*** To learn more about my course, you can read a lengthy
extract at http://www.nickdaws.co.uk/writeany.htm, then click
through to the publisher's website to read some of the many
testimonials!


2. Article - Setting Fees

I was pleased to receive a nice e-mail from E-Writer subscriber
Simon Whaley telling me that he enjoys receiving the newsletter
and always finds something of interest in it. That's good to
know, Simon! He also asked if I could say a few words about how,
as a professional freelance writer, I approach setting fees and
giving quotes. It's a very good question, so I'll do my best to
answer it here.

Probably the most important piece of advice I can give about
this task is to avoid doing it at all whenever possible! Here's
why...

If a potential client asks you to quote a fee for a proposed
job, you are immediately stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Quote too much, and the client may simply go elsewhere. Quote
too little and the client will rub his hands in glee, and you'll
end up earning a smaller fee than you could have done.

Nowadays, my preferred strategy when speaking to a client about
a job is to ask him as early as possible in the negotiation
what his budget is. This has various advantages. First, it's
less confrontational - by phrasing it this way, you acknowledge
that the client is circumscribed by the budget he has available.
He won't be paying you out of his own pocket (probably), but he
will almost certainly have a budget for the project that he has
to stay within.

The other advantage of this approach is that you avoid the risk
of underbidding and getting a lower fee than you could have
done. Sometimes I've been pleasantly surprised when a client
tentatively quotes a proposed fee for a job, and I discover that
it is more than I had been expecting!

Of course, you need to have some idea of what is a reasonable
fee for a job. My own approach is the same as any self-employed
tradesman - I have a target hourly rate and multiply this by the
number of hours I think the job will take. I'm not going to tell
you my target rate here (and I don't tell my clients either),
except that it's more than an adult education teacher would earn
but less than a lawyer! This gives me a rough target figure to
aim for. You should do the same whenever a potential job is
being discussed.

If the client quotes a figure below your target fee, of course,
you can try to negotiate a higher one. I find that quite often,
if I can explain why the proposed fee is not enough, it may be
possible to negotiate an increase. As I mentioned above, the
fee is unlikely to come out of your client's own pocket, so if
you can show him why the job will involve more work than he
anticipated, he may be willing to increase his offer.

In my view the best approach is to negotiate around the concept
of 'fairness' for both parties. You need to avoid putting the
potential client into a situation where he feels that if you get
your higher fee, he has somehow 'lost'. The aim is to generate a
Win/Win situation - you get a fair fee, the client gets a good
quality job, and everyone is happy!

Nice as it would be if this approach always worked, on some
occasions you will find that the client has a fixed budget and
is not prepared (or able) to move on it - or at least, not
enough to bring the fee up to the level you want. If you have
exhausted your negotiation skills at this point, you are left
with just two choices - turn down the job, or accept the lower
offer.

In my time I've done both these things. It's a tough call
turning down a job, especially if it's a new client, but as a
freelance you can't afford to take on too many projects that
don't pay. Sometimes, admittedly, you will lose that potential
client forever, but in other cases I've found that the client
actually respects my professionalism and comes back later with a
higher offer, or another job with (mysteriously enough) a more
realistic budget.

I've also accepted jobs that pay below the rate I should really
be getting. Why? All sorts of reasons. Sometimes I really just
like the sound of the job (if someone wants to pay me to write
short stories, for example, I might well accept a lower fee than
my normal one, as I particularly enjoy this sort of work). As a
self-employed freelance, I regard it as my prerogative to take
this type of decision, though obviously I can't afford to do it
all the time. Hopefully, the occasions when I am underpaid are
balanced by the occasions when I am, well, not exactly overpaid,
but get more than my target rate!

In other cases it's happened with editors with whom I have a
good working relationship. For example, a while ago I took on a
job for one of my regular clients, an editor for a games
publishing company. I knew full well that the fee was too low,
but I've known this editor for several years and built up a good
working relationship with him. So when he told me, "I know the
budget for this job is a bit skinny, but I'll see you right with
the next one," I trusted him to keep his word. Sure enough, I've
picked up some quite generous commissions from this editor since
then!

The other situation you may come across is when a new client
offers you a low fee with the promise of more, better paid work
later if he likes the work you do. Once upon a time I used to
accept such deals regularly - now I think twice. Too often I've
put in lots of work for little reward, then never heard any more
from the client concerned. Nowadays I tend to take a harder line
- after all, can you imagine telling a lawyer or accountant
that you'll only be paying them a token fee in the first year,
until you can see whether they're any good or not?!

