Time to ‘fess up – do you collect deposits/fees from every single client every single time on every single project? If so, you don’t write for magazines, do you? There are times when you just can’t. Magazines pay on acceptance or on publication. If you think you’ll get them to change their payment schedule, good…
Cheap, Cheap…
I once worked for $15 an article. Before you flog me for telling others not to when I myself did, let me explain. It was 15 years ago and the market – the local newspaper. While I didn’t make oodles of cash, I established myself in a credible market. I bring this up after reading…
Me First!
Leigh brought up an interesting point Friday regarding client accommodation. We all have the client who calls and asks “Are you free to help me with a project?” only to assume that two weeks later, you’re still free. I’ve had it happen as late as a month ago. Three weeks later when I really didn’t…
Deadlines – Yours and Theirs
Show of hands – how many of you have received projects from your clients and found out their deadline is of the next-to-impossible variety? Whoa. That many of you? Me too. I understand where it comes from. A lot of clients have to walk these things through various committees, through meeting upon meeting, and through…
Marketing When You’re Busy
It’s true – schedule just one half day or a few hours off and the client projects come out of the woodwork. Today is a much-awaited hair appointment to cover up the stress remnants of the Labor Day client crunch. Tomorrow, I’m off in the afternoon to try making it to Erie by bedtime. And…
Giving What’s Expected
I had a client recently who needed me to rewrite something they’d just paid someone else to rewrite. In fact, the rather large document, which was supposedly updated by a marketing firm, looked suspiciously familiar – except for a few minor word changes, it was basically the copy I’d supplied this company two years ago…
Kristen King Announces Giveaway!
If you’re in the market for a neat invoicing system or if you just can’t pull together or make sense of invoicing and billing, listen up. Kristen King is giving away a 3-month basic membership for Invotrak, an online invoicing and tracking system. All you have to do is visit Inkthinker between now and 11:59…
Building a Writing Group
I’ve been in writing groups pre-computer, email-based, and face-to-face. In every case, the groups were different. Way different. Yet they all worked because we set the ground rules at the outset and followed them. In the first group, we were a group of five or six. We met for a few hours every two to…
More Fun with Verizon’s Dick and Jane (and Doug and Vickie and….)
I just spent a good 35 minutes on the phone with Verizon. See, on top of my credit card numbers being lifted, my husband went through the same thing a few months ago. We’re still getting caught up with what automated bill payments we’ve changed and what ones we’ve forgotten. Today, I was dealing with…
Writing Group Etiquette
At a writing group meeting I was once part of, a new person dropped by the group to check us out. We knew within 20 minutes that he wasn’t going to fit. See, our meetings were an hour and a half long. He took the first 20 minutes to avail us of his “vast” experience…