Always ask for more money

AT TSL Education, publishers of The Times Higher and Times Education Supplement, we've heard two cases of freelances being told by apologetic editors that they've been taken over by "venture capitalists" who were trying to impose a much lower rate of £160 per thousand words on freelance contributors. In both cases, freelances managed to put the rates back up to something like what they used to be. (You can see these on the Rates for the Job at www.londonfreelance.org/rates) It seems that editors have some discretion to selectively apply a higher rate to those who ask them for it. So ask for it.