Notes from a Hired Pen: Mailbag time! Questions about my year in review

Readers!

Thank you so much for the feedback on my year in review. I especially appreciate the comments about also recognizing I might stop doing it for personal reasons. Boundaries recognized. Hooray!

A few of you had follow up questions, which were posted in different places, so I’m going to answer them all here. I’ve trimmed them a bit for clarity.

Did you accept rates that you might not have accepted in the past?

No, and for two reasons.

First, even though I was worried about my income last year, I don’t need to make six figures in order to survive. I support my household entirely on my income (and goodness knows I pay more taxes for being self-employed and single, and I need to save a lot for retirement), but my overhead is otherwise low. I don’t have children, so I’m not paying for whatever they require while trying to save for them to go to college, haven’t had student loans since Obama’s first term, and my only debt is my mortgage…on a house I bought in 2018 with a mortgage I refinanced during peak COVID-era lows. I say all that because even if I was going to earn less, I’d live, and I didn’t need to take work that I knew was not going to pay well. I didn’t have any clients try to reduce my rates, but I did have a few stinker offers thrown my way by people who — whether they did it on purpose or not — thought it would be totally fine to pay me what would have worked out to be lower than New Jersey’s minimum wage if I calculated a per hour rate. One said that a lower rate should be OK because there was so much work, as if taking up the bulk of my working hours with with a trash paying assignment was a good thing? Another said I should take it because they really wanted to work with me. Well, then pay me what I’m worth! I was able to say no to all that because financially I knew I would be fine. I know that’s not reality for everyone.

Second, I was a freelancer during the Great Recession, and to make ends meet, I did marketing work on site for a client. I spent most of my time there writing proposals for multi-million dollar dollar construction projects, which meant I was often in the room when the executive team discussed what rate they would charge if they got the job. Despite it being a terrible economy, they refused to drop their rates to the floor because they knew that taking a job that would barely cover their costs could mean disaster if one thing went wrong; and because they knew if clients got used to seeing that lower rate, it would be almost impossible push it back to up to normal later on when the economy improved. And if the stated rate was too low, they didn’t bother to bid at all, and the same was true with owners that were known to be assholes to companies they hired. I learned a lot from sitting in those meetings, and the experience still impacts how I price my work today.

Since you mentioned working less, would you be willing to share how many hours you worked?

I don’t track my hours because the idea of doing so gives me hives, but I would guess I work between 25 and 30 hours a week (not including vacation). I also found that 2025 was pretty streaky, with deadlines that clustered at certain time of the year. So one week I might have worked 45 hours, and another 20, though I would often fill in lower times with marketing work.

I worry less about the ebbs now because I know more work is coming, largely because I market so much. It’s the key thing that’s helped me keep my business afloat.

Does the income match the effort? Did the one third of income from association pubs match the time you put into it? Did you discover that you worked too hard for the amount of any income from any particular stream?

I think these questions all ask the same thing, so I’m going to answer them together.

Most people I write for pay me per word, but I’m always calculating the per hour rate. The clock starts ticking when I begin researching a pitch, and ends when I’m paid. I do that for everybody — association publications, consumer pubs, all the way down.

With association publications, I rarely pitch. Instead, they come to me with ideas (and usually source suggestions) and I write from there. That cuts out an enormous amount of time, especially when compared to consumer pubs where editors often want well researched pitches despite a high rate of saying no, or not responding at all. Some will even make you do multiple rounds of revisions on a pitch and then trash it. It all counts in the per hour equation. I’ve also had an extraordinarily difficult time getting paid by these mega companies, which is why I just don’t pitch them that much anymore. The bullshit was not worth the rates they were paying (and many aren’t pay that much better than other kinds of publications these days anyway).

The association publications I write for all have a high per hour rate because of how little pitching is required, and I have excellent, smart, efficient editors who also make sure I’m paid on time. I have written for some that don’t do any of these things, which means I don’t write for them anymore.

The one exception to this is if there’s something I really want published just because I want it published either in general or for a specific audience, and I’ll take a lower rate on those projects. For example, I was paid peanuts for an op-ed I wrote about having a chaos dog, but I wanted to share that to a lager audience. Unfortunately, the Philadelphia Inquirer is now requiring all freelancers to sign work made for hire agreements (where they own all rights for all eternity), so even that paltry rate isn’t worth it anymore. If they’re going to pay me a pittance, I need to at least keep the copyright to my work.

Got more questions? Hit the contact box.

