I have a friend who’s a carpenter (you know, like Jesus) who told me that for the first couple of years he was in business he was always under-quoting because every job he took was for something he’d never done before. You know, first time constructing a built-in unit, first time building a deck, etc. You hardly feel you can charge regular rates if you’ve never done it before. But one day he realized that every job was always going to be a first; each job had some new, uncharted aspect to it that no previous job had. After two years of selling himself short, he stopped under-quoting. He had to make a living, after all.

Same thing for new writers. Every job is new. You don’t want to under-quote forever, but if you don’t have a robust portfolio, your low prices and your enthusiasm are your only selling features. The challenge, then, is to charge as much as you can get away with. And to calculate that, you need some kind of scope.

When you get the question, “What is your expected rate?”, don’t you just wish you could come back with, “Um, you first.”?

As with all questions that want answering, look to the internet! The would-be authority on the matter for Canadian writers is the Professional Writer’s Association of Canada. They publish their professional fee guidelines based on information they collect from their members across Canada, as well as from Canadian businesses that hire writers. Novice writers may want to take their suggested fees with a grain of salt. A grain of poverty salt, that is. These fees come from established writers, and if you have no experience, quoting $12,000 for a technical report will get you laughed out of the room. On the other hand, they give you an idea of what real, grown-up, profesh writers are earning. Check out the list here.

Local writer, InkyGirl, also has a list of informative links on her site here.

It’s a saturated market, my friends, meaning that many lucky employers score talented writers dirt-cheap because they have no resume to speak of. On this note, let me throw a few metaphors at you:

A rising tide floats all boats. It’s in every writer’s interest to set and maintain standards for writers’ pay, because, as young ladies’ mothers warn them about promiscuity, they won’t buy the cow if they can get the milk for free. That said, 2004’s flash-in-the-pan, Kelis, advised us that our “milkshake[s bring] all the boys to the yard.” When you’re a freelance writer, nobody’s going to come to your yard if you don’t have any milkshake, but if you want to sell the cow, find out how much the milk is worth.*

*Really, I couldn’t do any better than that.