Episode 470 Copywriting With Todd Jones What To Charge As A Copywriter

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Show Summary

Rob Cairns talks to Todd Jones about What to Charge as a Copywriter.

Show Highlights:

1. Thoughts on what to charge.

2. Do not charge by the word.

3. Other things to look at when charging for copywriting.

Show Notes

Hey, everybody, Rob Cairns here and I’m here with my dear good friend, Mr. Todd Jones, and we’re doing his regular segments. I’ve been writing with Todd Jones. How are you, Todd?

Hey my man, I’m doing pretty actually today. I’ll probably feel better. I have all week long, so that’s a that’s a win.

Yeah. Then another one of those small little ones we thought we talked a little bit about what you should pay for copywriting. By project, by our by retainer. What’s your thoughts on that? Let’s just kind of dive in.

Well.

OK, whenever people do projects or whenever they go to copywriters, there’s a lot of like at least three different ways that people do them, or at least that they’re there. There’s more of an expectation, I guess, from the the customers perspective. Some customers think they’re they’re looking for. Well, everybody does this, whether it’s a website. Sick or you’re getting a house built or whatever you’re looking for. That one common denominator. A lot of people with copyright with words. Right. So OK, you’re charged $0.25 a word or whatever, which is actually pretty modest nowadays there, depending on the type of project you have. Now. First of all you have to ask what kind of copywriting project are. We talking about? Are we talking about web copy, which is basically writing a website copy like the web page or a landing page or even an e-mail? Newsletter for that matter.

Sure.

Or are you talking about content like you write A blog or or a long form article? So, but either way, people like to go with the a lot of people are assuming that it’s being charged by per word. And not especially when you’re talking about content. It’s it’s really not a good measurement for either type of content in my opinion. So let’s say you have if you’re a, if you’re a, if you’re a business and you want an article, long form article. Or you want an article written I should say, and the article comes in at 1500 words, which is not too long, but it’s a pretty sizeable article. And you are charging or the the the, the client or your client or your copywriter is charging $0.25 a word. Or do you offer that and they take it? Here’s where you where you where you are a disadvantage as a business owner. Maybe they can say what they need to say in 1200 words, but they choose to expand it out to 1500 or even 1700 words. They’re getting extra money on it. They didn’t. You didn’t necessarily need an article that was 1700 words, it could be. Done for 12. 1200 actually 1200 seems to be these days. Kind of a standard. If you look at, you know, 12 to 1500 words is typically a standard for a good long form article now. Some people write them longer on purpose, and longer ones seem to have be more thorough and more educative, if you will. But in general the 12 to 1500 word is typically what you’re paying for these days, so let’s use a nice round Number, let’s say. The the the payment is a dollar per word. Well, if you’re writing 1500 words, that’s $1500, correct. Let’s say they choose to say. We’re going to expand it and make a little bit more money, so we’re going to make it 17150 words. Well, you’ve added $250 to the bill. So from a business standpoint, that is probably not in your best interest. So I am in favor of project rates. It’s up to the copywriter in this regard to. And charge enough to cover their time and their value for the research. The assimilation, the writing, and and the other side of this is like who’s doing the editing? Do you have somebody on your team who’s doing editing or are you depending on the copywriter do the editing so. If the copywriter is doing the editing like the grammar and making sure it’s fine, either they’re paying somebody or they’re doing it internally, so that probably should. Add some value as. Well, but if you’re charging per word. You can. You know, you don’t know. Sometimes if you’re being overcharged in that regard. So that’s something we always warn businesses about in terms of using the per word. I always say the per word charge goes back to the print media days, right? So in the in the, in the Arab newspapers where your columns are really. Small. And you can only print 300 words. Say the writer turns into 500 word article. The editor narrows it down to 300. The editor is paying that writer for 300 words, but.

And I jump in for if I jump in from India and I have so the the way I look at this is when you’re paying projects and you know you said start this off by saying copywriting or other things. For example, a web project is very, very similar.

Sure, absolutely.

Hmm.

I don’t like. As somebody who does projects charging by the hour or by the piece, because I think that undervalues what I do and I always say to people if you want to pay by the word or by the hour, go find some cheap copywriter and go do it because what we’re missing is is you’re paying that copywriter.

Right.

For their expertise and expertise comes with a cost that’s not an hourly cost. You’re paying that copyrighter for results that is not an hourly cost. That is a long term project. Cost. So I don’t think pain for little pieces is a good idea. I I think a copywriter is better off putting the whole project and saying here go and when they question it say well, it’s also for expertise, right.

Yeah. And you’re you’re looking at it from the copywriter’s perspective on that, which I agree with obviously. But I’m by the way, that sounds like a good podcast episode right there with the what you just brought up. And maybe that’ll be our next one. But for sure, you know business owners, I understand having a business myself, it’s a soul. But I do understand we want to get the best deal we can get. So we sometimes default to the least expensive. That’s not always the best thing to do. We know that. And some. Right, whether it’s your website security or your website build you something, you usually get better quality when you pay more. The same is true in content copy. Now I have been saying.

