My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [61]
• Make sure your contract specifies that you get paid upon turning in the work, regardless of whether the client uses it. (In the magazine writing world, writers sometimes find a “kill fee” clause in their contracts, which allows editors to nix our stories at will and compensate us with just 25 to 30 percent of the article fee. Needless to say, this isn’t a popular clause among freelancers. If you stumble upon a similar clause, do your best to negotiate a 100 percent kill fee.)
• Help a steady client think about the bigger picture by suggesting you meet a couple times a year to map out the upcoming projects they’d like you to do. Yes, some of the time-lines and assignments will change later, but this gets them accustomed to giving you more lead time (and hopefully more work).
• Consider hiring a subcontractor to help lighten your crazy monkey load. The client still gets the work done, and you get a cut of what your subcontractor makes (more on this in Chapter 17).
PROBLEM: Your Client Is a Bloodsucker
As mentioned in Chapter 13, we freelancers do extras for our star clients when we can: Float them an extra roll of film. Knead their backs for an extra five minutes if we don’t have another client in the waiting room. Do a less-than-thrilling piecemeal project of theirs if they’re in a jam and we have room in our schedule.
But there’s a difference between doing someone a simple favor and letting ourselves be leeched. Some clients don’t know how much time those “little favors” they’re requesting take. (“I know we said we’d only have fifteen chapters for you to index, but can we sneak in five more at the same price?”) However innocuous the request, if it’s going to take you more than a few minutes or cost you significant coin, it’s up to you to set the client straight. Sometimes all they need is a little schooling on how you work.
True bloodsuckers, however, cannot be trained. No matter what you say or do, they won’t stop turning what should be a ten-minute check-in call into a ninety-minute bitchfest about their coworkers. They think you sleep with your BlackBerry under your pillow and have nothing better to do than answer their midnight missives. They repeatedly pump you for your “professional opinion” on any number of topics outside the scope of the project, from advice on how to redesign their website (even though they just hired you to write the copy) to advice on how to market their miniature dog sweaters (even though they only hired you to photograph them). In other words, they suck up a lot of extra time they’re not paying you for, and they’re happy to do it.
SOLUTION: I get that as females we’re genetically programmed to try to make strangers like us and to nurture every last wayward soul on the planet. But try to remember that your clients are not your foster kids—they’re just the people who sign your checks. It’s up to you to draw the line in the sand. Some suggestions for dealing with needy clients:
• Tell them your business hours. (If you don’t know what they are, see Chapter 17.) Remind them again. Then tell them you’re not going to work for them anymore if they continue to call after your kids have gone to bed.
• Two words: caller ID. Even better, tell clients to email if they need you and that for nonurgent matters, it may be a few hours before they hear back. And whatever you do, don’t give out your personal number, home address, or IM address.
• Ask clients to lump email requests into as few messages as possible so your inbox isn’t crammed with subject lines like “One more thing,” “Forgot to mention,” and “Last email this afternoon—I promise!”
• To avoid