Writinggal doesn’t take crap

The weirdest thing happened to me today. Our toilet was really clogged so I called a plumber. He came out, assessed the damage and said that it would take some time, but he could fix it. Boy was I glad. I told him to get going on the sucking and plunging or whatever it is plumbers do. He said he would do just that.

But that’s not the weird part.

The weird part was that he then told me that he was going to charge me for fixing my toilet. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t pay plumbers.”

He looked confused and handed me a price list anyway! He said, “No, you have to pay me if I'm going to take the time to fix your toilet; I'm providing a service."

I have to say I was plain baffled—seeing as I've always had this “no-paying-plumbers” policy and all—but I stayed calm and said, “I realize that you are going to be providing a service but I thought you did it out of a labor of love. I thought you LOVED toilets! Are you telling me you’re just in this for the money?”

At this point he was really mad and actually raised his voice: “Hey, lady. I’m good at what I do and yes, I happen to like it but it’s not a hobby! I need to feed my family and pay the bills.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I barked back, “I was going to tell all my friends about you! If you did a good job I was going to tell them that you unclogged my toilet so fast and so thoroughly. I was even going to put a sign out on my yard with your name on it. Just think of all the exposure I was going to give you! Your phone would have been ringing off the hook with all the business I was going to pass your way!”

I mean, can you believe this plumber? I thought that he would unclog my toilet out of a labor of love and for the exposure. I guess I was wrong.

Sounds like a crazy story, huh? Well, it actually didn’t happen like that. What actually happened was that someone didn’t want to pay ME, a freelance writer and this plumber story is a metaphor for that. Some of the actual dialogue is even taken from my conversations with the no-paying-pub (most notably "labor of love" and "exposure").

I could go into a whole “why professional writers don’t work for free” rant but I won’t. In fact, I shouldn’t have to. Writing is a skill just like plumbing. You wouldn’t not pay your plumber, would you? Why would you not pay your writer?

We may not be able to unclog your toilet but if we’re good enough, we CAN get people to read your magazine, your newspaper, your web site. That translates into ad revenue. If you’ve got writers who are willing to write for you for free then you have to expect the quality to be poor. I mean, you get what you pay for, right? Poor writing translates into no ad revenue.

And if you don’t have that well, there’s nothing left to do but flush your publication down the toilet. But don’t do that. You’d have to call a plumber and trust me, they’re not free.