Comments on: Are Your Clients Reverse Nickel and Diming You to Death?

By: Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:43:06 +0000

Sometimes that’s just what you have to do. There’s nothing wrong with renegotiating or essentially firing a client if things aren’t working out after the current project. One way or the other, it’s on to better things!

By: Carol Tice

Carol Tice — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:39:20 +0000

Great post Jenn — scope creep is a perpetual problem! I have one client that I got a month ago that seems to have an advanced degree in it…so when my contract is up at the end of the month I’m hiking their monthly rate more than 50% to cover the expanded wordcounts, unexpected ghosting work, late payments, uncooperative staffers and additional interviews that came along, or saying goodbye.

Carol Tice
http://www.caroltice.com
http://Twitter.com/TiceWrites
latest blog: 8 More Good-Paying Writing Niches: http://www.caroltice.com/blog/33

By: Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:09:54 +0000

I’m sure it works for some people, but I couldn’t write for pay on pub clients either. Mine have completely spoiled me I supposed. It would have to be a damn good offer for me to even consider it, and even then I’d say it’s highly unlikely.

By: Star

Star — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:46:18 +0000

Yes–put “one reasonable rewrite if needed (under to hours)” in your contract. I don’t write for pay on pub places, but when I did, they would come back months later when they were ready to publish and ask me to “call all the sources for changes.” This is why I don’t write for pay on pub. Plus it honked me off that is was perfectly OK with editors for us to wait 6 mos to a year for our probably too low fee. We eat just like they do. I also hate chasing art–this has now become an accepted part of the writer’s job. Sorry–this is the designer’s area. I don’t mind asking the source if they have pix–but going around and around on resolution, having pix sent to me, and my sending them on–that takes time. Yeah–I am an old crab. Stay off my lawn, too. :-)

By: Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:11:59 +0000

That’s exactly what can happen. It’s bad enough when there are too many cooks in the kitchen within the client’s company itself. But when they start bringing in outsiders who aren’t exactly experts in either the writing or in relation to the company, it’s frustrating. They weren’t a part of the background discussions, market research, and planning. They’re not even a target reader of the material. In those cases their opinion pretty much means nothing. But they’ll happily suggest changing a word here, a phrase there. Here’s the thing. If you show the same copy to 10 different people they’ll probably have 10 different sets of suggestions for you. Someone will always be able to find potential edits for someone else’s work, even if the changes do nothing to improve it.

That’s why a set number of revisions is a good idea when discussing details with a client, especially for larger projects. That way they’re forced to gather all of the feedback from people they want input from at once, fine tune it and make final edit requests, and give it to you for one edit set.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:44:04 +0000

I like this article. I’m taking some notes. I did want to add to the one where you said “ran it by a friend”. I know some Freelance writers that have had this happen a lot in the past, so now they include it in their contracts. Some state that the contract is terminated when a third party comes into the picture. Then renegotiation begins.

I guess they have been burned so many times with a business partner, uncle or neighbor, who chimes in and feels the client should add this and that and that to the content.