Obviously, if you're just starting out as a writer, it's very
tempting to accept one of these 'jam tomorrow' offers, but my
advice is - be very careful. All too often the jam never
materialises, and after a while a diet of bread and water
becomes very, very tedious!


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3. Market Info - Miscellany

Here are a few more potential markets for you...

Starting close to home, my local writers group, Lichfield &
District Writers, are now accepting entries for their annual
short story writing competition. Entries can be on any subject
but they must be in English, original, unpublished and no longer
than 2000 words. The top three prizes are £125, £75 and £25, and
there is an entry fee of £3 for your first story, £2 for each
subsequent one. Appraisals are available for an additional fee
of £4 per entry. Entries from overseas are welcome, and should
send multiple IRCs instead of the fees mentioned (see website
for info). The deadline for entries is 30 November 2004. For
full details, including the address to send your story, see the
L&DW website at http://members.lycos.co.uk/Lichfield_Writers/ 

The classic US science fiction magazine Amazing Stories was
relaunched as a monthly title in July 2004. They aim to provide
the definitive editorial voice across science fiction, fantasy,
superheroes and supernatural horror. Most of the stories will be
commissioned from established writers, but unsolicited fiction
of up to 7,000 words will be considered. They are also happy to
consider queries for 1,000 to 4,000 word original feature
articles and shorter pieces for the magazine's departments
(Reviews, 'Things to Come', and so on). Payment is 10 cents per
word plus two contributor's copies. For full guidelines, see the
magazine's website at http://www.paizo.com/amazing. 

Female authors only are invited to submit short stories for
Wicked Words, a series of anthologies of erotic short fiction
published by Virgin Publishing (UK) in their Black Lace imprint.
Stories should be approximately 4,000 - 6,000 words long and not
have been published anywhere in the world (websites excepted).
Ideally stories should have a ‘sting in the tale’ and an element
of dramatic tension. The next three anthologies are Sex on
Holiday (deadline end October 2004), Sex on the Sportsfield
(deadline end January 2005) and Sex in Uniform (deadline end
April 2005). Payment is a flat fee of £200 (about $350) for each
story accepted. Full guidelines can be found on the web page
http://www.virginbooks.com/go/sp/InfoPageErotic_52.html. Have
fun ;-)

Bright Light Multimedia is an Australian website currently
accepting submissions in all the following categories: short
stories (true or fictional), poems (humorous and endearing),
articles, audio scripts (maximum length three minutes), art,
photos, animations and multimedia productions. The major
criteria for submissions is a positive focus. They say they want
readers to feel uplifted and empowered by your creative talents.
There is currently no payment for having your work showcased on
the site. However, in their guidelines they say, 'If your
submission is successfully showcased, it will be considered for
inclusion in future Bright Light Multimedia commercial
projects.' Full guidelines can be viewed at
http://www.brightlightmultimedia.com/SubGuide.htm. 

Blue Mountain Arts is interested in reviewing writings suitable
for publication on greeting cards. They say, 'We are looking for
highly original and creative submissions on love, friendship,
family, special occasions, positive living, and other topics one
person might want to share with another person. Submissions may
also be considered for inclusion in book anthologies. We pay
$300 for all rights and $50 if your poem is used only in an
anthology.' To request a copy of their writers' guidelines, send
a blank e-mail to writings-at-sps.com with "Send Me Guidelines" in
the subject line, or write to: Blue Mountain Arts, Inc., Editorial
Department, Post Office Box 1007, Boulder, CO 80306,
USA.

ePress-Online.com are looking for full-length novels and non-
fiction titles for publication as e-books. Length should be
50,000 to 150,000 words. For non-fiction they are especially
interested in works aimed at helping writers, with particular
emphasis on beginning writers. For fiction, they are mostly
interested in mysteries, fantasy and science fiction, and
strongly character-oriented general fiction. Payment is on a
royalty basis, starting at 30% of the payment received for the
first 1,000 copies sold and increasing to 40% on all copies sold
in excess of 3,500. For full information, see their website at
http://www.epress-online.com. 

