I’ve just had a frustrating experience with a potential client. This person was looking for an editor to help with several writing projects requiring different levels of editing. They sent me a sample, and I provided an appraisal of their writing along with information about my rates for clients like them (i.e., hobbyists, as this person put it).

The response I received reflected the responses I’ve received countless times before. They’d been to my website, they could see I have abundant education, training, experience, and talent, and they had no doubt I was worth every penny I charge, but they just couldn’t afford me.

It’s not that I haven’t heard all of this before, more times than I can count, and it’s not that I don’t understand lacking the money to do all the things we might like to do. So what was it about this particular response that triggered me enough to write about it?

I think it was the comment about my worth. I have no doubt they intended it as a compliment—a way to soften the blow of rejection. But that’s not the way I took it. Because the truth is I’m worth every penny of a good deal more than I was offering to charge them.

I charge clients like them—hobbyists—about half what I charge government or corporate clients. I’m aware of freelancers who believe we should never charge anyone less than what I charge bigger clients, but I don’t agree. I’m okay with doing work that gives me things other than money. I get joy out of helping people explore their passion for writing or tell a story that’s really important to them.

But joy doesn’t put food on my table, so like every self-employed artist I’ve ever met, I have to find a balance between doing work that pays good money and making time for work that pays in other ways. And when I’m doing the latter, I have to find a balance between keeping my rates low enough to be realistic for those clients but high enough to cover my basic living expenses.

So here’s one of the reasons I find that statement about my worth … complicated. As a self-employed person, I calculate that about a quarter of every dollar I earn covers off things like office space, office equipment and supplies, CPP, EI, and worker’s comp, professional insurance, professional development, vacation and sick pay, and extended benefits—expenses that people at salaried or wage-earning jobs typically have covered or contribution-matched by their employer.

Another quarter of every dollar goes to federal and provincial income tax.

The remaining half is what puts gas in my car, food in my belly, and money on my mortgage. So when that prospective client said I was worth every penny of what I was charging, what they were inadvertently saying was that I’m worth half of what I charge hobbyists, which is half of what I charge bigger clients, which is what I need to actually pay my bills without losing money.

Here’s another reason I find statements about my worth—especially in the context of what people tell me they can’t afford—hard to swallow: because I’m an artist, I’m always valued less than a person in almost any other profession.

If that same prospective client needed a plumber or electrician, they’d pay twice the hourly rate I was asking—at minimum. If they were in physical or emotional pain, they’d pay at least twice as much to a massage therapist or a registered clinical counsellor.

Regardless of education, training, or experience, artists—writers, editors, graphic designers, visual artists, dancers, actors, musicians—are expected to work for wages that are not livable or barely so. I think probably the arts are the only field in which people are expected to understand that, no matter how well educated or experienced they are, they should be paid half as much as those in other fields with equivalent education and experience.

I read somewhere that people in communications typically earn half the salaries of people with equivalent education in other fields. In an era in which communication is increasingly important, an era in which we need creative minds perhaps more than ever before in history, I find this astonishing, not to mention shortsighted.

A final reason I find statements about my worth often … ironic is how often the people saying that are in high-paying professions where their annual income is easily quadruple mine. It’s the people in the lower-paying lines of work who so often value the work they’ve invested in their writing enough that they’ve saved their nickels and dimes to be sure that when the time comes they can hire someone good to do their editing and pay them fairly.

My response to this prospective client’s statement that I’m worth every penny I charge is not a lack of understanding that they meant it as a compliment. It has more to do with professional frustration, the same frustration felt by artists of all types who struggle to be paid a living wage and to field “compliments” like this graciously.

I would just like clients to understand that when they say “you’re worth every penny you charge” as a prelude to “but I’m going to look for somebody who’s not worth as much,” they’re making themselves feel better, not me.