Thank you for the post, hon. I truly appreciate it.

What I generally tell new writers re: health insurance is that your clients actually do cover it for you. At least if you remember to account for it in your rates. All the money you'd put toward a policy comes from them. You just have to remember to ask for enough. That and thinking of vacation time as "unpaid" are common issues I've seen with writers. Sure it's all covered and paid for. If we're setting our rates properly! 🙂

Paula – With clients like that, I just emphasize what's going into a piece — especially when they act like they need something immediately, with no clue as to how much time it's going to take. It's like they think the words just flow out of us like perfect little rainbows from our infinite store of knowledge.

If a basic explanation that you need to account for research and editing time doesn't cut it for them, go ahead and itemize it. Then tell them you can do it faster or cheaper (if that's what they're pushing for) only if they're willing to invest the time into knocking several of those things off your list. Sometimes you have to show them exactly what you're saving them from having to do before they appreciate your true value.

Great post, Jenn. But what really gets me are people who only want to pay for those words on the page (or screen), with no consideration for the research, time, and effort put into gathering, understanding and organizing the information before we even write a word, and the time spent editing the copy to match their style and word limit. Maybe itemizing invoices spanning each of those tasks would help.

We help clients keep marketing goals on track and they don't even have to pay us benefits. Although I wish they'd pick up my health insurance. 😉

There is certainly a lot we bring to the table.