I know.

Thing. Not silently, but privately to friends that the creative services have become a commodity in general. So all this stuff that you and I and Ryan and Devinder and Paul and all of our friends do it’s it’s becoming a commodity and it’s a it’s a sad thing really, but it is becoming a commodity.

I would agree.

So, but you brought up something that I think we will talk about in the next episode is skill and expertise. That value is baked into the rate you’re getting as a. As a business owner for a copyright product, so it but but it you can backfire if you’re trying to charge if you say if you come to. Copywriter I want. To pay you $0.25 a word or whatever your your rate is. Now, technically the copywriter should be telling you what their rate is, right? If if they’re accepting whatever you’re saying, you’re probably getting a lower skilled, less experienced copywriter, most likely. Now, that may be what you need. Small businesses don’t need the top. Of the line. They don’t need, you know, these high end direct response copywriters, they, but they do need somebody who’s been around the block and you know, so the the whole 5 or $0.10 of word is like copy mill. Rates, right? It’s it’s people fresh off the boat using the. The term metaphor.

I’ll get. I’ll give. I’ll give you another example around that. My brother’s life looks very publicly, privately about he’s a great writer. He’s he’s a great writer and he writes in the movie industry. He interviews actors, actresses, directors, etcetera. He doesn’t get paid by the words he gets paid by the art.

Right.

That’s and and yes, it’s very similar because it’s writing, but it’s not traditional copywriting. It’s more analyzing what a what, a what an actor did, or what an actress did.

Sure.

OK, so the media publication who publishes one of his articles that I’ve seen them on online, what they’re getting is not just the words he put on the page. He has to connect with the celebrity cause. He interviews celebrities and that’s not easy to do right. You gotta be in the right circle to do that. You got to connect.

The the way that the yeah, the way they do that typically is they have the PR manager and I’ll tell you The Dirty little secret and he’ll tell you this, the Canadian PR companies have no money. He works for a U.S. company. And I wonder why, because they’re the ones who have all the dollars and they do that, which sometimes.

Sure.

Some relationships, like for example my brother’s, got a relationship with the producer who produces the X-Men series. So a lot of that’s been done out in Vancouver, you get in the industry so long.

Right.

You get these relationships and it’s like any other business. It’s like what you do. It’s like what I do.

Let’s compare him to somebody who’s new to the industry. They don’t have those relationships. So how long has your brother been doing it? 20 years, 30 years.

At least at least, yeah.

OK, so he’s got 20 years of experience, which means he had 20 years of relationships. So #2, he’s got to actually do the interview. So I don’t know if he does it on location, if he has. To go to. The OR.

A lot of them are a lot of them are zoom both he did one yesterday from the cottage before he came home for example. So a lot of them are.

Zoom the premium for zoom is not free you. And I know that. So he has to pay for that. That’s the business expense. Then he has to probably transcribes the article these days. It’s easier to do than it used to be. He probably transcribes the article again, not free. At least it costs your labor to do it. Then he goes through it and he has to decide what he’s going to put in the article. I mean, it’s not. He is not some kind of computerized robot that spits out. Words he there’s a lot of Labor that goes into having an article with, say, what’s the guy who plays? Wolverine, I’m drawing a blank right now, but say he interviews him. I mean, there’s a lot of Labor that goes into that and expertise. So when a company hires him, they’re getting all of that information, you know, all of that that he has. That’s not something somebody brand new to the industry can do.

Yeah, I know, I know. So am I. And then you have. To pull and then you have to pull stuff out because sometimes stuff is embargoed or in the aid, so you’ll talk about it. Yeah, but that stuff can’t go in an article just because there’s timelines. And and sometimes he’ll even write an article which will not be allowed to drop for two weeks because it’s San Diego embargo too. So there’s all kinds of factors and you don’t the point I’m making is you don’t get there unless you have a level of expertise and you gotta pay for that expertise. That’s what I’m saying.

Yeah, I I feel like and maybe it’s starting to turn a little bit these days, but people feel like you know, let’s say it takes you 15 minutes to write a draft and that is ridiculously not a good that’s that’s not, that’s laughable. But let’s just say it takes you 15 minutes to knock out the draft. Right. Well, I feel like the companies think that we’re paying for 15 minutes, so it should cost 1515 minutes of an hour. No, you’re paying for the because the your writer is likely a a business owner, a solo business owner. So they have expenses they have to, they have time.

I know.

But but you forget, I think businesses can forget, and This is why I’m cautious. This is why it doesn’t. It’s not cheap. They it takes time. It takes expertise like your brother has now lots of expertise in.

