Freelance work -- what to charge?

How about this: I'm headed to a football game for$65. He asked what my fee was and, having done a previous game for around that amount, I said $65. It's for a feature story (guessing 400-600) and a notebook. Thoughts? As a side, it's for a website.
I'm guessing I should've asked for more, but my experience isn't like a lot of freelancers. I'm about a year and a half out of college.

 

I'd say you should have asked for more, but it depends on the size / notoriety of the site you're working for. I'm stringing for an 80K paper and get $60 for a 400 word feature, $50 for 300 word gamer. I graduated in May and am doing this for beer / gas money as I look for jobs. In college I got $100 for doing a 500 word game and notebook for a 200k paper. Always aim high, editors can always talk you down, but it's easier to negotiate if you start high.

 

In my case, I'm more interested in anyone who has ever done freelance editing and charged by the hour.

Anyone done that?

My friend, an artist/designer, used to charge $50/hour himself when he was doing freelance, and that was 10 years ago.

 

Goodwin, I'm still happy about going to D-1 game and making $65. It's a helluva better way to make some extra cash than valet parking, which I did in high school and some years in college. Plus, clips are pricless for someone like me (unemployed).

 

I did a sider from a pro game two weeks ago for a major metro, 500 words for $300.

 

That's a good day's work. And if you can do that every Sunday, even better.

 

Admittedly, that's the way high end for that kind of work. I'm usually in the $150 range.

 

The easy advice is, just jump from newsprint to glossies.

Any magazine with shiny paper that you can name -- as in, any glossy with some kind of newsstand presence -- would pay a buck a word as a rock-bottom minimum. I know "name" freelance writers who make four or five dollars a word. The trick is, magazines need fewer words than newspapers -- it's a tough nut to crack -- and they expect to get their money's worth. Send a marginal story to a magazine, and you're probably off their roster: There's good reason magazine writers might spend months on a single piece, and it's not just because we watch a lot of daytime TV, although that's part of it.

Also, you don't get paid extra for the weeks of harsh-eyed editing and fact-checking.

Which is why a salaried position is the magic bean, although then you have to lick closed all those perfume strips and blow in all those subscription cards. You wouldn't believe how cracked my lips are.

 

So how does one get all this freelance copy editing work?

 

This is just a friend who called me outta the blue, so I dunno.

I don't think it's gonna be much work, and I don't think it will pay much either.

 

UT seems to have developed a nice little base, based on her comments.

I see sites like elance, and they don't seem to have many good gigs out there, but maybe I'm reading them wrong.

 

For freelance copy editing or proofreading, I'd ask for a minimum of $20-$25 per hour.

Chances are, you'll make them look like a genius, correcting all the its/it's, there/their/they're, etc., and it's easy work.