Not long ago, I had a client who handed an article draft to me. Proudly, they announced that they’d “written” it with the help of AI. They wanted me to edit it. I refused. I told them why, and this is something I think we all need to caution our clients about because they are…
Client issues
When Freelance Prospects Hesitate
I was talking with a writer chum the other day when the topic of prospects came up. Prospects — those people and organizations that you want to have as clients. My friend has a long list of potential clients they have talked with and discussed projects with who could all become clients within the immediate…
3 Ways to Keep Your Freelance Funnel Full (and a mini rant)
Had an interesting conversation with a fellow freelancer today — a freelancer to emulate. She’s built a highly successful, very lucrative business and has kept it going through decades of ups and downs. You name it, she’s dealt with it — health issues, recession, clients disappearing, life in upheaval, pandemics …. Inevitably, this freelancer has…
7 Sh*tty Things You Don’t Have to Take as a Freelancer
A show of hands (or comments, in this case) — how many of you thought freelancing would be easier than it turned out to be? For the record, my hand is up. Funny thing, though. It’s not necessarily the work that is hard. It’s the people. Oh boy, is it the people some days. While…
Wednesday WTF: Freelance Writing or Serfdom?
When it comes to freelance writing, there’s little that leaves me speechless these days. This post on a Facebook forum sure did. The Post I’ve been writing for a “national magazine” which no one has heard of, for a few years now strictly on freelance basis for the quarterly publication. My editor/publisher only pays per…
Freelance Files: Is This Client Worth It?
It’s been a while since we exercised our client-vetting skills, which is what this Is This Client Worth It segment is about. If we see real scenarios and how it turned out, we might get better at vetting potential clients. Let’s consider this scenario: The client reached out via an established contact. He needed a…
Client Red Flags Every Freelancer Needs to Know
I was reading through some old social media posts recently and came across discussion of a job posting that just plain sucked. In fact, I blogged about it not long ago right here. The issue was that the job poster, a household-name publication, was presenting a full-time employee position as a freelance job. Why? Because…
When a Client Breaches a Freelance Contract
We’ve all had our share of flaky clients. By flaky, I mean clients who: Disappear at payment time Reappear three months later to complain about quality (oddly about the same time you’ve threatened litigation/collection) Change the project parameters after you’ve done the work Revise more than twice (my record is 12 revisions) and get farther…
When is a Freelancer Not a Freelancer?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Looking for writers with a background in digital news reporting to write for us on a freelance basis. We would need 40 hours per week and the hours would be 9-to-5. See anything wrong with that? You should. And your obvious follow-up question to the job poster…
Freelance, Not Employee: A Quick Guide
If you missed yesterday’s #FreelanceChat, you missed a good discussion on client boundaries. (Head over to Twitter and check it out.) It brought up a serious issue we freelancers have to deal with — how to know when a client is treating you like an employee. It’s certainly happened to me. One of those occasions…