There are more than a few articles and commentary pieces posted online written by freelance writers who have been in the business for decades. These writers often go into great detail talking about how they once could spend all day or even all week researching a piece, writing it, editing it, and more to develop quality work, and at one time there were clients and publications who paid them very handsomely for their efforts.

They complain about how freelance writers today have essentially been turned into sweatshop workers, working for low rates that encourage them to churn at low quality work in an effort to keep typing away so they have enough to pay their bills.

Times Have Changed

Clearly, the internet has indeed changed the landscape for freelance writers. Few freelance writers today could imagine spending a full day working one article, much less a full week! This is content that is largely going onto websites some where to be picked up by search engines, quickly read, and then cast aside, and so the fact is that most of this type of work doesn’t need to be well-researched and it largely doesn’t require a writer to conduct site visits anywhere, interview people to quote in the article and so forth.

Opportunities Are Still Present

While the large majority of opportunities for freelance writers today are more about quantity than quality (although quality does matter even with today’s pieces), the fact is that those assignments from yesteryear are still present. There is a decline, though, in the popularity of print media like newspapers and magazines, and so while you can still find gigs that pay well for your well-researched pieces that took a week to compose, the pay on these may indeed be lower than what long-time writers are used to.

Not All Assignments Are Created Equal

The bottom line is that not all assignments are created equal. Some people are still very much interested in paying writers for quality work, whether that work is intended for the internet or other formats. Others, however, do indeed offer insultingly low offers for pay, and many writers do avoid these like the plague. Each writer has a minimum amount he or she will work for. For some, this may equate to $15 per hour, and for others it may equate to $50 or more per hour. The fact is that as a freelance writer you can pick and choose which of the many assignments you actually want to work on. There are more assignments available to choose from now than there ever been in the past, and this means that there should be plenty of assignments for everyone who wants to write for a living to choose from.

So are freelance writers paid what they are worth? Because your pay as a freelance writer is essentially in your own hands based on which assignments you choose to work on, the answer to this question is that you should indeed be getting paid what you feel your services are worth!