How do you pay your copywriters?

[Flip Sasser]

Hi!

Nice to meet all 858 of you. I'm hoping this question hits home with
some of you who augment your development services with content, and
I'm sorry if I'm posting to the wrong place - how do you pay your
copywriters? Are there benefits to hourly vs. by-word? Any help is
greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Flip

[Robby Russell]

I'm not sure that I'd hire anybody that worked per-word... per-line of
code, etc. Hourly/per-project seems more appropriate as you should be
focused on the results (not the # of words to get there).

my two cents,
Robby
--
Robby Russell
Founder and Executive Director

PLANET ARGON, LLC
Design, Development, and Hosting with Ruby on Rails

http://www.planetargon.com/
http://www.robbyonrails.com/
aim: planetargon

+1 503 445 2457
+1 877 55 ARGON [toll free]
+1 815 642 4068 [fax]

[John Moody]

I concur with Robby. If they're paid by the word, they're going to be less likely to "omit needless words", right? :)

[Philip Hallstrom]

> I concur with Robby. If they're paid by the word, they're going to be
> less likely to "omit needless words", right? :)

I could be wrong since I don't copywrite (a friend does) but I think when
they say "by word" they mean more like a fixed bid...

ie... we need a press release that is 500 words long, what will that cost
us?

It just helps set the scope...

I think. I could be completely wrong though :)

[Flip Sasser]

Hi everybody,

Sorry, I should have clarified. Many copywriters prefer a by-word
rate, probably because they either make more money that way, or think
they do. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with that,
since you're all web entrepreneurs of some sort.

Thanks to anyone who knows about this stuff; and again, sorry if I'm
posting to the wrong place.

Flip Sasser
flip....@gmail.com

[Timothy Fisher]

As others have already said, I can't imagine paying a copywriter a "by-word" rate.  That seems to be in total conflict with the desire to get a  concise well-worded piece of copy.  With a by-word rate, the copywriter is always going to have that temptation to pad the copy with filler words that might otherwise be unnecessary.

Tim

[Robert Fischer]

Are they going to be any more likely to omit needless words than omit needless hours?

~~ Robert.

[Chris Barnes]

I could totally be wrong about this so take with a grain of salt but don't copywriters get paid to write "good" copy for your site?  For instance if you pay someone to write the sales pitch for your site, you're paying him to write something compelling thats going to get people to buy your product.  If he "fills" his copy with needless words, the end result is not going to be as good, less people will buy, and eventually he'll earn a reputation for writing bad copy.  I would focus less on per word versus per hour and look more at value for money.  What exactly are you getting from your copywriter and is it worth the money you're going to pay for it.

--
Chris Barnes
http://www.randomutterings.com

[Timothy Fisher]

"Are they going to be any more likely to omit needless words than omit needless hours?"

The difference is that there is not necessarily a direct correlation between hours and the end product.  However, there is a direct correlation between words and the end product.  For example, they could pad their hours without necessarily affecting the quality of the copy.  If they pad the copy with words though, they are directly affecting the end product.

Tim

[Courtenay]

Erm, paying "per-word" merely defines the size of the job. So you pay
per word, but it's not like paying per line of code, it's like paying
for (n) features to be built.

[Mitch Pirtle]

"Per word" is also a way to determine rate, much like developers all have hourly rates.

-- Mitch

[Paul Robinson]

On 9 Apr 2008, at 18:47, Flip Sasser wrote:

> Are there benefits to hourly vs. by-word? Any help is
> greatly appreciated!

As somebody who does freelance writing, I might be able to answer this
better than other people.

Let me explain to other people something here they might not have
understood about the question: editors do not say "write a story".
They think "I need to fill x inches of page. That's y words. Write y
words for me". They never say "spend a day on it and write as much or
as little as you feel you need to tell the story". The web is no
different if the content manager is being really professional.

By far, the industry standard is payment per-word. If you want 500
words, I know that's around an hour, plus another half hour of
revisions. If you want 2,000 words I know that's half a day, plus
revision time of around an hour after you come back with changes. If I
manage to crank out the work in less time, then I pocket the
difference, but if you ask for lots of changes because I misunderstood
the brief, that's my problem.