Preparation plans.

The fields. Preparation. It takes time to. Do it. You might actually sit down and knock it out. The first draft in 1520 minutes.

Very rarely.

But you’re revising, you’re changing. You’re editing. Uh, you know? Yeah, it is very rare, but I’ll I’ll I sell people. Typically, the articles I do at main WP work out to about four hours approximately from start to finish, concept to completion and. Sometimes you’re longer, sometimes you’re less, but in general, and when you look at Andy Christina. Blogging survey. That’s pretty much what you see at the average is about four hours for a. So you if you wonder like, OK, and why am I paying so much? You know, I have known people to pay a dollar a word. In fact, if you go to Maddie Osmond’s website right now and you’re not a regular. Customer and you sign up for a blog post. That’s what you’re gonna pay. A dollar an hour and her team have proven their work time again time and again. So you’re going to pay a dollar an hour, you know, and now they may have some kind. They have retainers. Like if you’re a ongoing customer. But you know that. And now she’s also paying, you’re charging, you’re charged. She’s charging for the sake of a team. She’s got a team, right? But but, you know, I have known people to get paid. I have never gotten paid a dollar.

Yeah.

Per word, but I typically go with a per project rate per hour is not a good thing either. Again, you can milk that your rider can milk that to try to get more money, just like they can milk, adding words to an article that doesn’t need extra words to it. One of the examples I like to see. Tell about what people and they don’t. See us so much anymore. But if you think about OK, how can I get to? If you’re saying, well, I can’t get 1200 words, it’s really easy to get 1200 words, but let’s just say you’re you’re you’re writing an article, and the article this, this is how flimsy an article can be. A 1200 word article. You have 10 points and each points got 100 words in. You got 100 words from the beginning and 100 words for the end, and there’s 1200 words and that’s a flimsy article. Now, sometimes you can do that in jest and it can be creative and funny like I did. The one for my 52nd birthday, which was on LinkedIn. I don’t know how long that one was, but you can do stuff like that. And I don’t have a problem with that.

Hmm.

But but sometimes I have seen people previously. They write flimsy articles by coming up with 1012 things and then writing approximately 102 hundred words for it. And often those those points are overlap each other like that wasn’t necessary point because you said it there. So I choose personally as a copywriter to charge by the project.

And some.

Now I have an estimate about what I think per you know piece of content or whatever, because you know it’s up to me to estimate the value that I give. And the time it will take me to do. Set article for the customer. Does that make sense?

There’s the bears, the magic words, time and value. And the other, the other problem is, yeah, and agreed. And the other problem is when you charge by the word, there’s an incentive for the copywriter and pad it with extra words and be unethical. And that’s not ethical as far as I’m.

Uh-huh.

Exactly. Yeah. Is this something when you charge by word or when they charge by word or by per per hour? You’re right. There is incentive to milk it to get more money and. So a flat fee based on all the variables that are that are intended is is is a better way to do it. But most businesses and and there’s a company organization called. Association of riders AWAI and I can’t remember what it stands for. American Riders Association International or something. Like that, our association of writers and ohh I forgot what stands for. They put out every year a PDF with writing rates basically copyright. They call it copyright rates if you if you were sitting there trying to figure out because I I I really think businesses sometimes and I’ve worked for the businesses from different.

Yeah.

Angles and different types of projects often don’t know, like really sit down and and calculate what it should cost them to get a website build, get security for the website, get. Social media projects whatever download that AWAI and they’ll put a new one out. 25 I’m sure, and it will give you the the kind of the median or the average rates of for different types of projects. So you get an idea and this is a range. Right landing page could be from 500 to $2500. That’s a big range, but you know, if somebody’s coming in, say I’ll do a I’ll ride rent. Landing pays for $100. You know that you’re not getting a good deal that, that they’re probably gonna. They’re completely underestimating the value of the the page and probably won’t do a very good job. So, you know, if you’re talking about a landing page, you know, you probably shouldn’t be paying less than $500.00 for for one single landing page.

True.

If it’s a long sales page, it probably should be at least 1000. Or more and. So if you get that AWAI rates guide, and by the way, most of the riders in other countries will use American rates. Anymore, I don’t blame them.

We’ll we’ll find. We’ll find out. We’ll find a link to the guide and we’ll put it in the show notes.

Yeah. And I think it’s a you get an idea of the range just like anything else. You need a range for the copy project. And so you’re not completely blown away and scrambling to go to some copy mill, you know, company or platform to get cheap rates.

Yeah.

Todd, as always, thanks for sharing your insights. Go to copyflight.com to support Todd to see everything he’s doing. You can follow and harass him on Twitter or ex if you choose to. I’m sure he’s there. A link in.

The only place I allow harassment is ex.

There’s X. Yep. And thanks again, Todd. You have an amazing day, my friend. Be well.

Thank you.