Fair Pay: 6 Tips for Writers (and writing teachers)

Last month, as I filled my dining room table with receipts and mileages and 2022 credit card bills—all to prepare and file my 2022 taxes—I noticed a pattern.

Some of my expressive and creative writing workshops earned my regular hourly fee. Others were for a reduced, agreed-upon cost. Still others were freebies. And one was supposed to be fee-based, but turned out to be a non-paying gig.

Now that you’ve filed your taxes or asked for an extension, here are some been-there tips for getting paid for your time and expertise as a writer:

1. Talk money early: I’m proud to report that this math phobe is getting way more comfortable at saying, “My hourly teaching fee (or presentation fee or freelance writing fee) is $xyz. Does that fit with the organizational budget?” Saying this line and asking this question avoids wasted conversations and becomes much easier with practice and time.

2. Faux literary friendships don’t mean money: As writers, we often love to connect about just-read books. Or we swap opportunities or share experiences. But friendships aside, your time and expertise are just as valuable as other folks’ time and expertise. For example, that plumber who came to my house last year was a lovely fellow and yes, we had a grand chat, but I still had to pay him his set hourly rate.

3. Read and re-read your contract: This one is related to Number 2. Just because you’ve been hitting it off or chatting over the phone or email or even helping out with the event planning, don’t trust or assume that the hiring contract will be written in your favor. Avoid making naïve and costly assumptions. Read every line of that contract. Then decide if this event is right for you (see above about the surprise non-paying gig).

4. The author contract is about more than payment: Look for other, non-monetary items on that presenter’s contract, including audio visual equipment and the presence (or not) of on-site IT support or a delegated Zoom moderator. When you arrive at the site or digitally connect with your audience, you don’t want to invest your valuable time trying to get everything to work. Trust me on this one.

5. Time is money: If it’s a two- or multi-part workshop, ask if you will be expected to respond to students’ between-session emails. It’s fine if you do, but you need to know what to expect. For day- or weekend-long events, are faculty meals included in your stipend? Will you get reimbursed for accommodation costs or mileage? Again, don’t assume. For a multi-week or semester-long program, estimate your real time allocations—including prep time, teaching time, Zoom meetings, student email responses and other duties. Based on these, project your hourly rate. Is this rate financially viable for your budget?

6. Work for free? Yes, but be selective: If you’re going—or can afford to—work for free, make sure that the hosting organization’s mission aligns with your own values or interests. Or ask if there’s a non-monetary payout. When someone asks for a freebie, I ask myself two questions: (1) Am I being asked to work for free because someone has spent down (on other writers) or mismanaged their operating budget? Or (2) Do they really value my expertise, and this will be a mutually rewarding event or project?

The bottom line: Like everything else in our lives, choosing to lead a writing workshop (or do some business or grant writing or give a presentation or mentor a group of young writers) is a choice—usually a happy one. But remember: This is also time taken away from your own creative or writing time. So before you say “yes” to that freelance or programming request, think about what you need, what you can afford, what you’re willing to sacrifice and why.

That “noblesse oblige” thing? For those of us who have bills to pay and taxes to self-prepare, it’s a luxury we don’t have and cannot afford.

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Enjoyed this post? You may also enjoy:

“How Much Money do Writers Earn or Make?”

“What Questions Should You Ask Before You Lead a Writing Workshop or Retreat?”

“On Labor Day: What Your Day Job Brings to Your Writing (and vice versa)”

What Questions Should You Ask Before You Lead a Writing Workshop or Retreat?

I’m passionate (some would say ‘cranky’) about our right to tell our own story, to document our lived experiences as they have happened to us and have been processed through our individual consciousness.

As a writing workshop facilitator, it’s an honor and privilege to create the space in which new or seasoned writers can do this.

So when someone calls or emails with a potential writing workshop request, it’s really flattering. And, once that organizational host asks, it’s often tempting to immediately say, "Yes."

However …

Before signing that writing workshop contract, here are four questions to ask.

1. What is Your Budget for this Writing Workshop?

   Go on, ask it: "What is your allocated budget for this workshop or event?" This up-front question saves potentially wasted conversations and time.

   Let me tell you why.

   Free classes are under-appreciated. No, they don't "offer great exposure," or "look good on your CV or resume." Instead, no-cost often means no-show or partially engaged learners. Or it's an invitation to your hosting organization to take you and your expertise less than seriously. So name your fee. Then, document that fee and your invoicing terms and payment due date(s) in your formal contract.

   Should you ever offer a pro-bono workshop? Yes. Definitely. Or offer one income-based scholarship for one spot. But except for your own chosen non-profit causes, never agree to teach or facilitate a creative group for free--even if you can financially afford it.

2. Ask to Narrow or Focus the Workshop Topic

   Sometimes, a host or events person contacts you with a general idea: "We want to offer a writing class." or, "We saw your book and would love to do something on writing."

