Nov 06 2009
Bait and Switch
Well, it’s not quite a bait and switch, but it’s close enough to get me a little angry.
It’s not uncommon to get cheated in the freelance writing market, and writers need to be very careful when searching for gigs to help pay the bills. I’ve passed over plenty of jobs because either the job posting or the response to my application raised a few red flags (usually it’s that the pay is so far below minimum wage that it would be a waste of time to actually do the work).
Yesterday I got another, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as others I’ve encountered. The job promised a certain amount of money for articles–not a lot, but a decent amount for an article that should only take an hour or two. They responded with a contract to sign and return. In that contract I noticed something that wasn’t mentioned in the original post. It seems that only a few articles would qualify for the specific pay mentioned. All others would be paid at a rate that was less than half the original amount–bringing the pay to less than minimum wage (unless it’s possible to write a four-page article in less than an hour).
Still, because of how bad the job market looks, I will attempt to do the work. Fortunately, because it’s freelance work, I can quit anytime. Plus, it still pays more than the content sites.
