Why might you want to do this?
As many commenters have pointed out, if a prospective client asks for rates with a cover letter and you don’t include rates, you have technically not followed their directions. Proponents for the include-rate side claim that not following directions to a T will disqualify otherwise qualified writers.

Flickr: DavidDMuir
Too, commenters argue that it’s important to be firm about your rates. I couldn’t agree more. You don’t want to let clients dictate how little they are going to pay you (and in my experience, the ones looking for an upfront quote are often looking for the cheapest labor available).

But isn’t there a better way?
Yes. Let the client make the first move, and open negotiation after you’ve made the initial connection. Here’s why.

Talking about money is rude.
Yes, it’s an old-fashioned etiquette rule, and old-fashioned etiquette is no longer “in,” but these things come from somewhere. Talking about money makes people uncomfortable. If you’re trying to convince a client that you’re a great writer who can solve all his problems, why would you make him uncomfortable at the same time? After you’ve gotten the job, or have done the initial legwork to make a connection and learn about the project (and make the client feel comfortable with you) is the time to bring up money.

You lose your power to negotiate.Flickr: oooh.oooh
Unlike the commenters who believe “negotiation” means “lowering your rate to get the job,” letting the client make the first move is a wise idea. Would you storm into your first job interview, exclaiming “I want $35,000 a year to take this job, not a penny more, not a penny less!” Of course not. You’re going to go in with an idea of what you want and see how closely it meshes with the employer’s idea of your worth. If the numbers are too far off in either direction, you amiably part ways. Otherwise you find wiggle room. A great benefits package, a nice office, or a (written) promise of a 3- or 6-month review can offset a lower salary, or vice versa. Why wouldn’t you do this with your freelance work? A prestigious byline or the opportunity to work with a great editor can justify a lower rate–an annoying client or difficult subject matter warrants a rate hike. And none of this even scratches the surface of the art of negotiation.

If a client’s prepared to pay $500 for a project and you ask for $250 without knowing the budget, you’re either showing yourself to be cheap (in both senses of the word) or, well, cheap and poor, because you could have asked for, and gotten, $400. If you truly believe the project isn’t worth $500, by all means ask for $400—you get more than you’d hoped for and the client gets less than she had expected to pay, and everybody goes home happy.

That’s negotiation. Can you do that by putting everything on the table right away?

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“Well, you’re going to have to start paying them,” I said. (Too frank? The party was hosted by a generous sponsor who’d paid for an open bar.)

Seriously, though, there are three things I just wish editors would do that would make everyone’s lives a little easier. This applies to blog editors as well as those in the print spectrum.

1. Offer pay–and not pennies per word either. If you want people (potential writers) to take you seriously as a business owner and editor, you need to make sure you are taking writers seriously, and offering rates so low that they are a joke is a great way to show how little you care.
2. Offer sample copies, and make them easy to buy. I just tried to get a sample copy of a magazine I liked, but didn’t want to put my credit card number onto their UNSECURE (http:// vs https://) server. When I called and asked if they would take Paypal, I was told that only their merchandise can be paid for through Paypal. This is for a $3 magazine. Now I have to write them a check and stick it in the mail because they can’t code their Web server correctly? I might just skip this mag altogether.
3. Provide writer’s guidelines. It’s really important that writers are familiar with your blog, magazine, or other publication. But on the other hand, I shouldn’t have to sit there with my sample copy counting the number of words in an article so I know how long my piece should be. I shouldn’t have to guess whether a certain department accepts freelance or not. If this is all spelled out in your guidelines (which are online as a PDF or HTML file, not ones that I have to send in a SASE for) you save both of us time.

Feels good to get that off my chest, actually! Editors, take note–you’re affecting my health

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Get more Tuesday’s Tools here

For freelancers, getting paid is just as important as writing. (I wish it weren’t so!) But what if you’re not making as much as you want to be?

Inspired Author asks writers to think about how much they want to make per hour and how to turn that number into a per-project or per-word rate, plus tips for making that number real. A British organization, LondonFreelance, includes conversation-starters for negotiating a higher rate after you’ve built a relationship with a client. Finally, you’ll want to know the going rates for various kinds of writing so you’ll have a platform from which to negotiate.