   Nudge them to narrow the focus. A well-defined topic will be much easier for the host organization to market and will make it simpler for potential students to grasp, conceptualize and prepare. So as the potential presenter, ask about the target audience, its demographics, and known or potential needs. Then, armed with this information, begin to frame and name your workshop.

3. Ask About the Writing Workshop Venue and Setup

   Here are three been-there scenarios: (1) I once landed in a new city to teach a day-long writing workshop in a building that was (surprise!) under heavy reconstruction. Think hard hats and jack hammers here.

   Half-way through the morning, I discovered that (surprise again!) there was no functioning toilet. (2) Years later, for a weekend-long intensive (different organization), our group was assigned a windowless room in a hotel basement. (3) Later still, in New York City, I had a plush hotel room and a mandatory, pre-workshop meeting with the hotel audio visual person to do a test run.

   Now (cue the quiz show jingle here), guess which workshop got me five-star instructor ratings? Nope, it wasn’t the noisy, no-toilet building.

   Nothing stymies learner engagement more than presentation rooms that are cold, musty, overcrowded or windowless. If possible, ask to visit or video-visit the venue to check it out beforehand. Also, if you’re in a school or library, ask what other programs are being offered simultaneously. Finally, document your specific audio visual needs right in your workshop contract.

   4. Who’s Boss Here? Establish Who will Really Lead this Workshop

   Once, I got hired to facilitate a three-day summer writing retreat in a gorgeous mountain setting in New England. Fantastic, right?

   Um ... Many host interruptions and content contradictions later, the students grew confused and distracted. They reminded me of children who wanted to listen to one parent while persistently glancing over their shoulders for the other parent’s consent or approval. This did not make for a good writing workshop experience. In fact, I wondered why I was hired or there.

   Writing workshops are dynamic and participatory, but someone needs to be the designated and consistent leader. Or leaders.

   So in that pre-workshop call, ask if your potential host will be there for the entire program. If so, ask what their on-the-ground role will actually be. Once you ask, listen to the answer. Then decide if this opportunity is right for you.

Writing workshops are magical. They’re fun and energizing. But before you agree to lead a workshop, prepare your questions and ask what you need to know before you say, "yes." On the workshop day, your host organization and your students will thank you for your pre-event care and preparation.

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Enjoyed this post?

You may also enjoy: OK, Zoomer: How to Get the Most out of a Virtual Writing Workshop

OR 5 Tips for Doing A Great Author Reading or Event or Presentation.

Interested in setting up a wellness or creative writing workshop for your organization?

Ditch that Messy Draft. Embrace the Blank Writing Page.

Should I write a new draft? Or throw my writing away?

Yesterday I decided to dust off an old, Thanksgiving holiday-themed essay. It had already been drafted and re-drafted, so (I convinced myself) it would only take an hour to edit, fix and pitch.

The essay was written in 2011, when I had pitched it to a popular Sunday magazine in which I had been previously published. Back then, the editor returned it with a nice note saying that it just didn’t work for that publication.

Today, thanks to eight years of editorial distance, I understood why my original draft got rejected. Plus, I love to edit, so I convinced myself that a nip here and a tuck there would make that 2011 piece perfect and ready for a re-pitch.

Now, after more than 20 years of writing and publishing, wouldn’t you think I’d know that re-writes are never, ever easy or quick? So this afternoon, after a few botched attempts, I abandoned that old draft to open an empty page to hand-write a brand new version.

Here are four reasons to stop twiddling with that old draft to start over with a fresh piece:

Our narrative voices mature: Since 2011, I’ve published (lucky me) several other essays and a full-length book collection collection of my essays. Our narrative voices change and mature, and experiences change or deepen our perspectives. We need to write as the writer we have become, not the writer we once were.

Updated facts, statistics and research: When it comes to fact checking or supporting statistics, many things may have changed since our last draft. So check and insert the latest data.

Publishing trends change: Publications downsize staffing or change their editorial focus and submission requirements. While we try not to write for a specific market or readership, it’s foolish to pitch or submit something that doesn’t meet the target publication’s submission requirements.

A new draft gives a new chance to go deeper: For today’s piece, I ditched the old typed version and wrote the new piece by hand. Handwriting helps our critical thinking and lets us find a way into what we really want to say. So turn off your computer and pick up that notebook and pen.

If time equals money, then, given how long we spend writing and drafting, we writers are always working at a financial deficit. But time also equals quality. So if you want to write what matters to you now, today, consider starting from scratch with a new page.

P.S. I just got an acceptance letter for this Thanksgiving-themed essay, from a good editor at a paying market.

On Labor Day: What Your Day Job Brings to Your Writing (and vice versa)

Once, during a job interview, one of the interviewers confessed that she had google-ed me.

