users. Scrivener combines features of an outlining program and a word processor, with some other, less common functions. A basic tutorial comes with the program and gives an overview of most features. The program is very self-evident and easy to use, and the extensive help file is well written and clearly illustrated with screenshots.

Each Scrivener project collects documents, which can represent chapters, sections, and subsections, into a “draft.” The documents in the draft can be selected and rearranged via a menu on the left side of the screen. Below the draft is another menu for selected and organizing research. The main text viewer can be single or split to show different parts of the draft.

At the top of the screen are buttons for accessing the outliner (which is similar to OmniOutliner) and the corkboard, which shows virtual index cards corresponding to sections. These index cards have short summaries and can be easily rearranged. A notes field and color-coding for writing stage are attached to each section.

Although designed primarily with novelists and screenwriters in mind, Scrivener is also a good organizational tool for drafting nonfiction books, long academic papers, reports, and other complex documents. Since some typical word processor features, such as footnoting, are pretty bare bones or not supported, documents have to be exported to other programs for final formatting. The export process is straightforward and quick.

Scrivener won’t work for everyone’s creative process, and Blount suggests some alternatives for both Mac and Windows users. An earlier beta version of Scrivener, Scrivener Gold, is available for free, although it has fewer features than Scrivener 1.0. Scrivener is not available for Windows or earlier versions of Mac OS, but Blount plans to continue improving and updating the OS X version.

****
Melissa Barton is a freelance science writer and editor based in Colorado. Her portfolio can be viewed online at http://www.rosettastones.net.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King