are you a freelance English language teaching materials writer or editor?
YOU’RE PRETTY GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO, BUT FED UP WITH BEING UNDERPAID AND GENERALLY TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF?
HERE’S EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT..
Pricing, Negotiating & Getting Paid.
ELT freelance editors and writers are some of the most skilled and efficient professionals I’ve worked with in my long English Language Teaching career.
They’re also nearly always massively overworked and underpaid.
If that sounds like you, I’ve developed this 5 module programme to help you…
⭐ Develop a pricing strategy, and feel confident about estimating a fee
⭐ Know what to look out for in contracts, and how to address it if you spot a red flag.
⭐ Learn how to negotiate effectively, confidently, and without losing clients or damaging relationships
⭐ Understand, spot, and counter negotiation strategies being used on you
⭐ Get better at defining and holding to your boundaries, so you don’t get taken advantage of
⭐ Get paid promptly
⭐ Uncover and dig out those money mindset blocks which have been holding you back (we all have them)
💵💰 And, as a result, start consistently earning more!
Hi, I’m Rachael.
Let me tell you about my first fully freelance writing project, writing practice test materials. It was an exam I was familiar with, and it looked pretty straightforward… so how did I end up working out that my average pay for the project was around £5 an hour? (And, no, I am NOT exaggerating).
I had no idea how many other skills, and how much ‘insider’ knowledge I would have to gain along the way if I was going to make a real success of freelancing- both making it financially rewarding, and not having to work all the hours in order to scrape by.
Making freelancing truly work for you is about a lot more than being good at writing or editing.
If you’ve ever had a sinking feeling about a project you’ve taken on, ended up working far more hours than you anticipated, been manipulated into agreeing to something you wouldn’t normally have agreed to in a million years…
or just generally felt you should be earning more for the freelance work you’re doing…
I’ve created this course to help you learn all the things I’ve learnt over 15 years as an ELT freelance writer, as a trained coach and counsellor, and as a business coach, so you can get more confident about charging what your experience and expertise is worth.
And learn how never again to make the kind of expensive and stressful mistakes we’ve all made at some point.
Programme outline
1.1 Introduction
The impact of seeing yourself as a business owner and prioritising working on your business as well as in your business.
1.2 Why money mindset is actually the root of all evil.
If you sometimes question the worth of your service, find it hard or impossible to push back, worry about what people will think of you if you ask for more, avoid negotiating like the plague… your money mindset is getting in the way. In this session I’ll look at why so many of us struggle with this, and how we can start to make some shifts.
1.3 Shift your money mindset
In this second session on money mindset I’m going to focus more on some practical exercises and strategies you can use to change your beliefs and habits, get ready to make more money (and feel good about it)
2.1 Working out your hourly rate.
Plucking a figure out of the air, or working for whatever you can get aren’t sustainable strategies. In this lesson we’ll go through a three step process to work out your (private) hourly rate, the keystone of everything which follows.
2.2 Estimating a fee.
How can you know whether the fee you’re being offered actually reflects the amount of work involved?
In this session I’ll share some (very hard-won) tips to help you get better at calculating this, and talk about what you can do if it turns out you didn’t get it quite right, or the goal posts move.
2.3 Royalties
Royalties are not offered very frequently these days, but if you are offered royalties, you need to know how to work out if this is a good deal, or something to avoid.
I’ll share my experience with both fees and royalties, and discuss the factors to consider.
2.4 Working with packagers.
A lot of writing and editing work these days comes through packagers. But what exactly IS a packager, and are there different sorts? How is working with a packager different from working directly for a publisher? What are the things to watch out for?
3.1 Writing a sample.
When and why are you likely to be asked to write a sample? What are publishers looking for? Are you likely to be paid for this (and should you actually accept a payment?) Everything you need to know to navigate this often tricky stage of a project.
3.2 Contracts.
Oh, people never actually read contracts, do they? Honestly, skim over a publishing contract at your peril.
While the people employing you may be lovely, these contracts are written by hard-boiled lawyers, and there are plenty of traps for the unwary. I’ll guide you through what to watch out for.
3.3 Managing boundaries
As a trained counsellor and recovering people pleaser, I know that poor boundaries and unassertive behaviour are two of the key reasons why ELT freelancers earn so little and work so hard. It won’t solve everything of course, but I can assure you that starting as you mean to go on, can make a huge difference.
And it doesn’t have to mean becoming a nasty aggressive person at all. In fact, people usually LIKE it when they know where you stand, because it removes all kinds of unspoken awkwardnesses.
4.1 Why you need to negotiate
I’ve now removed the negotiation content from my group programme, Flourishing Foundations, because the majority of participants work B2C and don’t really need it. But for every writer and editor that has worked with me, learning about negotiation has been a complete game-changer.
If you hate negotiating, and avoid it as much as possible, this is probably a key reason why you’re overworked and underpaid. I’ll help you understand why it’s vital- and also nothing to dread.
4.2 What and when to negotiate
It’s often said (not usually by ELT freelancers, but hey, ) that EVERYTHING is negotiable.
In this session I’m going to look at everything you could be negotiating, how to bundle elements together, and the best times to negotiate.
