Rich Mintzer on freelancing rates

Today WritersWeekly.com ran a great article by Rich Mintzer on determining your freelance rate. Although the target rate of $40 per hour may not be for every freelance writer, Mintzer does an excellent job of showing how to determine an hourly rate, and then relating that rate to individual jobs.

It was also nice to know that I'm not the only writer who sometimes sees a project's hourly rate fall far below what I'd like! My "bad days" are the ones where I end up making less than $15 an hour. Thankfully there aren't many of those days anymore, but it's still nice to know that I'm not the only one who experiences them from time to time.

Writers strike in Hollywood!

The wage debate is often a hot topic in the freelance writing community. Most of us believe that writers deserve professional wages, but not all of us can agree on what exactly that means. There is also some debate over what exactly we can do to improve our status: unionize, set a minimum wage for writers, etc.

The freelance community may still be divided, but screenwriters in Hollywood seem to have decided on a plan of action: They are striking, starting Monday. As a result, some TV shows will stick to reruns for now, and some could shut down completely if the strike goes on long enough.

Basically, the writers receive "residuals payments" when TV shows and movies go to DVD, but they don't feel they are getting enough. Also, they are not getting paid at all when their work is aired on the Internet.

While I don't know how much they get paid for DVD sales, and therefore cannot make my own decision as to whether it's enough, I can certainly understand the writers wanting to be paid for copies of their work that are posted or sold online.

Newbie writers aren't the only ones!

Michael and I are sitting at one of our favorite indie bookstores right now. I was flipping through the July/August issue of Poets & Writers, when I ran across the article "Will Write for Free" by Steve Almond. Of course, since the Great Wage Debate for Writers is one of my pet issues, I read through the entire article.

Almond's article is very similar to an article I wrote last year for WritersWeekly.com: "How Society Supports Low-Paying Writing Jobs." The major difference is that Almond does more literary writing, while my article was talking about article writing. The message is the same, though -- our society takes advantage of (and even perpetuates) the "starving artist" ideal.

I highly recommend checking out this article. I wish it was online, so that I could link to it; but since it isn't, and I can't, I'll give you a little snippet to whet your appetite:

The reality of today's literary marketplace dawned on me rather quickly: There are no big-money offers. Unless you are a former president, a pro athlete, a movie star (or someone who has had sex with one or more of the above), none will be forthcoming. Which meant I had to start insisting on getting paid.

And the beautiful, quotable statement near the end of the article:

I am suggesting that your talents are worth something, and that those who stand to gain from them owe you a share.

Amen.

Should writers expect a steady paycheck?

A blog I sometimes follow, the Writer's Confidant Blog, posted last week about whether writers should expect a reliable paycheck -- and the message the blogger sent was a resounding NO. This irritates me, so I am going to blog about it -- but first, a little background:

"scriptgirl," as she calls herself, has been freelancing for nine years. More recently, she started working as an editor for a paper, in addition to her freelancing. It sounds like it has been stressful for her, but she has blogged a lot about complaints she has about her freelancers, some of which I have disagreed with somewhat.

Last week's post, however, goes too far. The paper she was editing went down, and a certain writer's work was never published. Apparently, the guidelines stated payment was two weeks after publication, so scriptgirl was not going to pay this writer -- even though she had done the work. She complained that the writer then "went over [her] head" and got the publisher to pay her anyway. When there was a mixup with the paycheck, scriptgirl then received a nasty email from the writer.

scriptgirl goes on to talk about how the belief in a living wage is "ruining the pool of freelance writers." She tells a story of another writer who was apparently just as happy not to receive payment when the paper went down because, as the writer said, she "just loves to write."

scriptgirl finishes up by saying, "If you want a regular paycheck, go to Wal*Mart. If you want a job you love, stick with freelance writing."

EXCUSE ME????!!!!!

I have SO many things I want to say about this, but I am going to stick with the more polite (and more logical) rebuttals.

