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"[W]e should all be grateful that there has never been such a profusion of fascinating accounts of fine dining so available--and provided free of charge."
~ Bruce Palling, Have Food Blogs Come of Age?
As a food blogger, did reading that line make you cringe? I did. And it made me immediately think about Dianne Jacob's recent blog post: Outrageous Blogger Request, and the Outcome.
The post describes the frustration felt by a food blogger after receiving an email offering her "an opportunity" to fly to Italy, develop a recipe, then cook and serve it to 35 people. All at her own expense. But instead of getting upset about it, she saw the request as an opportunity. She wrote the company back explaining how she works and her charges, hoping to turn the company into a future client. I'm not sure how it worked out in the end, but it seemed like a great response to me.
Saying No Or Asking Another Question
Sometimes people feel uncomfortable saying no. But when receiving a request to do something for free, instead of saying no, by explaining your position and asking if there will be a fee for your work, that makes it clear that you need to be paid. Plus it keeps open the possibility that your work is appreciated and this potential client can say yes. If they don't want to pay, the ball is in their court and they will tell you. At least you tried. That's really all any of us can do.
So how does it happen? Food bloggers making money from their writing, photography, advertising; have they negotiated the paid work? Did the blogger initiate it or did the opportunity come to them?
And maybe more importantly, for those of us who may not have the paid work that we want, did we try to negotiate every opportunity presented to us?
Gender Differences & Negotiation
While there are a few male food bloggers, the majority are women. I've read several articles, including one on American Public Media's Marketplace about women failing to negotiate for more money in the workplace.
A couple was interviewed who were both engineers. They started working at the same company, at the same time, for the same pay. Four years later, the husband made $14,000.00 more a year than his wife. The difference was that each time he had a review, he asked for more money. She didn't.
Also, a website called Women Don't Ask, has some great information on the topic of women and negotiation. Here are a few statistics:
- In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel "a great deal of apprehension" about negotiating.
- Men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women. When asked to pick metaphors for the process of negotiating, men picked "winning a ballgame" and a "wrestling match," while women picked "going to the dentist."
- Women will pay as much as $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car, which may help explain why 63 percent of Saturn car buyers are women.
- Women are more pessimistic about the how much is available when they do negotiate and so they typically ask for and get less when they do negotiate--on average, 30 percent less than men.
- 20 percent of adult women (22 million people) say they never negotiate at all, even though they often recognize negotiation as appropriate and even necessary.
In no way do I mean to ignore the reality of discrimination based on gender. Discrimination based on gender is real issue, which I believe is probably part of the reason for the gap in pay between men and women. But I wanted to raise these issues.
Because we food bloggers are disproportionately female, has a lack of negotiation caused us to accept and ask for less?
Do we as individuals need to step up our negotiation skills, so that we will have more power as a group?
Do you negotiate?
Lisa Johnson blogs at Anali's First Amendment .
