This is an updated version of an article I published on this very website in 2015. In my experience, it absolutely applies to artists, teachers and other creatives as well as writersor consultants. Unfortunately, nothing much has changed — except, perhaps, that asking people to work for nothing is not really acceptable. This updated version first appeared in my Eclecticism newsletter. Click the graphic below to have a rummage around for free.

This article is not about writing or consulting or related matters as such; it's more about my experience of attitudes to paying for work. It's worth reading, I think, if any of the following applies to you:

• You're thinking of asking a consultant to do some work.

• You’ve been asked to provide consultancy work.

• You're thinking of asking a writer to do some work.

• You have some students who are hoping to earn money from writing.

• You are thinking of writing yourself for magazines or other publications.

• You’re asked to speak at or write for a major conference.

I Still Can’t Levitate!

It is a source of constant disappointment to me that, despite learning to meditate in 1973 and practising almost every day since then, I am still unable to live on air alone. Yet that seems to be the assumption of some people and, especially, large organisations when it comes to offering me work. I’m not sure if I’m becoming more sensitive in my old age, but it seems to me to be happening more and more: a company organises a conference, say, or a new magazine or a website, and asks people to contribute (and therefore help the company to earn money) in return for — zilch.

Not all the time, of course. Fortunately, I receive more offers of payment than non-payment, but even so. It rankles.

I'm not alone, either. I've read articles by, and spoken to, many people in different fields, and the story is the same. From individual potential "clients" the phrase is:

"I was wondering if you could just...".

From corporations the mantra is:

"We don't have a budget..."

or:

"Could you help us bid for a big project".

I've heard or read the same thing from education consultants, freelance writers, copywriters, graphic designers and artists, to name but a few.

“Work” Usually Implies Payment

For example, I received an email a few years ago from someone asking me if I could just look at the school policy document he'd written. I responded by saying "Yes, this is just the kind of work I do." I think the word "work", with its implication of a fee, put them off, because I heard nothing further.

On another occasion, someone persuaded me to write a couple of pages of a software manual, in return for the possibility of being commissioned to write the whole manual. I did the work, and they liked it. So much so that they offered me the work — in return for “exposure”. I noticed that they didn’t give their software away for nothing in order to gain exposure.

To expect someone to work for nothing is insulting. It implies that although you value their expertise, you don't value it enough to want to actually pay for it. Perhaps it's because they think it won't take the person very long to give an opinion. And they may well be right. It may take me only an hour or so, for example, to look at a document and make suggestions on how it might be improved. But it's not just an hour: it's an hour plus over 40 years.

As an old joke (which isn't really a joke) runs like this: someone calls an engineer out to fix a problem. The engineer whacks a pipe with a hammer, and everything starts working again.

"That will be £500 please", says the engineer.

"What?!", says the customer. "£500 for banging it with a hammer?".

"No", says the engineer. "Banging it with a hammer costs £1. Knowing where to hit the hammer costs £499."

I suppose at this juncture I ought to turn my attention to Substack. Am I saying that we should all pay for premium subscriptions to newsletters here? No, of course not. That would be untenable and unreasonable. And if I’m so concerned about getting paid for my writing, why do I give away so much for free, both here and elsewhere? Shouldn’t I be demanding that people pay?

Well, the key issue here is that I’m not ripping myself off. I’m not giving away my rights to a third party. My beef is with companies that can afford to pay their writers, and choose not to.

Respect

I also think it shows a remarkable lack of self-respect on the part of the person or company asking for something for nothing. I, for instance, would never have the gall to walk into a shop and ask if I could have one of their products free of charge. Apart from anything else, I'd feel ashamed at presenting myself as a charity case.

As the Staple Singers, Joe Cocker and several others have enjoined us, “Respect Yourself!”

Bob Bly, a freelance copywriter, wrote in his free newsletter:

"As incredible as it sounds, a lot of my subscribers want – even expect -- me to work for them for free.I don't think they are bad people. They mean well. But listen ... asking me to work for you without offering to pay me is at best in bad taste, at worst extremely insulting."

(Reproduced with permission from Bob Bly: http://bly.com/new/index.html).

It’s A Common Problem

A graphic designer has experienced the same thing, as related in this email exchange. I'm not sure if these emails are real, but they illustrate the point I'm making in a very humorous manner: Graphic Design emails. (Warning: some 'robust' language is used).

A cousin of mine was a freelance graphic designer who ran her own design agency based in Los Angeles (she is sadly deceased now). She experienced the same thing as I have even though hers was a completely different field of expertise to mine, and she lived halfway over the other side of the world. She told me:

"I think there is a lot of age discrimination, not just because companies think that if you are over 35 all of your creative brain cells have died, but also because they can offer much lower wages to someone just out of school. I know many designers who have been let go and even told by their creative directors that they had to cut someone and they chose the person who had been there the longest because they were making the biggest salary and taking too much of the budget.

