This post is serious. Seriously weird.
Know those clients and interactions and projects that you get that make you wonder WTF years later? For some reason, one of those popped into my head last week. It was random, too. I was playing Solitaire before I got to my emails and boom! I’m thinking about one of the strangest interactions I’ve ever had with a client.
Here’s how it went:
The details are fuzzy (it’s been years), but I remember well how it ended. I’d been working with a client who, for some reason, didn’t quite grasp that “freelance” didn’t mean “I’m at your beck-and-call 24/7.”
I’d talked to them about a project. They’d hired me. I did the work. Somewhere in the middle of it, they became demanding. Don’t remember why, but it was a WTF moment where they were pushing for my serfdom. It was the “you owe us” attitude. And the “you need to be available to us between 9 am and 9 pm” sort of nonsense. That’s when you’re really, really thankful for being freelance. I told them that no, that wouldn’t be possible. And I offered the times in which I would be available if they had questions.
But it didn’t end there. The phone started ringing. Let me say this upfront: when a client gets nasty, I disengage. It was a wholly unpleasant situation, and I wasn’t going to stick my hand in the flames again. So each time the phone rang, I let it go.
The last call came from a different number. Fortunately, I was out at the time, so I didn’t have to pick up. The message was pretty ridiculous: “Hello, if this is Lori, the freelance writer, I want you to know I’ve been calling trying to hire you. I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.”
News flash — I have caller ID. She’d never tried calling before. Never. And she left no contact info. And her number was the same exchange as the belligerent client’s. Childish much?
Right. Bullet — dodged.
Unfortunately, that was not the only instance in which a client got weird on me. Take this scenario:
New-to-me magazine hired me to do an article. Things seemed okay at first. I got an assignment and had it done within a week. However, during that time, things were getting weird.
The first article was paid for upfront per mutual agreement (they’d advertised $X for Y words). After that, it was time for a contract. I emailed the editor and sent over the contract. He emailed back “I tend not to do contracts. I’d rather we trust each other.”
If that didn’t make me run for the hills, the next thing he said did. “We typically round down on word count, and we pay for what we use.”
Oh no, you don’t. You don’t pay me per word, then cheat me out of a portion of the work I’ve done. So I pushed back — I’ve never worked that way. So if you decide to use 200 words of the 2,000 I provide, I’m penalized?
That’s where he got snotty. “I would never use just 200 words. And in my three years of doing this, I’ve never had a problem with a writer not agreeing to it.”
Then you have fools working for you. My response: “In my seven years of doing this, I’ve never had a client propose something so skewed. I don’t think we can come to an agreement on this. Good luck to you.”
Oh, but it wasn’t over. I’d still written an article for him. His editor, a nice, but scattered woman, had needed the article quickly. She’d sent me an email three weeks later — right about the time my daughter was graduating from high school — and said she needed me by the phone that weekend. She was just getting to the edits.
I told her that was impossible — my daughter’s graduation and party were that weekend, and I had a houseful of out-of-town guests.
Damn if that phone didn’t ring a dozen times during that weekend. And didn’t I get one message expressing frustration and needing me to call right away (and there were over 20 people in the house at the time) and saying “I wish I had your cell phone number.”
That’s exactly why she didn’t have it. She had no respect for boundaries.
On Monday when I did call her, she wasn’t angry, but was distraught because she’d had to edit it herself. Um….isn’t that your job?
Leaving that client behind = Best. Decision. Ever.
There are others we’ve all probably come across:
- The ones who try to convince you that even if you’ve written what they’ve ordered, they’ll just be paying for what they’ve used, thank you
- The ones that say “We see no difference between press release writing and blog post writing, so we’ll be paying you the lower PR rate for all” (and that was with a contract. Thank the Maker.)
- The ones who get pissy when the final invoice with litigation threat shows up — and they always claim the first two invoices were in their Spam folder (and this one was miraculously delivered then?)
- The ones who want the entire history of workers’ compensation (or your particular topic) written — in less than 800 words
- The ones who want you to rewrite the article they’d asked for but now with a new focus and new interviewees, but they’re only paying for 2 more hours of your time
Oh, but one of the most frustrating happened not long ago.
Hired to write a magazine article. Did the job. The first revision was great — just a few minor changes.
The second revision, however, began to get weird. All of the things that worked the first time were now not okay. In the end, there were four revisions. Got the check. Moved on.