4.3 Negotiation tips, techniques and strategies
And in the final session in this module, we’ve going to learn all about the fascinating process of negotiation. What to do to prepare for a negotiation, techniques you can use to stack the oddss better for you, and some sneaky techniques that may well be used against you.
5.1 Getting paid
Last but very much not least..how often have you had to chase for payment? It’s infuriating and such a waste of your precious time.
In this session I’ll share some tips and suggestions firstly to anticipate and stop this happening, and explain what you can do if the money is not forthcoming when it should be.
5.2 How marketing can stack the odds in your favour
While marketing is not a core part of this programme (I can help you with this on my group programme), it’s vital to understand just how good personal branding can help strengthen your hand.
5.3 Diversifying your offer
Finally, we’ll look at some ways you might be able to smooth out your peaks and troughs, and make yourself less reliant on other businesses, through diversifying your offer.
HOW DOES THE PROGRAMME WORK?
As you can see there are 5 modules, and 16 lessons. The lessons are recorded, and bitesize (on average 20 minutes each) , so you don’t have to set aside lots of time at once. There are workbooks and accompanying materials.
You can start the programme at any time, and work through at your own pace.
There is a forum where you can ask any questions as you go along.
But if you want even more support and the ability to ask questions and get a personalised, detailed answer, at least once a year I will be running a ‘live accountability round’ of the course, starting in January 2024 for anyone who’s ever enrolled on it.
Over a five week period, we’ll all get together in a pop up group online. I’ll make you accountable to working through the programme if you need that, and there will be weekly tasks to complete and discuss, and three live group coaching/Q and A sessions.
It’ll be a great way to get to know other freelancers and compare notes, and give you that extra push to implement everything you’ve learnt about money mindset, pricing, negotiating and getting paid.
This is a brand new course, so I don’t have any testimonials for it as yet. But now is a great time to join- and not just because you’ll get 40% off . I’ll be releasing the programme early just for you, and any feedback you give me, I’ll make sure it gets put in the programme.
And, just for a bit of extra reassurance that I do know what I’m doing when it comes to pricing, negotiating and getting paid, here are a couple of relevant testimonials from a writer and an editor who worked with me on my group programme, Flourishing Foundations.
I was working a lot of hours and not charging enough. Sometimes I wasn’t charging anything because I thought it would be rude to ask. I was not sure how to market my work and I was trying to cover too many bases.
I am now much more confident about setting prices that reflect the true value of my work, and negotiating better fees when necessary.
I was jumping from one project to the next, thinking that being really busy meant I was being successful. But I was close to burning out constantly, using every weekend to recover rather than enjoy a rest.
I learnt buckets of useful tactics and knowledge on the course. I feel more confident about negotiating and have been getting work at higher hourly rates than before. I can also now say that I’m an expert in my field- without squirming! The confidence you have given me will be a foundation for the rest of my career – thank you!
FAQs
i'm an experienced/writer editor- will i still learn anything?
This isn’t about how experienced you are as a writer or editor. You can be amazing at your job but still be earning far less than you should (I’ve met a LOT of people in this position).
There are two areas where people tend to fall down. Firstly, around their attitudes towards and beliefs around money, which can absolutely be subconsciously sabotaging you. And, secondly, their confidence about when and how to push back or negotiate, without damaging precious relationships.
Helping you with these things, will make a huge difference to your earning potential (and your stress levels as a result) going forward.
I'm just starting out as a freelancer- will this be too advanced for me?
If you’re new to freelancing or even freelance-curious, this is the programme I WISH I’d had when I was starting out. It will give you a thorough grounding in how everything works, what to look out for and how to handle stuff. Plus you’ll have a forum to ask questions and the live round to get to know other more experienced freelancers (there is definitely strength in numbers)
SHOULD I DO THIS PROGRAMME OR FLOURISHING FOUNDATIONS?
This programme is developed especially for freelance ELT publishing professionals, and all the content and examples relate to that. It’s designed to help you in your B2B (business to business) work with publishers, packagers and other organisations.
There is some overlap with Flourishing Foundations in terms of money mindset and pricing, but I don’t now cover negotiation anywhere but in this programme, and I go into it here in more depth than I used to on my group programme.
The biggest difference however, is that Flourishing Foundations is focused on designing and creating a business model, which might include writing and editing for other companies, but would also have other strands, such as your own group programme, 1-2-1 services and/or passive income courses and products. As a result it’s much longer and more hands on. If you’re torn between the two, let’s have a chat.
Will I actually be able to find the time to do this?
I know how busy things can get when you’re juggling deadlines (especially when you’re taking on too many jobs at once because none of them are paying enough, right?)
This is why I’ve designed this programme to be super flexible. There’s no time-limit on access, you can work through it as slowly or quickly as you like, and you can go back and watch key sessions whenever you need to.
If you need more accountability, join in the live rounds, and let’s smash this stuff together.
IS THE PROGRAMME GOING TO BE A GOOD FINANCIAL INVESTMENT FOR ME?
Honestly, there are SO many ways this programme will easily help you make back the money you invested in it many times over. If you successfully up your hourly rate by just a £3 on a project that takes 100 hours, you negotiate a slightly better fee once or twice, you make sure you get paid properly for meetings or any promotional webinars…. This programme can change how well you get paid for the rest of your career.