Your Boundary-a-Day Freelance Career

To the wishy-washy freelance writers out there, this post is for you.

A while ago (years) I was asked to complete a project by a client who’d found me on Twitter. That went well, so I wasn’t surprised when she reappeared the next month with another project.

I was surprised by what she wanted me to do. She was asking me to write a love letter to her love interest. And she shared numerous emails between her and the man in question.

No.

Hell no.

Was the work beneath me? Not at all. It was definitely outside of my usual work, which was business writing, but I wouldn’t consider anything like that “beneath” me.

It was, however, too personal. To me, it was also a tad unethical.

Would you want to base your relationship on a letter that you found out later your love interest didn’t write? The woman asking was afraid to come across insincere. I get it. It just wasn’t something I was willing to do. To me, the minute someone else writes that note for you and you sign it, you’ve already gone into insincere territory.

That was my boundary. Even with money dangling in front of me, I had no problem turning the work down.

Recently, a number of projects have been proposed that I’ve not felt comfortable taking. In all cases, I politely declined.

Did it hurt to push back against any of these potential clients? No. I’d established my boundaries ages ago — those things I will not do no matter who asks. With the help of the ethics courses I took in my journalism courses, I was able to establish boundaries for even the really odd requests. Here are a few things that have happened to me for you to keep in mind:

• Two people cannot be paying you for the same story. Period. If you want to ruin your reputation as a trustworthy writer, just sell a magazine a story that your client just paid you to write. Conflict of interest much? No editor in their right mind would work with you again.
• If clients are wanting to approve the article topic or drive any aspect of something a magazine is going to pay you for, that’s wrong. That’s like having two bosses — the one who pays you and the one who thinks they own you. The one who pays you is your ultimate boss, get it? Suggest this instead — the client pays you for the story. That is the only way they should have any control over what you write.

I know you’re wanting to please your potential client. They’re dangling that carrot and you’re needing one more project this month. So how do you, freelance writer, create a mindset that allows you to both see the issue and refuse the work? And let’s face it — sometimes it’s the fact that we don’t clearly see the issue that gets us into the most trouble.

I think we should approach each day with an affirmation of how we’ll deal with anything that threatens our personal or professional boundaries. Thinking out your process ahead of time (and going over it in your head regularly) can keep you from sticking your foot in it later.

Try these:

Pause. Then respond.

You know that client who’s proposing this great “partnership” where you can “write articles together”? Do this — clam up. Listen. Take notes. Ask questions to clarify what they’re actually proposing. Thank them for their time. Hang up. Ruminate over 24 hours at minimum about what they just asked you to do. What’s in it for them? What’s their output of energy? If their “partnership” amounts to no more than throwing ideas at you and cracking the whip to get you to write it and place it, that’s not a partnership. It’s serfdom.

Write it out.

This works for both phone calls and emails. It helps you cut through the BS and see the facts for what they are (or aren’t, as the case may be). In one call, I’d have written “Wants me to write articles they suggest and pitch them to magazines. I’d get paid by the magazine.” Reading that over, no writer would take direction from someone who isn’t paying them. Or you can make Pro and Con columns. Using the same example, the Pro column would have been empty, but the Con column would have said “Not paying me” and “Wants me to write and sell their message without compensation.” Use whatever setup you like, but by jotting it down, you’re automatically removing the emotional language and the excited delivery. What’s left are the facts.

Give it the invoice test.

Can you send them an invoice for the work they’re asking you to do? If not, there’s your answer. Look, there are a lot of smooth talkers out there who can spin nearly anything into sounding like a huge benefit to you. One guy I spoke with made it sound like I’d be mingling with tons of paying clients when in fact I’d be wasting a three-day weekend helping him grade contest entries for no compensation. No invoice? No deal.

Examine your motivation.

So why are you about to devote extra time and effort to that client? What is motivating you to extend yourself too far for too little? Listen, I like some clients better than others sometimes, too. But it’s okay to tell the nice guy no. It’s okay to let someone down when they’re about to infringe on your free time. It’s okay to correct a client who throws additional work in the conversation as an afterthought (maybe hoping you won’t notice). It’s okay to let a client bluster and act like a complete jerk and not react by trying to please them. So before you agree to anything you wouldn’t normally agree to, look at the real reason why you’re about to do just that. Then stop it.

Writers, how have you had to reinforce a boundary with a client?
Did you ever have an instance in which a client did cross a boundary? How did it work out? What did you learn from it?