Lori, same here! If a HuffPo link comes up, I search for the same words and just find a different outlet reporting on the same thing! We’re quite determined when we want!

Paula, same. If the link comes up in a search, I’ll go to the next one. I won’t promote a site that devalues its talent.

Randy, I simply don’t understand some of the claims people make about their background. Maybe she taught in a religious school? But even still, editing is not writing. Editing K-12 work doesn’t require the same skills as editing the work of the corporate world (well, in most cases).

Claiming the skills you have is fine. Claiming ones you wish you had is lying.

The decline of ethics really is disgusting. Just today I got a request to join my LinkedIn group from a freelancer who works for a “Christian author and editor” who markets her services to writers who are “struggling with producing God’s vision.” Her primary credential is 18 years of teaching language arts in middle school–and her offerings include editing school essays, which I failed to realize was work in service of God’s vision. Lori, thanks for calling out bad practice and those who engage in it!

I also don’t read HuffPo, but started not reading before Arianna sold it. I’d just heard so many horror stories from people who’d written for it that I couldn’t in good conscience click any links to that site.

AMEN.

I love the idea of a contract for samples. It’s brilliant!

That’s it in a nutshell, Devon. Sigh. It’s so tiring having to shoot down the same old BS every year.

Preach it, sister!

I’m tired of it, too. I’m tired of the entitled feeling a growing number of beginning freelancers have about what’s owed them. I’m tired of the same chumps you mention bending the rules to benefit them (at the expense of someone else, almost always). I’m tired of shitty advice being doled out like poisoned candy. I’m tired of writers thinking there’s this magic formula that allows them to circumnavigate the work part of building a writing business.

I’m tired right next to you, Gabriella.

And I refuse to read HuffPo for the same reason. That woman made fortunes off the backs of writers who thought this was their golden ticket. No, it just showed other leech-like companies that there are enough stupid people out there willing to work for nothing, so why should we pay?

On this point, your rant — and mine — will never be over.