Self-Syndication: Setting a Price for Your Newspaper Column

What should you charge newspapers who want to pick up your column? There are many ways to set your fee, whether it is by the word or by the size of the paper. The first caution in setting the price for your self-syndicated column is to not give it away for free. Some marketing "experts" will tell you that the most important thing is to build your name brand and that, if you have to, giving away your column for free is good exposure and will pay dividends in the long run.

I caution against this strategy for a few reasons. First, you are a writer. This is what you do for a living. You don't see doctors giving away free medical services to prove how good they are. Your writing has value and the newspaper is benefiting from running it. Get paid for your work. The second reason may be even more important. I have heard from many editors that they would never run a free column because it makes them think that it is of little value. If it is something the writer is giving away for nothing, editors may devalue the quality of the work and not run it at all.

When setting the price of your self-syndicated newspaper column, remember that you are only granting non-exclusive display rights to each paper. It is only in setting up the agreement in this way that you can offer the column to other newspapers. You will have to charge less to each newspaper than you would for exclusive rights, but keep in mind that you are selling the column many times over.

One common way to set a price for your column is by the size of the paper's readership. This allows you to charge smaller papers less than larger ones. This makes sense as smaller newspapers have a smaller budget for columns. For my column, I calculate the fee based on 50 cents per 1,000 subscribers (this information is on each newspaper's website) and then I round up or down to the nearest $5. This gives me a sliding scale of fees that are geared towards the size of the paper.

Ensure that the editors know what you will charge them in the query letter. Don't tell them to call you for pricing. The easier it is for an editor to make a decision on your column, the better. Sometimes, an editor may contact you to reduce the price or to change the rights purchased. Reducing the price for some papers may make sense if it is important for you to be in those markets. If they have contacted you for a reduction, it means that they are interested in your column. If they are contacting you about a change of rights or other custom change to the article, beware. If you give them exclusive rights to the column, you will not be able to sell it to other newspapers- which is the whole goal of self-syndication. If you agree to custom changes, you will be spending time every week altering your column for each newspaper which is ultimately not worth your time. Write the column once, and charge for that exact column.