"As for working for nothing, many companies have asked me to show them a design and then, if they don't like it, they don't want to pay for it. They assigned the work; I tell them 'If you hired an accountant and you didn't like the way he did your books, you'd still have to pay him for his time.'

"Finally, my favourite example is an ad I'd seen in the classifieds for a designer: 'Must have 7 years experience in Adobe Suite and Microsoft programs, as well as hand drawing and painting skills. Bachelor's degree required. ENTRY LEVEL POSITION.' FYI entry level translates to low wages."

In the field of the creative arts, the people at the end of the queue for payment, apart from a relatively few big names, are the writers, designers and artists – ie, the people without whom the projects wouldn't even exist!

Philip Pullman resigned from the Oxford Literary Festival over this very issue. As he put it:

“The principle is very simple: a festival pays the people who supply the marquees, it pays the printers who print the brochure, it pays the rent for the lecture halls and other places, it pays the people who run the administration and the publicity, it pays for the electricity it uses, it pays for the drinks and dinners it lays on: why is it that the authors, the very people at the centre of the whole thing, the only reason customers come along and buy their tickets in the first place, are the only ones who are expected to work for nothing?”

The Education Sphere

My background is in education and education consultancy. Part of the problem, as in other areas, is that new consultants think that by offering their services for nothing they are going to build up goodwill. In my opinion, all they are doing is announcing to the world that they don't think they're worth very much. That doesn't do them any good, and it certainly doesn't do the rest of us much good. As any school student studying Economics will tell you, all a price war does is get rid of some of the players in the market. Unfortunately, the ones that leave are not necessarily the worst at what they do, and the ones that remain are not necessarily the best. They just happen to have the largest cash reserves.

It’s not just educational consultancy either. I’ve been invited to speak, run workshops and write blog posts — for nothing.

Personally, I have never entered into a price war; in the end, nobody wins from one. Not even the consumer, because, ultimately, no consultant is going to go the extra mile if they are being paid nothing or next to nothing. Not indefinitely, anyway.

Do I object to giving my opinion on something? No, of course not. In fact, it's rather flattering. Do I object to being asked to work for nothing? Do I really need to answer that question?

Large organisations are, however, worse than individual people. At least individuals have the (flimsy) excuse of not having enough money. I say "flimsy" because in my opinion, if you don't have enough money for something then you organise your budget in such a way that you do. And if you don't have control over your budget, then make a business case to the person who does.

You'd expect large organisations to know better. But here are some of the things I've been asked to do:

• Produce a two-page strategy document overnight, before any discussion about the fee or contract has taken place. When I tried to have such a conversation, my phone calls and emails were unreturned.

• Run two workshops at a conference. I was told there is no budget from which to pay me because the keynote speaker was being paid a five figure fee for his talk.

• Speak at a conference on an area of my expertise (assessing computing and ICT) for free. When I said I couldn't afford to work for nothing, I was offered £100 for "goodwill". That's almost more insulting than the original offer.

• Asked to create resources as part of a major bid that could, if won, be fairly lucrative.

• Asked to create a manual for a software product to see if the company liked my work (as related above).

As Bob Bly, mentioned earlier, says in a follow-up newsletter:

"Ask your handyman to build a shed and tell him that, if you like it, you will pay for it, but if you don't, you won't. Let me know his response."

(You can sign up to Bob Bly's free newsletter by following this link: Bob Bly's newsletter.)

What About Exposure?

Very (very) occasionally I have written for no money (perhaps a dozen times in the last 30 years), but for exposure instead. But when website owners say things like “We have 100,000 followers on Twitter”, that translates to very little impact. Even if every one of those followers saw a link to your article, which is unlikely, it’s doubtful that more than 1000 would actually read it, and probably no more than a dozen or so would start to read your work regularly. That’s because of a phenomenon known as the 1% rule, which is as follows.

From what I have seen (and apparently this is a well-observed phenomenon), in any undertaking only about 1% of the people affected are active in any way. What that means is that, on average, if you write an article that is seen by 100 people, only one of them is going to be moved by your efforts to actually do anything – like subscribe to your own publication. With that in mind, concentrate your efforts on the people who are going to make a difference, and feel pretty good about yourself if two or three people come on board.

The so-called “exposure” you might get is only useful if you operate in a very narrow niche, and the people who are going to see your work are also in that niche. Even then, however, it’s not a great idea to work for nothing for a third party.

At the end of the day, it’s not really about money: it’s about self-respect.

As I mentioned earlier, this updated version of the original article first appeared in my Eclecticism newsletter, much of which is free to access. Click the following graphic to be taken straight there.