First of all: While it was totally out of line for the writer to fire off an angry email over the paycheck mixup, I do think the writer deserved to get paid -- she just should have gone about it with a little more tact. It's not the writer's fault the paper went down -- she still did the work, and I think that counts for at least a kill fee.

scriptgirl's comment that expectations of a living wage are "ruining the pool of freelance writers" also angers me. It actually makes me think of the historical struggles to unionize workers, where employers want to keep the labor pool uneducated and powerless. I can see why editors who want to take advantage of their writers would be upset: The growing awareness that fair wages do, in fact, exist would make it more difficult to find writers willing to work for slave wages and unfair terms.

And finally, I find it highly insulting to suggest that working at Wal*Mart is our only other option. That implies that a company famous for mistreating and underpaying its employees is an improvement over what writers have a right to expect. Ridiculous! Writers have just as much a right to expect a living wage as anyone else (including, incidentally, Wal*Mart employees).

What is most irritating about scriptgirl's post is that she is buying into the whole myth that writers have to choose between doing what they love or earning a real income. That is simply not true. There are plenty of writers out there who earn "thousands of dollars" writing. There's nothing wrong with the fact that some publications don't pay writers top wages; there is, however, something wrong with insulting writers because they expect professional wages for professional work.

I think I am so upset about scriptgirl's post because I feel she is turning on her own. Just eight months ago, she actually commended me for an article I wrote for WritersWeekly. What happened to the writer who believed that "writing for a living can be quite fulfilling"? And why is she now claiming that if you want to earn a living, you'll be better off working at Wal*Mart than being a writer?

In another recent post, scriptgirl mentioned that she was burned out and backing off. I sincerely hope that stepping down from the editor position will enable her to reconnect with what it's like to be a writer again -- and remind her that, in fact, writers do have the right to expect a living wage.

The ULTIMATE way to determine your rates!

There is a huge rate debate among freelancers, and like many others, I don't hesitate to get involved. We all argue about what is too little and what is fair. In my attempts to help newbies determine the best rate to suit their needs (and to demonstrate why $1 per article won't cut it), I wrote a post a long while back on how to determine your writing rates. More recently, I even confessed my own rates.

I am now happy to tell you that I have an even easier way to figure out your rates: the hourly rate calculator for freelancers. (Thanks to Kristen King and The Anti 9-to-5 Guide for turning me on to this one!)

The calculator is pretty handy. It has you input all of your business expenses, all of your personal expeneses, the spending money you want, and the number of hours you work to help you determine what your hourly rate should be. All that remains is for you to convert that into the corresponding per-word or per-project rate. (For that part, you'll need to estimate how many hours it takes you to research and write a certain number of words.)

I am happy to report that my new rates are more than both the "break-even" and "ideal" rates the calculator gave me. In fact, even my old rates were above them. What I can't seem to figure out is how it still manages to feel like I never have any money... ;o)

Carson weighs in

Do you remember Carson? He used to run Content Done Better, which he passed on to a new owner months ago when he received a job offer he couldn't turn down. Carson generally claimed that you could make money with lower-paying content writing, but he stayed out of the writers' wage debate as much as any writer with a widely-read blog humanly can.

Yesterday I mentioned Deb's discussion on fair content writing prices, and I finally shared my rates with my readers. Anyway, on Deb's discussion page Carson finally weighed in on the content-writing wage debate. Search for "Carson" to see what he has to say. And you know? I more or less agree with him. :o)

Thanks for your input, Carson!

Confessing my rates

Some of you may remember me declining to share my rates a little while back. Well, today Deb started a discussion on her blog about what rates we consider fair for web writing, and I just couldn't resist.

Here's the rundown. I judge my rates by an estimate of how long I think it'll take to write, as I've mentioned before. I find that a lot of web writing is pretty easy to write, compared to more intensive articles such as newspaper interviews and magazine features. That means, in other words, that while I would expect a higher rate from magazines, I'm okay with writing a content article for a little less.

