Dear Fellow ASJA Members:
My daughter Amy lives in downtown Chicago and all the adventure that entails. She also owns a dog, and while walking Leila and on the phone with me enthusing about the house just purchased by her and her husband, she stopped short. “Mom, I have to send you a picture of this. I almost stepped in it – it defies description.” Needless to say, the anatomically correct waste product resulted in much hilarity.
Unexpected encounters of fecal kind are also part of freelancing, no matter how hard you try to avoid them. For example, few months ago, one of my best clients assigned me a story that involved a service they offer to their constituents. It seemed routine enough: I interviewed their sources and got their buy-in, sent it to the editor, who returned it with some revisions. While I thought that my approach might be more compelling to the readership, I also understood the reason behind the reorganization, as the focus seemed to have shifted more towards the service itself, rather than the problems and solutions it addressed. The editor herself spent additional days revising the story, then sent it onto the individuals in charge of the service, expressing the hope that they would like it. That should have been a tip-off that something distasteful and smelly might soon be crossing my path.
And indeed it was, although I was paid in full for the story. Although because the reviewers reacted so negatively, my future as freelancer with this client now stood in question. What could I have done to prevent this? Looking back on it, probably not much, except perhaps listening more closely to the editor’s expressed doubts so it wouldn’t have been such a surprise. I try to learn from each situation and then move on, with an eye to expanding my client base to include a variety of outlets.
Still, there are ways to lessen the risk. I consulted the King – not the one who has permanently left the building — but Richard Lowe, Jr., the self-proclaimed Writing King, who offers professional SEO-optimized blogging as well as book, magazine and content writing and coaching services. The author of over 60 books and ghostwriter of a dozen more, Richard is also a senior LinkedIn branding specialist and has crafted over 150 LinkedIn profiles for business people. He came up with these poop-busting nuggets:
- Particularly with a new or unestablished client, make sure to get between 25-50 percent upfront and state that that amount is nonrefundable. Additionally, the contract should state that either party may leave the project at any time.
- Clients can be very deceiving, especially when ghostwriting. That is, they may not know exactly what they want until you produce it and then realize they were looking for something entirely different. So make sure that they clearly understand the importance of carefully reviewing the article or book as it goes through each stage of the development process.
- The key to successful outcomes is managing change or what the computer industry calls “scope creep.” You start by clearly stating the terms of the contract upfront. If it’s a magazine article or blog, one revision or pass might do the trick. If it’s a longer project, there might be a couple of rounds of revisions. But these need to be set forth in writing – along with a timeline — so all parties clearly understand what is expected of each.
- When a change is out of scope or excessive it raises this question: Who pays for it? Strictly speaking, it should be the client, but that rarely, if ever, works out. If you try to nickel and dime them for every single deviation then you’ll soon find yourself out of a job. The key here is communication. If you’re going to give them a change without charge, let them know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and that it’s an exception. Also document that in a change log to further protect yourself.
“It boils down to a question of give-and-take,” concludes Richard. “Sometimes you give a little to the client, and sometimes you don’t. It’s best to give them a few small things and clamp down on the larger changes. That way you don’t come off as difficult to work with or as being unreasonable.”
For me, I scraped off my shoe and told the client I would be happy to work on any future projects. No point in burning your bridges or holding your breath, just keep moving forward with an eye out for suspicious brown objects.