When is it time to hire a writer?

I am a freelance writer, for hire, to work on content-production projects ranging from short, evergreen web articles to book-length non-fiction. Contact me for a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.

If I told you I was a writer for hire, you might ask yourself why on earth would anyone want to hire a writer? Isn’t writing something anyone who is literate knows how to do? Don’t we write our own text messages, emails, notes to family, Facebook posts, Yelp reviews, Instagram hashtags? Don’t we write constantly? Communicate every day in a hundred ways?

Acknowledged. Not everyone *needs* a writer. I assume you’re capable of putting across your own thoughts in written word. But, there is an argument that writing is a skill that needs to be developed when applied to specific tasks. When you have a need for properly planned, focused, and easy-to-read content, a writer-for-hire can make written-word products that suit your need. Sure, you might be able to take care of yourself, but hiring a writer could ease the burden of actually completing the work yourself and, hopefully, give you a polished final result.

Here are six types of writing projects I, and writers like me, take on for clients. If you could use help on a project that fits one of these categories, contact me.

Web articles: Usually short and punchy, I’ve written web articles for all kinds of publications and clients over the years. I’ve written how-to articles, blog posts, and in-depth analysis into the various types of bicycle chain lubricant, for example. The client briefs and word-length requirements vary, but writing for the web is about getting to the point quickly, covering a subject that fits into its online home, and delivering to the allotted space and time. Do you have a website? Need content developed?

Catalog copy: Writing for product can be as important as the imagery. I work with clients in Europe that produce two or three product catalogs per year. They create the first English-language version (usually a translation from their primary language) and have me to tighten and smooth the language so it flows naturally for their English-speaking distributors and customers. I might also be asked to produce summary paragraphs for the introduction to the catalog. I am then tasked, at times, to write longer-form web content for the same product sets. Are you producing content about your products and services? Should we develop a plan to optimize that content for your audience and give it the best chance of being useful?

Interviews and profiles: There are seven billion human beings on the planet right now. That’s seven billion different experiences in the world, seven billion different perspectives on life, seven billion different stories to tell. My most-rewarding short-form work is done when I get to help someone tell their story though interview or profile. I’ve written prose and Q&A-style interviews throughout my writing life and would like to spend more time in the future helping people tell their stories to the world. Are there people in your orbit, with unique perspective or skills, that we should highlight to your audience/customer base? Or do you have a story you want to tell?

Event reports: I’ve reported on cycling races across the US (and even a few in Europe). There’s a journalistic satisfaction in writing a good race report; setting the scene for the reader, laying out the stakes for the competition, getting play-by-play from the finalists, producing the official results. The additional fun challenge in race reporting is also the timeliness; the attempt to publish the story as close to the completion of the competition as possible. Sure, it’s exhausting work, but once you develop a rhythm for writing competent race and event reports, the work is extremely satisfying and rewarding. The same editorial narrative style can be applied to any event coverage. Are you part of, or putting on, an event? How can I help you tell its story; the how and why it exists, the timeline of how it played out, and capture the top moments so those who couldn’t be there can still get the sense of what you were trying to accomplish?

Newsletters and round-ups (subbing): The editorial term ‘subbing’ means, simply, summarizing a group of content into one article. When I was the mountain-bike editor of www.cyclingnews.com, the worlds most widely-read cycling news website, I would take product press releases and summarize that week’s race reports, interviews, and technical review into a weekly news round-up. Subbing is an art and I enjoyed doing it. The skill can be applied to any collection of material that would benefit from being turned into a newsletter or periodic review. A great example is the New York Times' Your Weekend Briefing. Can you imagine putting a periodic summary of content you’d like to share with your audience?

Whitepapers and book-length projects: Sometimes, a subject demands in-depth study. I’ve written two non-fiction books. Call Centers Made Easy was my attempt to help small businesses leverage communications technology to better connect and communicate with their customers. The book spoke to the fact that large customer-support-intense companies (airlines, insurance companies, banks) invested millions building out systems to optimize their management of customer interactions. My book showed small businesses how those large centers did it and how they could emulate some of the technologies and concepts (to the same benefits) using small-business telecom systems. I also wrote a book called The Telecom Manager’s Survival Guide which spelled out how to, well, manage the telecommunications infrastructure for a large company. What subject in your life would you like to develop into a longer written project? White paper (3-5k words)? eBook (5-25k words)? Full-length nonfiction project (50-100k words) you want to take to a publisher?