In other words, a newspaper I used to freelance for paid me $50 per article, but what that works out to be per hour is much less than the web articles I write for $50 each. Needless to say, I don't write for that paper anymore.

I started noticing early this year that there was a lot of disparity between my hourly wages. For some jobs, I was having problems hitting $15 an hour, while others paid me $30 or more an hour. During the months since then, I have been trying to decrease the number of jobs paying the lower amounts, while increasing the number of jobs on the higher end of the spectrum. I'm trying to get to a point where I don't have anything that pays below $20 an hour, preferably nothing that pays below $25 either. I'd like the majority of my jobs to pay in the $30-$40 per hour range, and several of my best regular jobs are already there.

Does this mean it's harder to find work? Of course. (Note: I actually haven't had to look hard to find work recently, as I've gotten to a point where most of it is from returning clients or referrals.) However, it also means that I have to find less work to make the same amount of money -- a good thing, because as I've noted before, it can be difficult to get eight hours of billable time in every day. There are too many other things -- monitoring emails, marketing, blogging -- that require my attention as well.

There is one exception, though. (I guess there always is -- the trick is limiting that exception so that all of your clients don't become "exceptions.") I have one client that still pays me $15 per 500-600 word article -- low compared to my other gigs these days. I intend to let this slide for a few reasons:

1) I have been writing for them regularly for a year and a half now, and sometimes that kind of regularity is just as valuable as a higher wage.

2) The articles don't really take that long to do. Some months (they assign monthly batches) I can get my hourly up to my preferred rate, $30 per hour, or at least close to it. That makes up for the months where my hourly hovers around $15 per hour. (It's never less than that, thankfully.)

3) I happen to really, really like the people I work for.

Of course, if my absolute lowest-paying gig pays me $15-$30 an hour, you can probably understand why I rail against gigs that offer $1-$2 per article. Some people claim you have to do things like that to start out, but I don't agree -- I started out making $15 per article, and with the exception of Associated Content (who I stopped submitting exclusive articles to when I realized $4 was the most I'd get), $5 for a short blog post is the lowest I've ever gone.

So now the cat is out of the bag, and you know about what I make -- most days. (Hey, we all have our bad days!) You also know now that I have good reason to be pissed when I am offered $1 per article. I know that there are many writers that make far more than I am -- traditional copywriters typically charge $1 or more per word. However, I also know that I am doing a far sight better than many other writers. I hope that if you are in this latter group, you will be suitably inspired by the "raise" I have successfully given myself to try for one of your own.

Statistics about writers from the U.S. Government

While I was researching an article yesterday, I ran across the U.S. Department of Labor/Bureau of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook. Back when I was graduating from college and taking a technical writing job, I had used this site to research the average entry level salary for a technical writer. (I didn't get anything close to the average, but I'll write about that at a later date -- I've decided to spill the beans about that job, and why I left.)

I made a mental note to go back to the site and blog about it, but of course mental notes aren't as useful as written notes, so I forgot about it until now.

The U.S. Government dedicates an entire page to statistics regarding writing and editing professions. Although the statistics address permanent jobs instead of contract or freelance work, the page still provides interesting and useful information.

For instance, did you know that the median (or middle -- not the average, in other words) income for salaried writers is around $44K? That's hardly the "starving artist" picture our guidance counselors in school tried to impart to us. Even better, the top 10 percent of salaried writers earn more than $90K a year. Granted, freelancing is a different ball game, but these numbers are still encouraging.

This page can also be useful for setting your rates -- or even dealing with cheapskate clients. You can use the page to determine what a reasonable expectation is for an annual income, divided by the 52 (weeks in a year), and then divided again by the number of (billable) hours you will be working each week. And there you have it: the hourly rate you'll want to strive for!

And if you are a smarta$$ like me, you can send this link to each and every client who claims that writers don't (or shouldn't) get paid professional wages. (Or every friend or relative who says to you, "You can't make a living as a writer.")

Have fun with it!

