I think you have a slight misunderstanding about what "pay per word" means in the writing business. Publications don't just tell writers they're getting $.05 pe

I think you have a slight misunderstanding about what "pay per word" means in the writing business. Publications don't just tell writers they're getting $.05 per word and then let them run off and produce as many words as they want. Rather, they tend to have word limits and expectations per article: 500, 1000, etc. The reasons they pay "per word," and not necessarily a flate rate per piece, are several: a) They want to reserve the right to edit the final piece and/or change word count expectations on the fly. b) There might be additional work added to the work order, such as sidebars or supplementary appendices. Rather than draw up an entirely new contract or fee structure, they'll just add these to word count. All in, pay-per-word usually ends up underpaying writers for their contributions to typical publications or advertisements. Pay-per-word doesn't take into account hours per article, which can be highly variable depending on the nature of the assignment. An in-depth research project yielding a 1,000 word essay is obviously harder to produce than a 1,000 word opinion piece about men's fashion.