Next time you’re asked to write for free … (Harlan Ellison)
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I had to post this without any comment, but thanks to JG for posting this at FLX this a.m.
Right on! Thanks for sharing!
I LOVE IT. The “good publicity for you” thing is a benefit I’ve never understood either. I once worked with a client who was truly baffled when I said I couldn’t double the length of a monthly feature I’d been doing without renegotiating my fee. The editor’s initial argument was that I was already under contract to do the work. (Funny, that was my argument too. Along with a friendly tip to check out the word count in line 4e.) After checking with her boss, the editor called back to say, “Well, Boss is kind of hurt that you would ask for more money over this. He just thinks it will only take you 2 or 3 more hours to type enough extra copy.”
I got my raise. But I can still get ALL riled up just thinking about the client’s attitude toward it.
Loved this!! Thank you!
Just what I needed to see this morning! I just started a freelance job for a bookstore where I had worked over the summer. The owner knew my background in communications and wanted me to manage a new e-newsletter (this includes editorial and design plus the technical stuff needed to produce an e-newsletter) and was gobsmacked when she realized that I wouldn’t work for bookstore clerk hourly wage ($9/hr people!!!!). I did get the gig at my rates (and got her to sign a contract as well as a deposit on my estimate), but sheesh!
This is what I tell people all the time. When I even HINT at writers that perhaps, just perhaps, you shouldn’t work for free, they get all defensive and testy.
Look. I know you have to get clips. I get it. But, when you work for free, you are doing yourself and every other writer out there a disservice.
Next time someone replies to a query with the promise of “exposure,” I will send them a link to this.
I’m confused … this was an *interview* he wanted to be paid for?
I could understand the hissyfit if it were an excerpt from his novel they were trying to use, or an essay or something — that would be his livelihood. But an interview? Who makes a living from being interviewed? Are we supposed to be paying the people we interview for our articles? Come on.
Looove Harlan Ellison. He has the biggest BS detector in the world, and isn’t afraid to use it. Well, maybe second to George Carlin.
Lia, yes — an interview, although he slipped a few times in the clip and said “essay.” That’s what tripped me up, too. I posted to the other board that I felt his logic was correct when applied to writing.
I’m assuming he owned the rights to the interview, thus why he raised such a stink.
Nevertheless, I think it’s hilarious that even Harlan Ellison gets asked to expose himself.
Absolutely brilliant. Thanks.
Holy crap. That was so funny.
Good stuff. Lisa; I had a client who had the exact same attitude, he wanted more for his money after we had agreed on the contract, only he edged in the extra work bit by bit and I kinda didn’t realize I was doing it. I then told him I couldn’t continue putting in so much extra work; he truly believed he DESERVED it, like he was doing me a favor giving me any work at all. The cheek!
I particularly liked the comment about not getting the CD and, “you send me the CD mother f$#%$%$ or I’ll come and burn your place down.” Cringing at the thought of what would happen if I tried this approach. Wonder if he really does say these things?
He does.
I snorted coffee out my nose when he did the gimp dance mocking the amateurs and when he said, “I sell my soul — but at the highest rates.”