Why I talk about rates in general, not MY rates

I had a comment to moderate that seems to have disappeared, but I want to respond to it anyway. The comment was in reference to a post where I mentioned last year's rates -- my post on pruning, I'm guessing it was. The anonymous commenter was asking what rates I charge, because s/he said I am a role model to other freelancers, and a little bit of extra guidance would be much appreciated.

Well, first of all, many thanks to Anonymous for saying I am a role model. Although admittedly I dream of filling such a lofty position, the truth is I am fairly new at the freelancing, compared to some of the other writers' whose blogs I read. However, I'd like to think that the fact that I've made it more than a year and a half means that I'll be in it for the long haul -- and perhaps in ten years, I'll be a role model to more than just my few readers. :o)

(However, I also realize that a freelancer who has been doing her thing for a year and a half is probably more accessible a role model for other beginning freelancers. When you're just starting out, super-successful writers such as Anne Rice and Stephen King are still nothing less than demi gods, and I think beginning writers much prefer looking up to other freelancers that have made it to a more attainable level of success.)

But my ego is not the subject of this post. I actually would like to address the request that I post my rates. The fact that I have never posted an exact figure is not an accident -- I have been hesitant to "say too much," as it were. My reasoning is that everyone is different -- we all live in different areas, with different expenses, and different ideas of what a living wage is for us. I don't want to okay a certain dollar amount, for fear that I'll be leading some writers to underprice themselves, while others overprice themselves.
Does this seem hypocritical? I'm not sure, myself. I've ranted and raved about low-paying writing jobs, but I've also said that I don't think a minimum wage for writers is applicable. Ultimately, I think the rate that each writer chooses to write for is a personal decision -- but that all freelancers need to first understand the scams that exist currently.

I can safely say that I think $1 per article is too low. I've also stated that I feel writers should be getting at least the minimum wage in their area, whatever that may be. However, it's also worth noting that many writers boast hourly rates of $50 and up. While yours may not be that great (mine isn't), it shouldn't be rock-bottom, either.

So how do you know if you've hit rock-bottom? Well, I think if you take your hours worked and wages earned, and your hourly rate comes up less than what the average retail clerk makes in your area, you need to seriously rethink your rates.

On that note, I think it really helps to think about what jobs pay in your area. In some areas, full-time writing jobs are pretty hard to come by, and only pay $15 an hour for entry level work. A freelance writer just starting out in an area like this might consider $15 per hour a minimum rate, but would realistically need to strive for $20 or more per hour, since freelancers inevitably have to focus a good part of their day on searching for work and marketing.

I once wrote a rather long post on determining your writing rates according to what you need to make each month in order to pay your bills. I'll sum up here and say that you need to figure out how much you need to earn per hour, keeping in mind that you likely won't clock 8 billable hours every day. Most clients like per-article or per-project rates, so before you offer a quote, make sure you know enough about the article or project to estimate how long it will take you to complete.

I hope this helps. Anyone who has further questions is welcome to ask, either via commenting (click on the title) or by contacting me directly.

Are writers professionals?

While I was on vacation, I received a comment on my post "Attention beginning writers: Don't write for free!" I'm not publishing it because not only is the person kind of nasty, she also uses the comment to plug her own blog. It pretty much says, "You're a b!tch and wrong. Hey everyone, come see my site!"

Anyway, the comment is in response to my statement comparing non-paying writing gigs to refusing to pay your doctor or lawyer. The comment starts out by saying:

First of all, if/when it happens, it's called pro-bono (short for pro bono publico) work. Beginning lawyers often do it to prove their competence when starting out, and doctors generally do it out of altruism.

I have no problem with pro bono work. If you writers out there want to dedicate your time to a cause you feel strongly about, I think that's wonderful. However, I hardly see it as "pro bono" to write for free for some sleazy website no one has ever heard of, just because the owner of said website has figured out he can get free content by taking advantage of beginners.

Next the comment says:

Second of all, how dare you compare "writers" to doctors and lawyers. My uncle works in the ER and To even insinuate that a "writer" is even remotely as important as a doctor is not only disgusting and laughable, it is the epitome of arrogance and you should be ashamed of yourself.

