Mind you, my rates weren't referred to in their last note back, but I made it pretty clear what they were.

The dance drives me nuts. Clients, if you expect work, know that I expect payment. Period. No less than you'd expect.

Because of that I'm always conscious of referring to rates or quotes in the early communications with a new client. In fact, it's become second nature for me to say something about a quote in my first response to any new client.

Live and learn, right?

DON, that's just gawd-awful. Way for them to shoot you in the foot before you even start. I know their intentions were good, but damn. Let the writer handle it, people!

Gabriella, that's so sad it's almost funny. You want to laugh, but sarcastically and as you're poised to knock some sense into them.

Gabriella, I wrote a story for the publication. The client saw it, liked it, and wanted me to do the same for them. The publication obviously doesn't print just anything, so I have to hlep the client narrow down a subject and craft a query.

As soon as they get something to me, I'll get back on this. I have to put this on hold until I'm sure they're really on board here. In fact, I'm waiting for an email confirmation on my rates.

I'm not entirely comfy here with the way things are spinning. So I'm halting the spinning on this side until there's some agreement.

I'd been having discussions with a rather obscure adventure sports organization, trying to see if there were any good story angles to pursue. The discussions must have got their hopes up. They contacted several editors with vague promises of providing a story. Now many of the editors think that they'll get an exclusive story, others think they'll be getting something like a long news release or canned story, and all of them think that the sports organization is paying the writer. I know that the sports organization has no money; they thought they were doing me a favor by finding me a bunch of markets to peddle a manuscript to.

I can't say that the organization is alone in not understanding how the publishing industry works. To most people, there's no difference between publicity commissioned by a client and a story bought by a publisher, no understanding of the process involved, and utterly no thought given to who pays for what. I don't blame the sports organization for messing up my chances of selling what could have been a good story. We need to do a better job at educating potential clients and the public.

However, I have had people call and ask me to write things without mentioning money, and when I told them my rates, they gave me the, "Oh, we don't pay. I was hoping you'd donate your time" bit.

Looks like you just forgot to discuss rates, but good thing you realized it before you spent too much time gearing up for the project.

If the publication was paying you, the publication would have sent up the contact. They wouldn't have contacted you directly. Or, if they did, they would have mentioned the point person on the publication.