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COVID 19 Killed The Freelance Market
If you write for a living, your income is down since the start of Covid?
Since the Covid 19 outbreak back in December 2019, I have noticed a substantial drop in my freelance writing income. There are now businesses offering freelance writing jobs for as little as one cent a word. This means a 2,000-word document, post or article would pay $20 for what can be considered a day’s work dependent upon the amount of research that would be required. In other words, For an eight-hour day, this translates into $2.50 an hour assuming the article took 8 hours to research, write and edit.
This is nothing but slave labor and many businesses taking advantage of a bad situation. The Writers Union Of Canada has an online poll to determine the effects of Covid 19 on the writing market and it will be interesting to see the results.
I think part of the problem with reduced income for freelance writers is the number of jobs lost or hours reduced in the market to employees with college degrees who are now supplementing their income with freelance jobs. I think they are happy to take any per word payment and as a result, are driving down remote writers' and independent writers’ income. This opinion seems to be backed up by The Society of Authors' latest survey.