No, I'm not ashamed of myself. Far from it: I'm proud. If people make comments like this, it's clear that blogs such as mine -- blogs that make the point that writers are professionals and should be treated as such -- are needed. Anyone who thinks that the idea of a writer being treated with the same respect as a doctor is "laughable" should be ashamed of themselves. Who the he!l do you think writes the textbooks doctors study to learn their trade? If it weren't for the writers, there wouldn't be medical textbooks, doctors wouldn't be educated, and fewer lives would be saved.

Now that I've had my say, I'm interested in what my readers have to say. I know there are many outspoken writers who read my blog regularly, and I'd be interested to see what others think about Ms. Down With Writers. If you'd like to comment, please click on the title of this post, scroll down to the bottom of the individual post page, and click on "Leave a Reply."

Rude comments will remain unpublished, of course, so please be civil. If you don't have a Blogger/Google account, you can email me with your comment, and I'll post it for you.

Attention beginning writers: Don't write for free!

One of the myths about freelancing that irks me the most is the one that claims that beginning writers have to writer for free (or for ridiculously cheap, as in a couple of bucks per article) in order to get started. It makes me angry because 1) it's not true, and 2) many beginning writers get taken advantage of because they believe that it is.

What's more, many employers perpetuate this myth - which makes me even angrier. I don't know if they are intentionally taking advantage of beginning writers, or if they truly believe that writers who are just starting out shouldn't expect to get paid for their time and effort - but either way, those employers deserve a swift kick in the butt.

Here is a perfect example of a client who seems to think that not paying her writers is a perfectly reasonable way to treat them: Greta Gavrisheff, who recently posted an ad on L.A.'s Craigslist. She is looking for web content writers for her sites, zedcards.com and industrystuff.com.

The ad offers virtually no information, but the payment line does say "TBD." To my mind, that means that there will be payment involved, just an as-of-yet undecided amount. However, when I responded to her ad, I received a form letter that included the statement:

For the first couple weeks, as I see how the articles come in, they will be for credit only, however, I promise you.... we do have the funds and will pay for those who really fit with the company and grasp the concepts we are looking for...so stick with it!

I really hate "employers" who say this - and, if you browse Craigslist regularly, you know that there are a lot of them. "We're not paying right now, but we might be able to pay in the future, if your work is good enough and our site really takes off" is a common statement in freelance job ads.

Well, let me ask you something - what do you think your doctor or lawyer would do if you told him you weren't going to pay him for the first few visits, because you first want to find out if he would "stick with it"? Even your plumber wouldn't put up with that. So why should writers?

Naturally, as an opinionated writer and vocal championing of freelancers' rights, I wrote back to Greta and told her what I thought of her payment arrangement. Her response:

I will pay them, however, not for the first two weeks. I need to see who is going to follow through, and who actually wants it...

Not shame on me. I have written for credit a number of times which is why I am where I am.

Oh, but it gets worse. After sending me another email telling me never to email her again (I hinted that she was taking unfair advantage of beginning writers), she accidentally sent me several of the form letters she is also sending out to interested writers. The first one contained this statement:

I need as much content as possible for the launch... I apologize for the short notice, but I promise that if you follow through, you are going to be thrilled/stoked at the results when you see the site.

Basically, not only is she refusing to pay writers for their first two weeks of effort, she is also trying to get as much work as possible out of them during that time.

Does this sound like an honest business proposition to you? I think not...

Beginning writers, you do NOT have to write for free. I can't stress that enough. When I was just getting started, I never wrote for less than $15 per article. Don't let anyone - whether writer or employer - tell you otherwise!

A new way of dealing with low-paying job offers

Inspired by Carson's post at Content Done Better about "Missing the 'Because'", I've decided to try handling low-paying freelance job offers a little differently.

