4 ms·

Is anyone else a bit surprised at these wages, on the high side? I mean certainly it's not a lot hourly and there must be a lot of uncertainty (writing pieces o

Is anyone else a bit surprised at these wages, on the high side? I mean certainly it's not a lot hourly and there must be a lot of uncertainty (writing pieces on spec etc) but Buzzfeed giving $.50 a word for a 6000 word article is $3000... Which is better than I had assumed. But maybe that's just me.

aaronbrethorst 10y ago
Heavy/Investigative reporting Buzzfeed paid $3000 for something that likely took several times longer to investigate than it did to write. If it takes you a month—from start to finish—to create a piece like this, then you're making $36,000/year. And that's if you're lucky.
- ghaff 10y ago
  It's hard to say what "heavy/investigative reporting" means in the context of Buzzfeed. I don't expect we're talking multi-month government corruption investigative journalism. But a couple of weeks to a month is still pretty reasonable for a 6000 word story that requires setting up and conducting a bunch of interviews and doing other research. My rule of thumb has generally been about 1000 words a day not counting any heavy research so your numbers seem pretty reasonable. Furthermore, freelancers rarely have a fully booked schedule and they need to spend time on tasks like prospecting for new work. In a prior life, we'd get paid very nicely on a daily basis for consulting and other custom/semi-custom work. But the reality was that we weren't actually on the clock very much and spent a lot of time maintaining the knowledge base that let us do those jobs when they came along.
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    Buzzfeed are producing some truly remarkable investigative work. https://www.buzzfeed.com/markschoofs/jaw-dropping-investigations-we-published-in-2015 https://www.buzzfeed.com/markschoofs/jaw-dropping-investigat...
  - greedo 10y ago
    My tech writing was pretty lucrative since I was pretty fluent in the content. I spent more time coordinating review units, generating good photos (when PR provided imagery wasn't suitable), and dealing with editors. I could write 2-3k words in a day after having mentally written it in my mind over the previous weak. If the subject matter was something that I was unfamiliar with, the time investment to be able to discuss it consumed more. I was always better when I procrastinated anyways; pressure would require me to distill my writing down to the core essentials.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      That reflects most of my experiences. I usually thought in terms of an average "production day" which was usually about half of an actual day writing with the rest of the day researching, "researching," and doing various client work. Of course, it varied. We often talked in terms of "memo grade" writeups for things like summarizing an advisory day which fell more in the 2K words/day range. On the other hand, I've spent the better part of a day trying to figure how to get into a piece and then ending up throwing away the whole introduction the next day.
      - greedo 10y ago
        "throwing away the whole introduction the next day." Too true! My wife always talked about how much I was paid per word; not understanding that I might write 5000 words for a 2k article. I got much better over time, but that was due to honing my skills at procrastination more than anything else.
- cylinder 10y ago
  These pieces involve lots of investigation and travel to meet sources, I'm pretty sure. The last BuzzFeed in-depth report I read certainly did. If so, this is really a paltry sum. It's not a 6000 word opinion essay we're talking about, there's heavy loads of research involved.
loudandskittish 10y ago
I was in journalism school in 2004 and almost all the older journalists I met lamented the fact that high end publications were paying $1.00 per word and had been since the 1970s. There had never been any kind of adjustment for inflation.
- dasil003 10y ago
  With the rise of the internet, I think the written-word sector of the economy has inflated more than any other.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    I find your comment puzzling. Are you arguing that volume has increased? I can't imagine how average compensation has increased, given the prevalence of free.
    - dasil003 10y ago
      I sort of meant it in a reverse way, with words as currency. When a currency inflates there is more of it and it is devalued, that's the situation with article-style content these days. Instead of being obtuse, what I probably should have said is that we have a supply glut.
      - mirimir 10y ago
        OK, I get it. Word inflation. Totally makes sense.
- scholia 10y ago
  Average payments have gone down. In my experience, the best rates are for stuff that gets printed, where rates have historically not changed much for decades. However, rates for web-only stories are often much lower than for print, and sometimes you get a flat fee regardless of length. The result is that you can produce more words today for less money than you made in the print-only 1980s.
- 10y ago
rtpg 10y ago
6000 words takes a lot of time to write. That's a lot of conversations with sources, research, etc. Though hard to know depending on the article.