With one in ten employers actually thinking less of someone who doesn’t try for more money, what do you have to lose? After all, all you’ve got to do is ask.

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Now, granted, I didn’t find myself swimming in work, and I suspect that I priced myself out of the market with many of the ads I did reply to, but I did find a few leads through here. Much more successful was, and still is, local networking and pounding the payment. So now, thanks in part to FWG’s work, I find myself too busy to read FWG every day–which is the goal, isn’t it?

So though your mileage may vary, FWG is free and blessedly concise: just a listing of freelance jobs every day and a few quick posts with writing tips or ideas.

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Also, this is a great resource for anyone building his or her own web site to promote a freelance business.

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The title of this gizmo is a bit of a misnomer, because the tool I’m discussing today is accessed online.

I discovered David Seah’s Printable CEO through Lifehacker (a blog that purports to make people more productive but instead sucks time away by making their posts so damned addictive–curse you, Nick Denton) and have been experimenting with it off and on for the last few months. What I’m using these days is Seah’s online, Flash-based task tracker, and I imagine it’d be great for any writer who needs to boost his or her output, destroy writer’s block, or for anyone who bills freelance writing projects by the hour, yet can’t concentrate on one thing for more than 20 minutes at a time (like me).

You fill in the lines on the left with everything you intend to get done and click a bubble for every 15 minutes of work you do. You can set the gizmo to chime every quarter hour, as a reminder to click the next bubble of whatever you’re doing. There’s also a sort of strange experimental “slash” bubble, which is supposed to be used for secondary tasks, but which users have turned into a makeshift “taking a break” bubble, among other things. At the end of the day, hit print, and you’ve got a visual record of what you worked on. Helpful if you need to remember exactly how long you spent on that project before your mind started to wander, or if you’re a procrastinator like me and like breaking projects up into 15-minute chunks to help with “motivation issues.”

The software is in alpha mode (and some users have reported losing data) but doesn’t display any obvious bugs. In fact, I did something silly and navigated away from the page, but when I hit the back button my information was still there. Give it a try!

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When I used a PC I used Sonar (more on that later), but on my Mac options seem to be few and far between. The ideal program, for me, would be a simple database with separate tables for ideas, manuscripts, potential markets, and submissions. Ideas can be turned into manuscripts, and all the manuscript data could be linked up with Word or RTF files for easy opening. And it would all sync up to my Google Calendar so I’d know when it was time to follow up.

Ah, a lovely dream. Nothing that cool could exist. Maybe I’ll build it myself.

Until then, here’s a roundup of free submission trackers on the Web:

Downloads
Sonar is a free download for Windows PCs. This did almost everything I wanted. I could store data on markets, manuscripts, submissions, and enter lots of notes. The author of the software is accessible, which is nice, and even implemented some bug fixes and suggestions that I’d emailed him on a whim. Unfortunately, I think I may have broke its primitive brain by overloading it with too much data. It seems a new version’s been released recently, so PC users, check it out and tell me what you think!

Sandbagger’s Automated Manuscript Management Software for Windows and DOS (though, as the author says, “Does anyone use DOS anymore?”) I’ve never used this program, but it looks much like Sonar, only a little flashier.

Write Again costs $50 for the “professional” version and $35 for the “standard,” but “light” is donationware. If the screenshots are any indication of the software’s performance, it’s well worth the money. If I had a PC, I would definitely give this a try.

Slushomatic looks to have fairly standard features, but offers the bonus of printing cover letters and automatically formatting your manuscripts for you. It’s open source, too, which nerds like me love.

Oldschool
Super Simple Submissions Tracker from John Hewitt at Poewar.com is an RTF document containing a table with a few headings. A little too old-school for me, but I can see why lots of people would use this.

Online
Luminary Writer’s Database is a free online service. Isn’t too robust, but you can search their database of shared market information, essentially piggybacking off other writers who may know just which editor at XYZ Magazine handles the front matter.

It’s also worth noting that Writer’s Market also includes a submission tracker. You must subscribe to their service, but I believe a year’s subscription is still included free with any purchase of their book.

Oh hey! There is a program for Mac users!
Manuscript Tracker is simple but seems, at least upon initial review, to work pretty well. This is what I’ll be using until I can figure out how to develop my super-beast tracker.

Share your submission tracking tips in the comments. Or write me a program.

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