Finally, just a reminder that UK mobile phone publishing company
Kwickee, for whom I am a group editor, launches next month, on
21 September. For the benefit of new readers, Kwickee will be
publishing articles and fiction which customers can download via
their mobile (cell) phones, PDAs and the net. Anyone is welcome
to submit material, and writers will receive a proportion of the
payment received every time someone pays to access one of their
contributions. I know several subscribers have submitted work to
Kwickee, and others are involved on the editorial side, so good
luck to all of you - I hope we all start to see a return on our
efforts soon. For further information, see the company web pages
at www.kwickee.com and www.kwickee.info. Note that anyone from
anywhere in the world is welcome to contribute material -
payments to non-UK residents will be made by Paypal.


4. Style File: Parallel Construction

In this feature I examine an aspect of English usage - words,
punctuation, grammar, and so on - which can cause problems for
writers and editors. In this issue I'm looking at parallel
construction.

Parallel construction (also known as parallelism) is a technique
of good writing. It is a way of constructing a sentence to show
that two or more ideas within it are equally important. You do
it by writing the sentence in grammatically parallel form. You
line up a noun with a noun, a verb with a verb, or a phrase with
a phrase. Julius Caesar did it with three simple verbs:

I came; I saw; I conquered.

Winston Churchill did it with four nouns when he told the
British people what to expect during World War II:

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

The need for parallel construction is most clearly seen in
sentences which include use of the conjunctions ‘and’ or ‘or’.
Items linked in this way are parallel and therefore usually need
to be expressed in the same grammatical forms (nouns, verbs,
infinitives, gerunds, adjectives, etc.). Here are some examples
of faulty parallelism, each followed by one or more corrected
versions:

1. To write well and listening well are important communication
skills.

Correct parallel construction:

Writing well and listening well are important communication
skills.
OR
To write well and to listen well are important communication
skills.

2. Remind Sarah to go to the store, the bank and see if the
laundry is ready.

Correct parallel construction:

Remind Sarah to go to the store, deposit her cheque at the bank
and see if the laundry is ready.

3. He wanted three things out of university: to learn a skill,
to make good friends and learning about life.

Correct parallel construction:

He wanted three things out of university: to learn a skill, to
make good friends and to learn about life.

4. The reorganization of the company is neither simple nor will
it be cheap.

Correct parallel construction:

The reorganization of the company is neither simple nor cheap.

5. There’s nothing I like better than putting my feet up,
switching on the TV and to watch one of my favourite videos.

Correct parallel construction:

There’s nothing I like better than putting my feet up, switching
on the TV and watching one of my favourite videos.

Faulty parallelism is quite common among inexperienced writers,
who may feel the need to change some components of a sentence
for the sake of variety (as in many of the examples above).

In general, of course, parallel construction is a stylistic
principle rather than a grammatical rule. Faulty parallelism is
not in itself 'wrong', but if you are guilty of it, your writing
may lack the impact it would otherwise have had. To illustrate
this, I will close with a few classic examples of parallel
construction.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of
blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing
of miseries.

Winston Churchill

A college is a corner of men's hearts where hope has not died.
Here the prison house has not closed; here no battle is yet
quite lost. Here, we assert, endow, and defend as final reality
the best of our dream as men. Here lies our sense of community.

Howard Lowry

We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all
hang separately.

Benjamin Franklin

Do not ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do
for your country.

John F. Kennedy

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected
generally happens.

Benjamin Disraeli


That's it for this issue. I hope you've enjoyed reading it and
found something that may be useful to you. As mentioned earlier,
I'm off on holiday next month, so it may be a little longer than
usual till the next issue - but E-Writer will be back, tanned
and refreshed, before very long!

Happy writing,

Nick


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Nick Daws' CD-based course 'Write Any Book In Under 28 Days'
takes you through every stage of writing a book, from getting
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the course at http://www.nickdaws.co.uk/writeany.htm, then click
through to the publisher's website to read some of the many
testimonials!


----------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright Info

Except where specifically stated, material in E-Writer is
protected by copyright of Nick Daws, 2004. Material from the
newsletter may, however, be reproduced in other online or off-
line publications so long as (a) the text (including any URLs
and e-mail addresses) is not altered in any way, and
(b) the souce is acknowledged and a link or text reference is
provided to my website at http://www.nickdaws.co.uk. Notifying
me is not essential but would be appreciated - please use the e-
mail address above or the link on my site. Many thanks!

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