The price of a writer-for-hire

The cost for a writer to help you with any of these kinds of content projects vary. A writer looking to break in, or one that has the capacity for high-volume, short-turn-around work, could be quite inexpensive. You can find them online, as well as find marketplaces for freelancers to bid on your job. A pedigreed writer with background and history that is a testament to their skill, and who likely has the freedom to select the projects they work on, may be prohibitive.

I’m somewhere between those two ends of the spectrum. I work on freelance projects when I want to; when I like the project, the client/collaborator, and feel like I can produce interesting work. I charge, in round numbers:

• Fifty-cents per contracted word plus expenses. That means, if I am contracted to produce a 500-word blog article, I may turn-in 556 words, but the client pays for the budgeted amount of $250.
• If a word-count price model doesn’t work (very short word-count projects, the editing of existing copy, or research-heavy book-length projects), I negotiate, in advance, either a flat fee or a financial arrangement tied to the income produced by the work (in the case of book-length projects).

If you have a writing project you’d like to discuss, please reach out through the contact me page on this website, or find me on LinkedIn.

Who decided blog posts have to be 500 words?

I have been freelance copywriting professionally for a couple of years now. When I write for the web for clients, I am often asked to keep my word count to 500. It’s so common a requirement I always assumed it was a hard-and-fast rule, born of incredible wisdom, marketers law that should never, never be violated. Sticking to this word-count limit is one of the greatest struggles I have with copywriting though.

When I sit down for a writing session, focus on putting an idea down into a Google or Scrivener doc, a thousand words come out before I can take a breath to see how whatever I’m writing is turning out. A good writing session on one topic may yield 1,500, 2,200 words or more. I start out my copywriting assignments this way - throwing down any and all thoughts, ideas, client quotes, and gathered research on the assigned subject. Cutting that natural flow back to 500 words takes time, three or four passes at least. The trimming is what stretches copywriting assignments from two-hour missions to six-hour slogs.

500 words is soooo brief? It’s a shackle of a word count. To get there, I have to suck back what I want to say. I have to buzz-cut paragraphs to make my point under the limit. I have to sacrifice one or more of my precious children so my whole family will fit neatly inside someone else’s idea that a family car should have only three-seat and headroom for little people.

The 500-word blog post recommendation is a fabrication

So why? Why am I being held to this punitive word count in a world where so many amazing words exist?

Google this question and the 500-words recommendation pops up over all kinds of web pages designed to tell YOU how you *should* optimize your web content. So search engines prefer it over longer pages. Because your audience won’t stick around for longer articles than that. So your point gets across with brevity.

I found this on an affiliate marketing website - “Many bloggers prefer to stick to short articles, generally between 500 and 750 words… According to Forbes.com, 200 words is the ideal length for a blog post because it keeps the reader’s attention, doesn’t leave room for fluff, and creates a quick and effective call to action (CTA).” This is a common theme among websites heavily focused on product listings and sales. Content whose purpose is to move a product.

The writer then goes on to immediately contradict themselves, citing the benefits of posting longer pieces. “...longer posts allow you more space and freedom to work keywords into your content alongside your overall message and a CTA. Forbes has the data to support the case for longer content too. Citing results from a serpIQ study, the top 10 results on Google all have a minimum of at least 2,000 words.” The same article then cites research on the site Medium.com that suggests 1,300 words (about seven minutes of reading time). This was common best practices on websites focused on quality and depth of content. Content intended to inform, educate, and inspire.

My 500-word assignments are coming from product-focused websites. Brands with a product mission. So it makes sense that they’re taking the advice that the online marketing world has to offer. And it makes sense that when I want to write something where I take a bit of time and complete a full thought, it lengthens naturally into something that lines up with what readers prefer.

So...

I’m just going to do what I want (unless someone is paying me)

The 500-word recommendation having a purely commercial origin makes sense. Websites designed to sell product need focused, shorter articles because the research span of someone looking for a product online is short. Understanding that it’s not just an arbitrary number helps me when I’m taking on these copywriting assignments. It gives me focus, a specific word target to hit, It challenges me to get lean with the words, to get right at the point when I’m writing the setup (where I usually like to take time to build up the product story that’s about to follow).

When I’m writing specialty content, the audience expects me to take more time, go further in depth, and let the writing tell whatever the story is your trying to convey. Which is a license to write in my more natural rhythm.

Okay, frustration is gone, I’ve worked out my resentment to the arbitrary 500-word blog-article recommendation. I can embrace it now. Can you?

PS: This article is almost 800 words.