Recent Bylines

“One Year After California Wildfires: A Nurse Reflects on Frontline Care,” UCSF School of Nursing

“How CIOs can brace for AI-fueled cyberthreats,” CIO Dive

‘Top 5 hospitality trends to watch in 2026,” Hotel Dive

What I’m Reading

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer, read by Michael Page. I could say this book, which was published in 1955, is a classic, but I view it more as a vital historical document. Mayer was an American research professor at Frankfurt University after World War II when he conducted regular interviews with 10 “regular” Nazis — a baker, a bank clerk, a bill collector, etc. If you’re wondering why your previously rational seeming family members and friends, who have lived comfortable, normal lives, are now talking like Nazis, this book can help you understand how that happened. And if it’s too much (the book is a lot), you can read this key excerpt provided by the University if Chicago Press or the Wiki page for the book. Also, I’m sorry if you’re going through this. I have been too. When I say supporters of this regime are not welcome here, I mean in my life too. It’s hard, which is also why I talk about it. Another reading recommendation: The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesslyn Cook. It helped me enormously.

What I’m Watching

Outrageous. I watched this show the same time I was listening They Thought They Were Free, and while I can’t say they pair “well,” they do line up. It’s based on the true story of the Mitford Sisters (and based on The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell, which I also recommend) who all grew up in the same household with the same parents and the same set of financial circumstances and went in completely different directions. Sophie Brookover of Two Bossy Dames also wrote about Outrageous this week, and described them as so (and by the way, this does spoil things, but it’s nearly 100 year old history. I don’t know if you can spoil it but here’s your warning!) “They were IT Girls, all doing things like divorcing an heir to the Guinness fortune to run off with Britain’s fascist-in-chief, Oswald Mosley (Diana); eloping with one of Churchill’s nephews and devoting her early life to Communist causes (Jessica); becoming one of England’s leading purveyors of comedies of manners (Nancy). The other three sisters did things like become the Duchess of Devonshire (Deborah) and befriend Hitler (Unity). As one apparently does when one is a Mitford!” I hope there’s a season two because season one stops right before World War II. And I’m going to add one more note for those still reading. Diana and Unity Mitford often show up in fictional books about World War II, including in the novels by a British author whose works I loved until I realized she’s horrifically transphobic. If someone who claims to be an expert on World War II can still glaze over the fact that Nazis started targeting and brutalizing transgender people in the 1930s, anyone can get sucked into a new fascist movement if there’s enough hate in already in their hearts.
Spinal Tap II The End Continues. This was a pleasantly silly movie with a lot call outs to fans of the original movie, but it was also sad to watch given it’s one of Rob Reiner’s last projects. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it. Silly is necessary sometimes.
The Life of Chuck. An odd one. It’s based on a Stephen King novella and in it, the world is ending. While the environment and society collapses, advertisements congratulating Chuck Krantz on 39 great years! start appearing in odder and odder places. I had to read a few discussions about the movie to understanding the ending, which is not in the movie’s favor, but I have been thinking about it still a week later, which is. Might be worth checking out so it can roll around your brain too.
Apples Never Fall. In this miniseries, an exasperated mother and wife disappears, and it sure does seem like her husband killed her. Or did he? I read the book this is based on, which meant I knew the ending, making the whole things low stakes viewing. I have the same criticism too, though I have that for just about all of Liane Moriarty’s books: that she gives too much of as pass to the actions of mediocre men. I did appreciate that way the series tackled what it’s like trying to navigate family dynamics when you’re one of four adults children whose lives are vastly different. It’s an experience.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. This is an ultra-violent, Guy Ritchie take on a real life black ops team behind Operation Postmaster, based on a book of roughly the same name. I can’t say it’s a very good movie, but there is something cathartic in watching hot dudes with posh British beat the piss out of Nazis.

Nail Polish of the Week

Toned Down by Essie. It’s all a bit dreary, isn’t it? So gray nails. I also participated in the Write to Change the World workshop through the Op-Ed Project last week (I’m a mentor-editor there) and wanted something dark because I think it shows up better on screen.

And before you go!!!! It’s Girl Scout Cookie time, and if you’re looking for a scout to support, Erin in the Morning has a list of trans scouters you can buy from. And remember, one of the reasons that the Boy Scouts now lets girls in isn’t because of equal rights, but because some terrible parents think the Girl Scouts is “too woke” for doing things like…empowering girls. ALL GIRLS. So cookie shop away!

If you have a problem with me being outspoken about any of this, leave. Denzel will show you out.