Then, she asked me if, as a creative writer, I actually had time for any other work—including that potential job.

This wasn’t friendly small talk between two just-met strangers.

Instead, everything about this woman told me that she believed I was capable of short changing the part of my life that mattered (day job) to feed the other (creative writing and teaching).

She couldn’t have been rude-er. She couldn’t have been wrong-er.

Do You Have Time to Write? Do You? Really?

Hasn’t it happened to you? You’re so gob-smacked by a stranger’s question that, at best, you respond with something evasive or inadequate.

Then, hours or days afterward, when the cocktail party or the job interview is all over, you think of all those clever things you could or should have said.

After that interview, here’s what I would have said: For the past 25 or more years, it’s because I work a busy day job that I can be a creative writer. And vice versa.

I would have also mentioned that being creative writers makes us empathetic colleagues and how good empathy makes for good workplaces. Also, for centuries, big and medium-name creative writers have worked in all sorts of roles and industries and jobs.

So today, on Labor Day, if you’re a writer with a day job, let me assure you that your writing and your job don’t have to compete or detract from each other.

What a Day Job Brings to Our Writing

Money:  A recent Authors Guild study of $5,000+ creative writers (memoir, fiction, essays, poetry, drama et al) showed that, based on book sales alone, writers make approximately $3,000 per year. If you’ve figured out a way to live on that, good for you! But collection agencies make very, very poor writing mentors. Without a roof over your head and food in your fridge, you will not write.

Creative freedom:  When the bills are paid, we are not as susceptible to the fads and fashions of the publishing industry. We can say ‘no’ to those freelance gigs that won’t augment our portfolios, build our Curriculum Vitae and that will probably yield more headaches than fiscal stability. When the bills are paid, we can write what really matters to us.

Time and project management: A day job gives us dual experience in (a) meeting set deadlines and (b) planning and managing a roster of projects. Both of these skills will support and advance the creative life.

Tenacity: There really are no free lunches. So the tenacity and problem-solving skills we learn and practice at work carry over into our writing lives. A writing project has stalled? An editor or agent is ghosting? We need to be good at defusing disagreements, setting next steps and developing a workable contingency plan.

So wherever you work, this Labor Day, I hope you’re writing. Also, I hope you’ll take a moment to be grateful for what your day job gives you and, just as important, what it gives to your writing.

How to Prepare for Your Next Author Reading or Book Event

How to prepare for your book launch or author reading.

I love to tell stories, so here’s a tale about the worst — and I mean the absolute, down-and-out worst — public author reading I’ve ever attended.

I recognized this author’s name on the conference lineup, but I hadn’t read any of his literary works. Then, shortly after our Saturday lunch, he took the stage, where, instead of facing his audience, he read with his back to us. Really. He faced the back of the stage.

He was difficult to hear. At the end, following that extended view of the author’s rear end, folks around me clapped and whispered, “Oh, he’s a genius. An eccentric genius.”

“Genius” was not among the comments zinging through my own mind. In fact, I longed to go up there and remind our young author that manners really do maketh the man.

So that’s my worst-case scenario or horror story.

There have been a few runners up, like that time I was on a literary panel with someone who dropped f-bombs galore, then, halfway through the Q & A session, he set his head on the desk for a little nap. The other panelist and I had to carry the rest of the show as our boy snoozed (or pretended to) beside me.

Or there was that tardy chappie who left us all — the audience, the moderator and us, his fellow panelists — on stage waiting. When he finally arrived, he read a politically-provocative piece that (no surprise) stoked and polarized our audience. As Chappie faced off with a particularly argumentative audience member, the rest of us sat twiddling our thumbs and praying for a microphone failure.

So these are my top three enfants terribles tales from the book-presentation world. In addition to these, there were those authors who arrived unprepared, uncombed, or who ignored the pre-event directions to read way, way past their allotted time (a big no-no).

By the way, I just realized that all of my enfants terribles authors were male.

Great and Gracious Authors

Now, let’s talk about those other authors who arrive promptly and prepared to give the book event their all.

They are groomed and gracious and respectful.

For example, a few weeks ago, I attended a two-author book launch in which the two mystery writers interviewed each other. I rarely read mystery fiction, but the event was lively and informative, as was the audience Q & A session that followed.

Why? Because these two authors made it happen that way.

4 Tips to Prepare for a Great Author Book Reading or Literary Panel Presentation

1. It’s all About Your Audience

Hand on heart: I’ve never, ever read with my back to my audience.

However, when I look back at my own author presentations — especially in the early days — there are some that, at best, were ‘meh.’

So what or how could I have done it better? What or who had I neglected or shortchanged?

The audience.

The audience.

Did I mention the audience?

