Key Business Partners, LLC

When you are doing business with others -what is your “free” policy?

People do get drawn in by free—why not, right? Of course, however, is the balance still there within the free policy?

Apparently, the talk of the word free is very big right now with Chris Anderson new book called Free: The Future of a Radical Price coming out on July 7th. Seth Godin discusses his ideas on the subject. .

I think the method of how we deal with the aspect of freein our businesses and with our relationships with each other matters over just the offer of free itself.

Free doesn’t have to mean there is no value assigned to something…it is how free is used to benefit allof the parties involved.

I think things get dicey when there is no longer a win-win relationship.

And with the topsy-turvy future of the publishing and journalism industry, discussions about free or very low paid jobs are the top stories on social media such as Twitter.

Freelance writers are upset because they fell they aren’t being respected. People looking for writers to help them complain their are not enough good writers out there to pay OR writing just isn’t worth a lot of money to get paid for.

Yes, some newspapers are closing or going only printed online editions. This does seem to be the future. I did read that the Wall Street Journal started having subscribers pay to get the WSJ online and the subscribers were more than happy to oblige to get the latest WSJ news.

I believe it goes back to value. For myself, I don’t currently read the Wall Street Journal, however, I am aware it is one of the top news resources. So I won’t mind just like everyone else, paying for a subscription.

Just like the music industry…with the iPod, musicians were so afraid of not making money and I think it has become even a better deal for them because they make money directly from the popularity of each song.

Well, for writers (whether freelance, journalists, columnists) I believe it will be the same thing. For those people who wish to receive your work, you will still remain to find those who will pay for your writing.

And there will be those who won’t. However, I believe strongly (and I don’t think I am the only one) — “Those who won’t pay for your work, were not your ideal client anyway. Do not waste your time on those who aren’t willing to pay for your work.”

Like Seth mentioned in his post, he wasn’t sure why people purchased his books because the information (even though less organized and more scattered) was on his blog for free in some way shape or form. Well, to Seth and other writers I say, “That is exactly why we purchase your books. Because in the book form, it is all wrapped up and contained in one place.”

This is why people will subscribe to online magazines and newspapers just as they did for offline…because it will be contained in organized, manageable and singular place (website). Or they will download it onto their Kindle.

The future of newspapers and magazines just may be shifting formats but not how important they are to us as consumers.

So what do you say about free in the writing community?