They
do it on the radio and TV (and how! ”We’ll
be right back after these six commercials…”)
Ads
on TV movie programs are the title holders, for my money, for “Most Commercials
Stacked Together” and “Most Repetitions of a Phone Number.” I’ve decided that I
will not do business with anyone
whose commercial repeats the phone number more than twice. Some are up to four
times. Also I thought there was a rule that volume wasn’t supposed to be turned
up for commercials any more. If it is a rule, it’s the most abused rule in
business.
In
a sense this whole blog is a commercial for my writing service, but it lacks two important ingredients of a sales message. One is the
specific information someone would need to be able to buy the product. You can form an idea of my
style, but you don’t know how much I ask for writing something, so here it is.
The
rate is $45 per hour. When I quote a fixed price, that’s what it’s calculated
on. I’ve never become accustomed to quoting by the word, but pretty often
that’s what’s expected, so I’ve set a conditional minimum of $0.10 per for
that.
That
will all be modest to a few knowledgeable clients and exorbitant to the others, apparently the majority, judging by pay scales on most of the online job
boards. What you have to factor in is (a) I work pretty fast, (b) I'll probably get it right the first time, and if I don’t, the corrections will
be off the clock, and (c) the work will need only minimal editing when you get it.
I
grant you it’s ten times the going rate in many places, but you have to
consider the economies in some of those places -- India, Bangladesh -- that encourage
low rates. Problem is, competition from those areas combined with lowered
standards combined with pursuit of profit have caused those rates to slop over
into the more developed world, where some of us still work. There are people
here, too, who work for that money and perpetuate the situation, but times are
hard and they may be in tighter circumstances than I am. I still maintain,
though: penny-a-word and $5-per-hour are not part of my world.
The
other element that’s lacking in the blog posts is the “call to action,” the
traditional close to practically all advertisements: “Send for a free
sample”; “Call now; operators are standing by.”
Free
samples in my line of work are clips of past ads or articles. I’ve managed to
get a few onto a “Samples” page here, but I’m not fully in control of that
process. Samples will certainly be made available on request, however; just call
or write the number or address under “Contact” on the home page.
Call now! I’m standing
by.
