Cash.  Moolah.  Green.  Bucks.  Bread.  Paper.  Change.  Cheese.  Cheddar.  Bacon.  Dough.  Lettuce.  Bones.

There are a lot of words in the English vernacular for money, and there’s a good reason for that: money is king.  The dollar is, in fact, almighty.

So what does that mean for the life of a freelancer?  It means that your life is about two things: what you’re producing, and what you’re getting paid for it.  If you’re new and just starting out, you need to know what you can expect to get paid for and what you shouldn’t expect reimbursement on.

Guest Posts: Nice Try. No, you should not get paid for guest posts unless its a frequent, recurring feature.  Guest posts, like interviews, are a you scratch my back system.  The home site gets new content and you get a diversified link and a new audience to appeal to.  Rarely you’ll find some people who are willing to pay (especially if they populate their site with almost exclusively “guest” posts and have no regular content), but be thankful when it happens, and don’t count on it in the mean time.

Sample Work: Sadly Not. This also means, though, that you should be very careful about what you give as a sample in reply to an ad.  There are a lot of people out there who view sample posts/articles/work as an excellent opportunity to get free content.  They take samples from many different people and use them to populate the site.  Giving a blurb or previously published articles to familiarize them with your style is fine; whole articles as a “sample” are not.

“We Decided to Go in a Different Direction” Work: YES! You may only be paid a fraction of the original price (called a “kill fee” in print media), but if you completed the work to their specifications and they failed to use it through no fault of your own, you should expect and request some remuneration.   If you fear that your client is flaky or flighty, negotiate it in the contract up front.

Promoting the Work: Depends. Not the unequivocal answer you were hoping for, I imagine, but my personal guideline is that I expect to promote any work I put out there, within reason.  I tweet about it, mention it on my blog, and depending on the article I might Digg it.  If they want me to excessively promote an item or article, I think it’s fair to negotiate a payment plan for it.

There is no concrete answer to all of this, and lots of people have different opinions on this.  Check out these articles for more opinions and information!

Nacie wrote a great article on setting your rate.

I found this article really interesting on asking for better rates from current employers.

This is a really in depth examination of how much money bloggers make blogging.

Popularity: 4% [?]