Comments on: What Makes a $125-an-Hour Writer?

By: Reese

Reese — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:54:10 +0000

In my experience, talent and speed are much less important than marketing savvy and specialized knowledge. I always relied on talent and speed, but didn’t start making real inroads on that $125-per-hour mark until I could sport serious marketing chops, too. I highly recommend the Personal MBA - or at least the marketing books - to anyone who’s serious about making money as a freelancer.

By: Client Success Story - The Wealthy Freelancer

Client Success Story - The Wealthy Freelancer — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:25:16 +0000

[...] For content-based conversion, the quality of the writing and the articles speak for themselves. These guys are all top-notch copywriters, and their contributors are well-known and respected, too, such as Peter Bowerman (also a client of mine), who wrote the launch day post: What Makes a $125-an-Hour Writer? [...]

By: Eileen Coale

Eileen Coale — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:11:47 +0000

One thing many newbies don’t realize is that the $125/hour refers to billable hours, not all hours worked. When you’re marketing, invoicing, or doing any kind of administrative work, you’re not earning that hourly rate. So it’s important to get a feel for what your own personal ratio is of billable to non-billable time so you can plan your time and personal finances accurately.

Also, I’m of the opinion that rarely, if ever, should you quote a client an hourly rate. A lot of them get sticker shock if you quote them, say, $125 an hour for an estimated ten hours to write a brochure, but won’t blink if you quote a flat fee of $1250. They get it into their heads that they shouldn’t be paying a writer more than, say, $30 (this seems to be a figure I hear a lot from naive business owners). I can’t remember the last time I quoted an hourly rate.

By: Peter Bowerman

Peter Bowerman — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:56:23 +0000

Thanks Jon,

And as usual, you are that MOST welcome reminder angel sitting on ALL of our shoulders, making sure we don’t forget the important stuff - who we are, what we’re REALLY up to, and what we’re REALLY selling. And I for one, appreciate it…

By: Jon McCulloch

Jon McCulloch — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:08:16 +0000

Spot on Peter.

Although I think one thing you didn’t mention — and something very few freelancers really “get” is our primary business is not “freelance copywriter”: it’s really “the MARKETER of a freelance copywriting business”.

If we don’t market ourselves, we don’t have clients; if wee don’t have clients, we don’t have a business, no matter what our hourly rate.

The second point I’d make here is we’re NOT (or shouldn’t be) selling “copy”. No one wants “copy”. If they did, they’d write it themselves.

What they want is the RESULTS of the copy we write. If we focus on selling those we differentiate ourselves from all our competitors and make it possible (even easy) to charge much higher fees.

– Jon