2. Choose and Practice What You’re Going to Read Ahead of Time

Launching a new book? Choose the excerpt to read and practice reading it aloud ahead of the event. Read only up to or less than your allotted time. Time yourself. Choose an excerpt that’s self-contained. Or a scene that showcases the book or the story’s central dilemma or plot. The opening is always a good selection.

3. Author, Be Humble

So you’ve just had a book released. It may be destined to become a bestseller or optioned for a Hollywood blockbuster. But you haven’t solved world hunger or global warming or discovered a permanent cure for rare pediatric or adult cancers. Have you?

So be humble. Not self-effacing. Not humble-bragging. Just humble and human and grateful.

4. Be Yourself

Nobody expects a stand-up comedy show or a free writing seminar. So just give us you. As we sit there before you, we’ve abandoned our living rooms or our after-dinner coffees just to come out and hear you.

So inspire us.

Impress us.

Include us.

Engage us.

Enjoyed this article? You may also enjoy: 5 Tips for Doing Great Author Events, Readings and Presentations.

Check out my upcoming author events at the News page.

How to Get The Most out of Your Writers Retreat

I'm on deadline for part of a book and a brand new essay and oh, yes, I need to catch up on some emails.  So I did what always works: I packed up my notebooks, laptop, books, pens and sweat pants and booked myself a room at my favorite retreat for artists and writers. This is Day 3 and the last night of my short residency. 

I've been here before. And before.

Fifteen years ago, shortly after it was opened, I was one of the retreat's first residents, and now I'm a frequent flyer. I've come here in winter, spring, summer and fall. I've come when I've been under deadline, under stress, under duress and, once, after a family bereavement, in that underwater silence that is grief and loss. 

I've done my best work here.  I am my best self here.  I am equal parts productive and contemplative and have often banged out 60 - 100 pages in one long weekend (O.k., so during those mega-output stints, the personal hygiene is .. ahem .. spotty). 

Tonight, I just had one of those great writer-retreat conversations.  

Downstairs, at our lamplit dinner table, the retreat 's assistant director was marveling over how resident writers just seem to naturally and automatically respect each other's space--much more so than, say, passengers in an airport or guests in a hotel.  

"Do you think there's some secret or art to this?" She asked. "To being on writers retreat?" 

"Yes,"  I said. "Yes. Yes. and, well ... um .. Yes." 

"You're sure about that?" she teased. 

I laughed. 

There is an art. It isn't enough to just book a flight or plug the retreat address into your GPS and "head west, young writer."  Whether you're booked for a week or a weekend or a month, you will need to be ready and prepared to ... well ... retreat.   

Based on 15 years' experience (I also write about this in my book, "Writer with a Day Job") here are my personal tips:  

6 Tips For Getting The Most Out of Your Writers Retreat

1. Alone or with writer friends? This depends on the friends and what you're working on.  If you're collaborating on a project, then a few days away together works perfectly. But when you go on writer's retreat with a friend or friends, make sure to establish work time and socializing time and to stick to your mutual agreement. If you do go in a small group, respect the other residents (outside of your group). Unless you've reserved every single room, it's not your group's exclusive space. 

2. Writing materials: Pack what you will need (laptop, charger, thumb drive, printed manuscript with hand-edits, audio interviews, books, research notes). But leave yourself open to new possibilities, new sides of yourself. Bring a few paper notebooks and pens. Once you settle into this slower, complete-immersion space and pace, you may want to mix it up and try new writing tools and approaches.

3. Food: Unless the place includes a meal plan, pack some easy-cook or easily defrosted or ready-to-eat meals. Yes, it's fun to join in communal writer dinners. But you're really here to work, not perfect new recipes or waste time driving around looking for local restaurants. A must have: One ready-to-eat meal for that arrival day or night when you'll probably be travel weary and just getting unpacked and used to the vibe. 

4. Be open to new experiences, new people, a new way of being and writing: Especially if this is your first retreat, and especially if you're used to writing on the fly or snagging time in between parental or other family duties, the solitude may take some adjustment time. Be ready for that. Allow yourself at least one day to settle in. Resist the urge to call home and check in. Ditto for social media and email. And if you must check in at home, assign yourself one check-in time each day.  

5. Set a goal and have a plan: Yes, I know I said you have to leave yourself open and go with the flow.  But with all this unfettered, unpunctuated time stretching ahead, make sure you don't just waste these precious hours or days. Set yourself some goals. Have a loose plan for what you will accomplish by retreat's end.  

6. This is not like a professional conference: If you work a second, non-writing day job (and which of us doesn't?), expect a retreat to be very different from a professional conference.  For one thing, it's unstructured, non-instructional time, without breakout sessions or round tables or focus groups.  And for another, it's all about respecting your own and your fellow writers' space and solitude and silence. Although you may have fascinating or fun chats, the primary focus is on working, not NETworking. 

Are you extra or less productive when you write away from home or go on writers retreats? If extra productive, share you personal tips. If less productive, what does work for you?