aaronbrethorst 10y ago

Heavy/Investigative reporting Buzzfeed paid $3000 for something that likely took several times longer to investigate than it did to write. If it takes you a month—from start to finish—to create a piece like this, then you're making $36,000/year. And that's if you're lucky.

ghaff 10y ago
It's hard to say what "heavy/investigative reporting" means in the context of Buzzfeed. I don't expect we're talking multi-month government corruption investigative journalism. But a couple of weeks to a month is still pretty reasonable for a 6000 word story that requires setting up and conducting a bunch of interviews and doing other research. My rule of thumb has generally been about 1000 words a day not counting any heavy research so your numbers seem pretty reasonable. Furthermore, freelancers rarely have a fully booked schedule and they need to spend time on tasks like prospecting for new work. In a prior life, we'd get paid very nicely on a daily basis for consulting and other custom/semi-custom work. But the reality was that we weren't actually on the clock very much and spent a lot of time maintaining the knowledge base that let us do those jobs when they came along.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  Buzzfeed are producing some truly remarkable investigative work. https://www.buzzfeed.com/markschoofs/jaw-dropping-investigations-we-published-in-2015 https://www.buzzfeed.com/markschoofs/jaw-dropping-investigat...
- greedo 10y ago
  My tech writing was pretty lucrative since I was pretty fluent in the content. I spent more time coordinating review units, generating good photos (when PR provided imagery wasn't suitable), and dealing with editors. I could write 2-3k words in a day after having mentally written it in my mind over the previous weak. If the subject matter was something that I was unfamiliar with, the time investment to be able to discuss it consumed more. I was always better when I procrastinated anyways; pressure would require me to distill my writing down to the core essentials.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    That reflects most of my experiences. I usually thought in terms of an average "production day" which was usually about half of an actual day writing with the rest of the day researching, "researching," and doing various client work. Of course, it varied. We often talked in terms of "memo grade" writeups for things like summarizing an advisory day which fell more in the 2K words/day range. On the other hand, I've spent the better part of a day trying to figure how to get into a piece and then ending up throwing away the whole introduction the next day.
    - greedo 10y ago
      "throwing away the whole introduction the next day." Too true! My wife always talked about how much I was paid per word; not understanding that I might write 5000 words for a 2k article. I got much better over time, but that was due to honing my skills at procrastination more than anything else.
cylinder 10y ago
These pieces involve lots of investigation and travel to meet sources, I'm pretty sure. The last BuzzFeed in-depth report I read certainly did. If so, this is really a paltry sum. It's not a 6000 word opinion essay we're talking about, there's heavy loads of research involved.

loudandskittish 10y ago

I was in journalism school in 2004 and almost all the older journalists I met lamented the fact that high end publications were paying $1.00 per word and had been since the 1970s. There had never been any kind of adjustment for inflation.

dasil003 10y ago
With the rise of the internet, I think the written-word sector of the economy has inflated more than any other.
- mirimir 10y ago
  I find your comment puzzling. Are you arguing that volume has increased? I can't imagine how average compensation has increased, given the prevalence of free.
  - dasil003 10y ago
    I sort of meant it in a reverse way, with words as currency. When a currency inflates there is more of it and it is devalued, that's the situation with article-style content these days. Instead of being obtuse, what I probably should have said is that we have a supply glut.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      OK, I get it. Word inflation. Totally makes sense.
scholia 10y ago
Average payments have gone down. In my experience, the best rates are for stuff that gets printed, where rates have historically not changed much for decades. However, rates for web-only stories are often much lower than for print, and sometimes you get a flat fee regardless of length. The result is that you can produce more words today for less money than you made in the print-only 1980s.
10y ago

rtpg 10y ago

6000 words takes a lot of time to write. That's a lot of conversations with sources, research, etc. Though hard to know depending on the article.