Hearing that a commissioning editor was once themselves self-employed is music to the ears of any freelance journalist.
Someone with firsthand knowledge of the daily struggles of juggling multiple editors, chasing overdue payments and dealing with last minute queries at the drop of a hat, will understand everything a freelance contributor is going through.
Unfortunately, many people in publishing have no such experience and expect freelancers to operate in the same way as staff.
But self-employed journalists are a very different breed and have often chosen to become freelance because they are seeking independence and flexibility.
They have opted for a better life-work balance and the option to pick and choose the commissions or shifts they do, and when they do them.
They might be balancing their journalism assignments around childcare or building a portfolio career that involves many different lines of work.
They cannot always drop everything because an editor needs something right now — and nor should they be expected to.
They may only work specific hours of the day or days of the week, and they will almost certainly be working for several different publishers at once. So, it is important to understand the needs of freelancers.
And while it is a good idea to vet contributors by checking their bylines and online presence, the most effective way to ensure you get the best out of a freelancer is to treat them fairly and transparently. This will ensure they return to you with exclusive stories and don’t bad mouth your publication to their freelance colleagues.
Consistent guidance
It often feels like a Herculean effort to find the correct contact details for someone at a publishing company. You have to polish off your best investigative journalism skills to track down the secret individual with the commissioning budget.
If you want good people to work for you, then make it easy for them to find up-to-date contact details. Even better, provide pitching guidelines online with details of who to pitch which topics to. Some titles like Condé Nast Traveller do this really well but they are very much the minority.
Having an in-house style guide to share with freelance contributors is also a big timesaver. It means sub editors spend less time on menial tasks like changing ‘said’ to ‘says’. And it helps freelancers who are writing across multiple titles all with their own quirky style.
Timely communication
One of the hardest things freelancers contend with is a wall of silence. Pitches go into the abyss, editors don’t respond to queries about the direction of an article, and many hours are spent chasing briefs which never appear.
For a freelancer, time is money and much of their work is wasted sending follow-up emails rather than crafting engaging pieces of journalism.
The number one thing a publisher can do to improve their relationship with a freelancer is to communicate well, and preferably in a timely manner.
Wherever possible, respond to pitches, even if it is a quick ‘no thank you’. If a freelancer has a query about an angle of an article, a clause in a contract or a late payment, respond quickly. Delays in replies affect their ability to earn money and make informed decisions. It can leave them agonising over whether an editor still wants their article or worrying about how they are going to pay the bills this month.
And respect when a freelancer says they will be on annual leave. Don’t send them urgent queries in the middle of their holiday — instead, plan ahead.
In short, poor communication can have a huge impact on a freelancer’s wellbeing.
Detailed briefs
While freelancers love their autonomy, they also thrive on editorial guidance. Giving a contributor a clear (and timely) brief will ensure they write the article the publication is expecting. Be clear about the word count, sources required, angle and if any photographs need to be sourced.
Freelancers are very good at their jobs, but they are not mind readers. There are countless stories of contributors filing a piece with little or no brief based simply on their original pitch, and an editor coming back saying, “this isn’t what I asked for / was expecting”.
This creates frustration for the freelancer and again means they are spending more time (and therefore money) making edits which could have been easily avoided.
Freelancers know their job is to make an editor’s life easier, but this must work both ways. Providing detailed briefs is the best way to avoid any miscommunication.
Fair and fast payment
This is where the biggest bridges can be built with freelance contributors. The most difficult part of being self-employed is managing cashflow. And this is in large part due to complicated, late and unfair payment practices.
The ‘State of Freelance Journalism Report 2024’ which gathered the opinions of more than 400 freelancers in the UK, found that the number one challenge was chasing late payments.
If you want a freelancer to file good, clean copy on time and become a reliable and regular contributor, you must ensure your payment systems are up to scratch.
This means being transparent about the rate (and any expenses) at the point of commission and paying a fair rate in line with guidance set out by the National Union of Journalists. Some 64 per cent of freelancers in the aforementioned survey said they had turned down freelance work due to poor rates and half of them had been offered less than 10p a word — lower than minimum wage.
Fair payment also means having a contingency if an investigation takes longer than expected or the freelancer incurs costs (such as paying to access documents).
But the most important factor is paying on time — within 30 days of the invoice. Treat freelancers with the same respect you would treat any other business. And if you fail to meet the deadline then be prepared to pay late payment fees with interest.
On the surface, you may think that the delay of a few hundred pounds is not going to make a huge difference to a freelancer. But if every single publication is doing this (and many do) then suddenly a contributor has a £5,000 hole in their finances and can’t pay their mortgage.
There are a number of national titles I refuse to sell stories to because it always takes an age for them to pay me. In one instance, a UK broadsheet took 18 months to pay me a measly £80. This is because of the practice of payment on publication — an outrageous system which does not exist in any other line of work.
If the work has been filed, and is to the expected quality, then publishers need to pay. If the piece is killed at a later date, that is on the publisher, not the freelancer. Kill fees are not acceptable. You would not refuse to pay an electrician who connected lights in your garage if you suddenly decided you didn’t want to use them. The work has been done; payment must be made.
There is no reason payment on publication should exist. Plenty of titles that I now work for pay me within 30 days of submission. It is possible and it is the single biggest thing you can do to keep hold of reliable freelancers.
Similarly, having a streamlined payment system which is not deeply bureaucratic and clearly telling a new contributor how it works, will save endless emails back and forth on how to get someone paid. Making someone jump through multiple hoops for one payment and then taking several months to pay is a surefire way to ensure that person never wants to work for you again.
Contractual clauses
Many freelancers are commissioned without viewing a contract. They don’t know who owns the copyright or where the indemnity lies. Having a new contributor sign a contract or signposting them to an online contract makes it very clear what conditions they are working under.
But it’s important to have some flex built into the system. Freelancers will often want to own the copyright to be able to earn additional income through services like the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. It is possible to negotiate clauses so the contributor cannot sell the content to a rival title but they still retain copyright. And if you are syndicating a freelancer’s work, then they should receive at least 50 per cent of the fee.
Expecting a freelancer to hold all liability for any potential lawsuit is also unreasonable particularly since their copy will be edited and usually published without them seeing the final product. Again, nuance is the best approach, with clauses that place responsibility on the freelancer for providing factual, accurate information but do not make them responsible for any edited copy.
Mutual respect
By communicating clearly and transparently about briefs, fees, contracts and payment systems, publishers can build up great relationships with their freelancers converting them into regular, reliable contributors. It is about creating a culture of mutual respect and understanding that a freelancer needs to work efficiently in order to pay the bills.
The publishers and editors I return to are the ones that communicate well and pay on time. They may not always pay the highest rate, but they save me time and stress chasing payments — which is worth far more.
Interviews with editors for ‘The State of Freelance Journalism Report 2024’ found that finding — and keeping — reliable freelancers was their biggest challenge. And this is because freelancers gravitate and stick with the publishers which treat them with respect.
Unfortunately, there is still an abundance of poor practice in the industry which is why my organisation, Freelancing for Journalists, together with Women in Journalism and Journo Resources devised the ‘Best practice guidance for organisations working with freelance journalists’ (hosted on the Women in Journalism website). I would urge all publishers to get a copy of the guidance nd follow it.
This article was first published in InPublishing magazine. If you would like to be added to the free mailing list to receive the magazine, please register here.
