Making Money Writing – An Important Decision
21st December, 2009 - Posted by admin - 3 Comments
When you first start making money writing, you do a happy dance every time you get a new gig. It all validates your skills, your dream of getting paid to write, your business plan. It’s a complete thrill to be taken seriously as a writer (even if it’s not the novel you always dreamed of writing!).
But eventually, you’ll come to a point of decision. It’s an exciting place to be, because when you realize it’s there before you, it means you’ve got an abundance of projects to choose from… you go from feeling like you’re just lucky to have a gig to feeling like the talented pro you really are.
The choice: Who do you want for clients?
I’ve found that working for clients I really like makes a HUGE difference. It’s even more important than the specific project at hand.
In fact…
Working for a great client on a bad project is FAR better than working for a bad client on a great project.
Late last week I was working on a project that felt so far outside my knowledge base that I wondered if what I wrote even made sense. It was hard. It was a tight deadline. It felt somewhat like torture.
But it was for a client I really like… and one who understood the stretch this one was, and still wanted me for the project, and who showed great appreciation for my work.
Same thing back when I was writing for an ESOL company that did elementary ed stuff for McGraw Hill and Scholastic. The projects were so hard that it felt like nobody knew how to even take the first bite for a while – a little like watching that “Man vs. Food” show where the guy’s trying to eat a 6 pound burger in 20 minutes!
Again, a client (and coworkers) that I really liked. So what could have been horrible became kind of a shared challenge instead.
On the other side, there will be clients who come your way who you should send packing – no matter how interesting the project looks. If you’re really perceptive, you’ll spot them before you work for them. But even if they get past your bad-client spidey sense once, that doesn’t mean you have to work for them a second time.
It comes down to an understanding that there’s a TON of work out there for you, that your talent and time and expertise are valuable, and that you get to choose who you’re going to work for.
Have you found this to be true? Have you fired clients before? Have you had that gut feeling about a client (and either listened to it or ignored it)? Let’s hear about it!
3 Comments
Laya Bajpai
December 21st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Hi Sue,
First let me begin by congratulating you for creating such an excellent blog. Whenever I feel low, I just click on your blog and think, “this woman has all the guts in the world!”
I totally agree with you that it is better to do bad work with a good client than good work with a bad client.
I had a client, who excuse my Indian slang …was a cheapo ( LOL) he would haggle for every penny and made payments like $2.7 and $1.7 per article…he gave me travel articles to rewrite…the source was always very bad but he expected me to create an exceptional article out of it.
On the other hand I had a client who gave me a task which became tiring because it meant writing some 50-60 articles on lighting, but the payment was always in advance, there was always apprecition of my work and he understood that at times I just couldn’t come up with ideas.
Julie Scott
December 21st, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Sue,
I came so close to bidding a project until I came [finally] to the end of the description. It asked for each bidder to write an article on a keyword that would be supplied. My antenna shot straight to the moon on that one.
There is something inherently wrong when a sample is something you write “fresh” for the buyer. No one can convince me that the buyer is not planning to cancel the project when bidders have supplied the total of articles needed! Provider beware.
sonny (Tribe)
December 21st, 2009 at 8:36 pm
HI Sue,
I am sure glad you came up with that subject,
only I call them prospects, and we are Brokers,
but I think it amounts to the same, we are still
writers , creating ads for advertising, and our
propects many times really donot understand what is going on, I think your clients are the same,
many times there is no interest in the other person,
thank you for the opportunity to write,
I just wish I could write better,
Sonny
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