So what is the ratefor that job?


The union has lots of advice and data about this vital question, says Mike Holderness


V


irginia Woolf liked to share information on what she was being paid. On 2 October 1937, the novelist, essayist and reviewer wrote to her sister, artist Vanessa Bell, who was in Paris: “To my terror, I was rung up from Paris,


and leapt to the conclusion, as they say, that it was some kind of catastrophe... But it was only Chabrun offering fabulous sums for a short story...” The editors of Woolf’s Letters record that, in response to that phone call from her agent, Woolf wrote The Shooting Party, which was published in Harper’s Bazaar in March 1938. In August that year, Woolf told Bell she had been offered £200 to write a 1500-word story, also for Harper’s Bazaar, probably The Duchess and the Jeweller. According to the Bank of England, that would be £13,900 adjusted for inflation up to 2020 – or about £9,300 per 1000 words. A fabulous sum indeed. And Woolf went on to give


some very sound, if poorly punctuated, advice: “I shant put pen to paper without a cheque.” The next year, she published her book Three Guineas, which is still essential reading for any woman contemplating a career – in writing or otherwise. For at least 30 years, the NUJ’s London Freelance Branch has been following – if rather more prosaically – in Woolf’s footsteps, collecting and sharing Rate for the Job data. This has two important purposes: it helps freelance


journalists directly; and it is essential to the NUJ being able to produce its Freelance Fees Guide. First, look at the immediate benefits. You are a freelance


journalist. Maybe you are starting out in journalism; maybe you have left or lost an employed post. Or maybe you are an established freelance, thinking about doing work for a company you have not dealt with before. One of the first questions you should be asking, if not the first, is: “How much should I be charging for this next piece of work?” The Rate for the Job service enables you to look at our extensive listings to find out what companies in similar niches have paid.


14 | theJournalist This helps you avoid undercutting other journalists. Editors


may mean more or less well – but they are always aware of the editorial budget set by the bean counters and it would be remarkable if they resisted any temptation to pay less than the going rate. And your submitting rates helps other freelance journalists avoid undercutting you. So for those reasons alone, please submit rates online – in


strict anonymity – at www.londonfreelance.org/rates/submit. We will keep everything you submit anonymous. We would


like to know the name of the publication or programme that paid you. But if you are, for instance, the only photographer whose work appears in the redoubtable magazine What Fridge? and you don’t want to be identified, we will publish a generic description on request. We ask you to score the rates from the few that are ‘good’ to those that are below par. We also ask for some information about you so that we can watch for discrimination. In our last analysis we found, to no one’s great surprise, that women are getting less than men and people who describe themselves as ‘white’ are


Guide to payment rates and rights


THE FREELANCE Fees Guide suggests more than 500 rates for different kinds of work that NUJ members undertake. This runs from photographs and illustrations for national newspapers or magazines to translation and PR consultancy. It offers much more than


that, though. The suggested rate is, or


should be, just the start of a negotiating process. What is the particular value of this piece of work? What rights


are you licensing to the publisher or broadcaster? If you’re working shifts, can you claim paid time off? We offer tips on


negotiating all these – so far as it’s possible to do so in writing. (Sometimes this feels like writing a manual for swimming.) And what if things go


wrong? What if your work is purloined by a publisher or broadcaster, or by a third party? We suggest how you can locate ‘pirate’ copies. We offer tips on collecting debts. It has to be said it would


have been difficult for Woolf to collect money owed by an agent in New York and it is not much easier now. Do let us know if you’ve managed to use the new US copyright small claims system. In total there are 150 advice


articles. An entire section is dedicated to photographers and selling photography. Please take a look at the


Freelance Fees Guide at www.londonfreelance. org/feesguide – and send suggestions for areas it could cover to ffg@ londonfreelance.org.


IANDAGNALL COMPUTING / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


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