I would personally reject gigs on per-hour basis for freelance writing
(per hour/day is how I price my coding), simply because it just
doesn't work that way. Why would I want £x/hour when you might not
consider what I do for the first hour as work - I'm sitting staring
out of my window and browsing the web normally. :-)

Writing words is a VERY different market and gig to writing code. I'd
spend some time understanding the market before drawing any conclusions.

--
Paul Robinson

http://vagueware.com :: pa...@vagueware.com :: +44 (0) 7740 465746

Vagueware Limited is registered in England/Wales, number 05700421
Registered Office: 3 Tivoli Place, Ilkley, W. Yorkshire, LS29 8SU
Correspondence: 55 Velvet Court, Granby Row, Manchester, M1 7AB

[Anthony Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Paul Robinson <pa...@vagueware.com> wrote:

Why would I want £x/hour when you might not
consider what I do for the first hour as work - I'm sitting staring
out of my window and browsing the web normally. :-)

That's pretty much how I start coding...

[jim james]

I have 6 copy writers (Travel Editors) that I use for my rails app
(MyTripScrapbook.com). We pay by the piece, not by the word, but it's
the same concept. Most of them are professional writers and are very
pleased with the arrangement. We pay $5 or $10 per 400 word item which
takes about 15 minutes to finish. It's perfect for editors who have
other jobs but want to fill in spare hours. Once they get in the
groove they can punch out $500 worth of items in an evening. The Style
Guide is fairly explicit which helps editors get it right the first
time. Re-do rates are less than 5% now. They all produce nice, quality
work. It takes about 10 hours to come up to speed with my requirements
and about 50% of the editors who we've tried get rejected. But the
other 50% really like it. Next step will be to hire someone to manage
the editors. Not sure how to remunerate that role yet.

Hope that helps. Jim.

On Apr 9, 2:34 pm, Flip Sasser <flip.sas...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> Sorry, I should have clarified. Many copywriters prefer a by-word
> rate, probably because they either make more money that way, or think
> they do. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with that,
> since you're all web entrepreneurs of some sort.
>
> Thanks to anyone who knows about this stuff; and again, sorry if I'm
> posting to the wrong place.
>
> Flip Sasser

> flip.sas...@gmail.com

[Timothy Fisher]

Yep, I understand and agree with it from that perspective.  Its a tool to get to an estimate of the size of the job and a fixed cost.  So you might say your paying for a 500 word release.  However, the writer is not actually getting paid per word.

Tim

[Galen]

Now that this debate is settled, does anyone have a recommendation for
a fantastic copy writer? I'd love to have someone do some contract
work for us, but I'm not even sure where to start looking for them. I
can take recommendations off list (my name at Estately.com).

Galen

On Apr 10, 7:33 am, "Timothy Fisher" <timot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yep, I understand and agree with it from that perspective. Its a tool to
> get to an estimate of the size of the job and a fixed cost. So you might
> say your paying for a 500 word release. However, the writer is not actually
> getting paid per word.
>
> Tim
>

> On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Courtenay <court3...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Erm, paying "per-word" merely defines the size of the job. So you pay
> > per word, but it's not like paying per line of code, it's like paying
> > for (n) features to be built.
>

> > > > On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 4:34 PM, Flip Sasser <flip.sas...@gmail.com>

> > wrote:
>
> > > > > Hi everybody,
>
> > > > > Sorry, I should have clarified. Many copywriters prefer a by-word
> > > > > rate, probably because they either make more money that way, or
> > think
> > > > > they do. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with
> > that,
> > > > > since you're all web entrepreneurs of some sort.
>
> > > > > Thanks to anyone who knows about this stuff; and again, sorry if I'm
> > > > > posting to the wrong place.
>
> > > > > Flip Sasser

> > > > > flip.sas...@gmail.com

[Philip Hallstrom]

Scott Johnston - http://scottjohnston.com/

Full disclosure - he's a friend of mine. We met years ago, each doing our
thing for the same company. I've sent work his way throughout the years
after we both left that company as well...

Good guy.

-philip