Fast forward two months. I get an email from the editor as the phone is ringing (and yes, she was the one who was calling). I was in the middle of writing something for someone else, so I let it go to voice mail. The message: “Lori, call me right away.”
I opened the email first. “Did you write another article for someone else using this same source????”
I had. And the problem with that is…?
I called and talked with her. That’s when she accused me of unethical behavior, of “being in the back pocket” of the source, who happened to fit another story perfectly and who was located by me in the first damn place.
What I should have done was hang up. This was clearly not any kind of problem, nor was it unethical to use the same source for different stories in non-competing (or even competing) magazines. It’s called standard practice.
What I did was try to appease her. And I didn’t have to. I’d been paid.
What happened next — she made me find all new interview sources because the one who’d been used in another story had recommended the other sources (seriously, that deep into the weeds). I did. I ran them all by her. She approved them. I wrote.
Twelve interviews and edits later, I was done. She didn’t think so, but she’d kept moving the target. I’d run every single source by her. She’d approved them all. Then she’d find fault. When she pushed back the last time, it was in a phone message that sounded like a schoolteacher talking down to a toddler.
And of course there was an email. I hit Reply. “Per your note of October XX, these sources are all fine. You should be good to go.”
And you know it wasn’t. The email I got back was more of the same — “This is NOT okay” kind of stuff. But I was already disengaged.
That was the only job I quit in the middle of. Actually no, I’d completed it. I decided to quit in the middle of a ridiculous maelstrom.
Writers, tell me your worst! What client nightmares or projects have you lived through?
What did these experiences teach you?
13 responses to “Tales From the Stranger Side of Freelance Writing”
A friend recommended me to ghostwrite books for two of his colleagues. The first one paid the deposit, but bounced the final payment on me, then contacted me four years later because she wanted to “write at least 10 books.” Um, no.
The second one assured me she paid professional rates, then wanted an entire book ghostwritten for $1000 flat fee. Um, no. That’s not a professional rate, and it’s 1/11th of what we discussed for the scope of the project. She also felt she shouldn’t be charged for research time (the book needed extesnive research). I walked away.
That is why I now only ghostwrite books when hired by the publisher, it’s run through my non-fiction agent, and I get a good chunk of change up front.
Those “rates” are laughable. Sadly, you’re not laughing when you’re on the receiving end.
I think that second one was confused — she must have thought that “professional rates” meant “minimum wage.”
I don’t blame you for limiting how those jobs come to you. I love when people think that ghostwriting and editing book manuscripts are so “easy” that they don’t really need to pay you well for it. The ghostwriting I do — articles for companies — is much, much easier to sell because these are busy people who value my time as well as their own.
I’ve told it here before: the editor of a major market paying $2/word assigned me a very specific listicle. Something along the lines of “10 dangers hiding in your home.” She gave me 12-15 suggestions, and said I didn’t need a separate expert for each thing, some experts might cover more than one item. She suggested a couple sources, I ran others past her for approval first since it was my first assignment for this magazine.
My deadline was September, I think, but I turned everything in a couple weeks early just in case it wasn’t to her liking. She said thanks; she’d let me know if she needed a revision, which she said was common.
Fast forward to December 22. I was out of town for the holidays and saw an email from the editor asking me to review the Track Changes, make the corrections and get it back to her by mid-January. I replied, noting I would be out through January 2 (or whatever the first day of the work week was that year), but would jump right on it when I was back in the office.
Where to start….she hated all of my sources, all of which she had approved and/or suggested. She kept trying to insert a “danger” that I literally contacted the CDC about, and was told that it posed no health risk at all. I explained that one to her three times, but she still insisted it was a danger.
In short, she wanted me to start totally from scratch. She suggested more sources. I contacted them, but – guess what – couldn’t reach anyone because they were still out of the office for the holidays. When I mentioned that to the editor she said, “I haven’t had any trouble reaching people. I thought you said you were a PROFESSIONAL?”
Yep. She went there.
I said, ‘I AM a professional. But apparently a lot of these people decided to take the rest of the week off. I’m still trying to get sources, I’m simply letting you know what I’ve come up against.” (In other words, being professional by keeping her updated.)
Her response was to cut my deadline in half. I think I had to turn everything in by January 6.
I somehow scrounged up enough sources, re-wrote the whole thing and sent it in on the new deadline. Her reply, “Thanks.”