In his post, Carson talks about how many writers don't try hard enough to sell themselves and earn a higher rate, instead acting like that higher rate ought to just land in their laps. He makes the point that if we want to be paid more, we need to justify to the client why we should get more than writers who are willing to write for 0.000000001 cent per word. We need to make the client want to pay our rates in order to get top-quality work.

This evening, I ran across an ad for a freelance gig claiming "modest" payment per article. I clicked over to the site, and discovered that their idea of modest was $1 per article. I immediately clicked back to the ad and started to prepare an email about how their idea of modest was my idea of f#ck you.

Suddenly, I remembered Carson's post. I deleted the message I'd written so far, and instead wrote a sales pitch explaining how with all the crap content flooding the Internet these days, they need quality content to make their site stand out. I told them that local writers (which was what they were looking for) couldn't afford to work for a buck per article, and therefore they would be getting foreigners trying to write like locals - substandard work, for a site that is targeting locals. I pointed out that I am a long-time resident of the area, not to mention an experienced content writer. I then finished the email off with a reasonable quote per article, and an invitation to check out my website for my portfolio and my resume.

Where do I think this will get me? Probably nowhere, because I don't think this particular site actually cares about the quality of work. So why did I waste the time? Because it was good practice in selling myself, and because there's always a slim chance that my email will reach the right person and I'll get the job.

So if you're the type to send emails to low-paying clients telling them where they can stick their $1, instead try using that time to write an email telling them why they're misguided in their approach, and what you can offer them instead. If it doesn't work, you haven't wasted any more time than it would have taken to tell them off; and if it does work, you've got another job, not to mention the added confidence of making a successful sale!

Determining your writing rates

The writing wage debate is such a hot topic, especially lately with the debates about Associated Content reopened, that I wanted to offer a few tips for beginning writers about determining their rates.

Back when I was only freelancing on the side for extra money, I read a book on how to make six figures as a contract technical writer. I wish I could tell you the title and author, but unfortunately it was two years ago, and I can't find the title in the library catalog where I checked it out.

Anyway, one of the things that made an impact in that book is its discussion on how to determine your rates. It basically walked you through the steps of determining what you would like to make each year or month, and breaking that down into an hourly rate. The formula reminded you to take into account business expenses such as buying your own health insurance and office supplies.

Another book I read some time later added another variable to the equation. Believe it or not, a full time freelance writer doesn't write eight hours a day. Realistically, you need to account for time-consuming tasks such as searching for jobs or publications, developing ideas, querying, networking, building and maintaining your website, blogging, advertising... The list goes on and on.

The point is that there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration when determining your rates. Here's what I think the process should consist of:

* Decide what you absolutely have to make each month in net profits in order to pay your personal bills.

* If you know you absolutely can't live without shopping, dining out, or any other type of superfluous expense, be sure to add that in there too. The best way to have the money for it is to plan to have the money for it.

* Add whatever you need to make each month to cover your business expenses. This might include ink and paper, stamps and godzilla-sized envelopes for sending submissions out, etc.

* Divide this number by the number of days in a month that you intend to work (i.e. I do at least a little work most weekends). That's your daily goal.

* Divide your daily goal by the number of hours that you can actually devote to writing each day. For many freelance writers, this is only about 4 or 6 hours. Trust me, all that other stuff - trolling the markets, querying, standing in line at the post office, marketing your services online - takes up more of your time that you would think.

So now you have an hourly goal. Fantastic. But what do you do with that when most projects you get pay by the word or by the project?

Clients generally don't want to pay you for your time, but for your services. In other words, no one is going to look out for your own interests but yourself, so it's vital for you to have a good idea of how long a project will take you, and what you need to make in order for it to be worthwhile. Again breaking it down into bite-sized pieces, here's how I think the process should go:

* Before ever accepting a project or providing a quote, find out all of the pertinent details of the project. This includes how many words or pages the end product is expected to be, the specific topic (so that you know how much research you'll need to be doing), and how long you'll be given to do the project (rush orders generally deserve a more generous rate).