In late April – on my birthday, I think – someone else at the magazine emailed asking me to send a w9 and bank routing info, both of which I’d sent the editor the previous August. I told them I would happily re-send. (The magazine had been sold to a different publisher in the interim, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt that my paperwork needed to be re-done due to that.) I asked if that meant the piece was finally being published. They said, “Didn’t the editor tell you? You’ll be getting the kill fee.”
Within the hour the editor, who I hadn’t heard from since January, sent a terse email, “Oh. Sorry. I thought someone told you we killed it.” Someone? She was literally my only contact there. It was her job. Who’s unprofessional now?
Considering the $2/word rate, a complete rewrite would still have been worth it. But doing double the work for a 25% kill fee was totally not worth it.
Oh, I remember this one, Paula. And I remember thinking this was an editor who was leading the story instead of letting the story be what it actually is. Inserting “danger” where nothing poses a danger is misleading the readers, breaking their trust, and spreading false info. On that point alone you should be glad to be rid of her.
What astounds me is that people like this are in charge of putting out information. If it had been me and I saw there was no danger afoot, I would have changed the title to reflect what the writer found, not pushed the writer to sensationalize.
It’s not often, but sometimes working for the higher rate means you’re about to be hassled into wishing you’d not accepted it.
I honestly thought she was testing me – like “How many hurdles can I make this writer jump? Let’s see….okay sources that I know aren’t a good fit; keep insisting she include something that’s inaccurate; sit on the edits for over three months and spring them on her over the holidays; demand a complete re-write with all new sources DURING the holiday break; and then cut her deadline to do the re-write in half!”
Somehow I managed to jump every hurdle, and she still didn’t have the common sense or decency to let me know they killed it, or why. Was it because the rewrite was bad? Was it because her boss hated HER changes? Was it because the magazine’s new owner wanted to start fresh instead of using copy assigned by the former editors? I still don’t know. And now I don’t care. It’s over. I don’t eve remember that editors name, to be honest.
Coming up on year 13 of full-time freelancing, I’ve had my share of strange encounters and awful clients. The biggest thing I learned is to trust my first impression of a potential client!
Here’s just an example: I had one person contact me on LinkedIn back on the spring to tell me I seemed like a good fit for a project. When I got on the phone he proceeded to nitpick my resume (questioning my use of a specific word), asked me to rearrange it, and, when I asked a clarifying question about the work, said “I thought you had experience with this.” To close out the conversation, he informed me that nobody else without at least a master’s had been approved by his client. And he needed me to jump on full steam because a couple other writers had left the project. So bizarre…so many red flags.
Years ago I would have proceeded because on the surface the rate seemed good. Instead, I messaged him after a couple of hours to say I didn’t think we were a good fit. Sometimes I’ll also read contracts supplied by potential clients that have really questionable clauses. The most recent said, among other things, that they can basically request revisions until they are satisfied, that they can do rewrites at their own discretion and deduct that from the writer’s pay, and that they can withhold payment if a writer does not respond within a certain time period. If that is how they start a relationship with writers I just feel like they will be a nightmare to work with!
Oh wow, Krista! He lost me at asking you to rearrange your resume! What a control freak, and your instincts were right — that would have gone from bad to ugly really quickly.
And contracts. Contracts tell them that no, you don’t keep revising into your old age just because they’re indecisive. And NO WAY would I agree to have a pay deduction because of their jerking around! No. Hell NO.
Yes, I can’t help but wonder why the other writers left. And the weirdest part was they were the ones who contacted me!
Oh, Krista, that contract story reminds me of another story! I can’ t recall the client, but their contract included language that said the writer was personally liable for any issues stemming from the published copy. As I pointed to that client: Someone who has no control over the final copy cannot be expected to be held liable for the final, edited copy. Come on, we’ve all had experiences where an editor, however well-intended, accidentally introduces an error during the editing process.
Apparently, the client had never bothered to read their contract, and had their legal team to remove that part of it.
Oh, and to tag onto the ghostwriting discussion, I’ve had a few people say something along the lines of “You should write my life story. We’d get rich.”
Right! There are very few people in this world whose life stories would make them rich. And the people who say that to you are probably NOT one of those few! LOL I had that once. A dude called me wanting me to write his story. He was almost murdered on a Navy ship, he said. That was before he was a woman for ten years.
Intriguing, yes. But fact-checking that would be a nightmare. And he was willing to share the royalties with me. Yea no, I work for cash.
I get that here constantly. My response is, “If there’s a contract from your publisher and an initial deposit check for $10,000 on my agent’s desk tomorrow morning, we can start negotiations.”
Yep. That’s a must.