* Figure in the time needed to make two revisions. You should always figure revisions into your quote to make sure you doavoid lowering your hourly wage with unexpected revisions. If you want, you can tell the client that there's a discount if he or she doesn't ask for revisions (or only asks for one), but you should also let them know that your quote only covers two revisions. This won't apply to all projects, of course, but if you think there's even a chance that you'll be asked to make revision, make sure to include that time in your quote.

* Decide how long it will take you to complete the project, revisions as all. Estimate as generously as you dare - the mechanic's rule of thumb says that any time you're trying to complete something in a limited time frame, something will go wrong.

* Multiply the estimated number of hours by your desired hourly wage. Or, if you're trying to determine whether a project is worth taking on what the client is paying, divide the project's flat fee by the number of hours you think it will take.

All too often, writers don't realize how long a project will take them, or how unrealistic it is to expect an eight-hour writing day. Breaking the thought process down into these steps will help you to not only realize your worth, but also make sure you get it.

The new debate about respect for writers

There seems to be a new debate brewing about respect for writers.

It started with a post on Carson's Content Done Better blog, about the Freelancers' Union and the differences between a freelancer and an entrepreneur. Unlike me, Carson doesn't get up into arms about low paying employers or issues of professional standards in the field, but his post struck a chord with me nonetheless. Carson says:

Have you ever met a “freelance doctor?” A “freelance mortgage broker?” A “freelance therapist?”

Not really. But at some point, our language begins to shift. We wouldn’t think of calling a heart surgeon a “freelancer” most of the time, but we have no problem using the term to refer to a musician. You wouldn’t call your accountant a “freelancer,” but “freelance writer” seems normal.

It was like being socked in the gut. Everything suddenly became clear: why writers are all too often underpaid and underappreciated, why we have such a hard time establishing professional standards for the field.

Too many of us think like freelancers.

In his post, Carson also linked to an article by Liz Strauss that offers a way to determine whether you are a freelancer or an entrepreneur. I took the test and was unsurprised to find that I am both - and neither. As I commented on Carson's blog:

I don’t see a difference between the-work-supports-the-business and the-business-supports-the-work. To me, it’s an equal relationship - if you don’t have both you have neither. I also tend to divide my focus between the day-to-day work and plans for the future - when I’m super busy, I’m all about the day-to-day, and when I’m not as busy, I’m making plans to *get* busy. And although I love all the administrative stuff like planning my website, creating invoices, tracking income and expenses, etc., I have to say I still regret that it takes me away from writing.

I didn't start out this way. I think I've been trending more toward a business mindset as I add to my experience. For instance, I've noticed in the last couple of months that I've been starting to refer to the people I work with as "clients" rather than "employers." These are changes that have come about as my business has grown.

As if to feed to the debate, this week in Writers Weekly Pamela White published an article on the importance of business plans for writers. Her article also emphasizes the importance of running your writing like a business instead of a job.

But I'm still not purely an entrepreneur, and I don't think I ever will be. "Writer" comes first to me. I doubt I'm the only one, either - I have a feeling that there are plenty of writers out there who don't like to use the term "Freelance" in their title, yet still don't quite think of themselves as an entrepreneur either.

As I stated on Carson's blog, I think there is room for a third category there: writers who have the "client" mindset, but who focus on the writing as much as they focus on the business. But what should we term ourselves?

Personally, I don't think you'd call your doctor, lawyer, or accountant an entrepreneur, any more than you'd call them freelancers - but what would you call them? "Professionals" is what comes to mind. And I think that's what those of us are who focus on neither the work or the business, but a combination of both. Maybe if more of us start seeing ourselves as "professional writers" instead of "freelance writers," we will naturally start setting those industry standards so many of us crave.

Incidentally, though I agree with Kathy Kehrli's comment on Carson's blog: all of these titles, whether they be "Freelance Writer," "Professional Writer," or "Entrepreneur" are inherently boring. I think I'm going to put "Literary Goddess" on my next round of business cards...