All Freelance Writing » MadLance

Late Shift

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:50:36 +0000

Note: This post originally appeared at FreelanceTheater.com on February 9, 2010. The Freelance Theater audio play series is now a part of All Freelance Writing.

One of the sometimes best / sometimes worst aspects of freelancing is how much time you’ll spend working alone. While it can be nice to avoid the politics and drama of a traditional office environment, there is also no 5pm closure reminding you to go home and no one to talk to on a whim (especially if you’re working in the dead of night). If you live alone on top of working alone, it can be even worse. Maybe you’ll even start talking to yourself. But what would happen if someone else were actually listening in, and you weren’t quite as alone in your head as you thought?

That’s what we’ll explore in this episode from the MadLance series, “Late Shift.” Can you relate at all to Chuck? (By the way, Chuck is played by Clint Osterholz, our very first guest star here at Freelance Theater, so be sure to welcome him!)

Download “Late Shift” (right-click and save the .mp3 file) or stream it now below.

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How do you deal with too much alone time as a freelance writer? Do you have family at home with you? Do you constantly network with colleagues to keep you sane? Do you every find yourself talking to your pets or even yourself? Share your work-alone tips for freelancers in the comments.

If you would like to embed the player for this episode on your own website or blog, please use the embed code below to get the same player you see above in this post:

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The Dead Don't Write

Jennifer Mattern — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 18:10:50 +0000

Note: This post originally appeared at FreelanceTheater.com on October 30, 2009. The Freelance Theater audio play series is now a part of All Freelance Writing.

Have you ever had a “vampire client” — one who seems to suck the life out of you? Maybe they don’t pay enough so you push yourself to the edge of burning out regularly as you cram in countless projects. Perhaps they’re extremely picky or they’re the type who doesn’t know what they want until they see it, meaning you’re asked to do an unusually high number of revisions. You might even have the type of “vampire client” who constantly asks you for extra advice or guidance beyond the scope of your projects — consulting work you’re not being paid for.

These types of client-writer relationships are what we explore in our very first episode of the MadLance series, “The Dead Don’t Write.” See if you can relate to poor Kelly, trying to balance keeping her client happy while also staying sane.

Download “The Dead Don’t Write” (right-click and save the .mp3 file) or stream it now below.

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What would you do if you were in Kelly’s shoes? Would you have the nerve to lay down new ground rules with a client? Would you fire that client? Would you ride the situation out as long as possible? As a freelance writer it’s important to understand that sometimes you’ll have to make tough calls with clients. That might seem difficult to do, especially when you’re first starting out and you may only have a few clients lined up, but how you handle the client-contractor dynamic now can impact where you’ll be months from now.

Sometimes clients won’t even realize they’re putting an unusual burden on you (such as the ones who really do respect your opinions so they ask for advice constantly without realizing that time is money when you’re a service provider). Confronting those issues early on ensures you won’t feel taken advantage of later. Keep this in mind: if you start to resent your work because you didn’t put your foot down in a professional way early on, you aren’t doing anyone any good. You’ll be unhappy with your work, which means you’ll be less likely to give it your all (in turn meaning your client loses out too).

Closing thoughts: Set some ground rules in your freelance writing career. Let clients know when it’s okay (or not okay) to call you, and when you’re negotiating projects or signing contracts bring up issues like revisions up front. Let clients know how many revisions are included in your base rates, and how much you charge for further revisions (edit requests aren’t always a sign that you did something wrong, but sometimes the result of a client taking a different direction with a project they already approved — you should be compensated for those kinds of requests).

The same goes for consulting. If you’re a freelance copywriter for example, chances are good that you have some marketing expertise. If the client wants additional time to pick your brain about tactics for increasing conversions or something similar (beyond what’s covered in your initial contract) have an hourly consulting rate laid out from the start. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble, and your client some unpleasant surprises, by preparing for “vampire clients” before they have a chance to sink their teeth in.

If you would like to embed the player for this episode on your own website or blog, please use the embed code below to get the same player you see above in this post:

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Freelance Theater has Officially Launched!

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:00:45 +0000

You’ll have to pardon my delayed announcement here, but I didn’t want this announcement to interfere with our word count trackers’ release and the launch of our two newest series: Jenn Escalona’s monthly DIY series and Chris Bibey’s “How to Write” series. In my continuing stream of news and launches, Freelance Theater is officially up and running.

What is Freelance Theater?

Freelance Theater is a joint project I’ve partnered with Yolander Prinzel on — a series of audio plays attempting to take a lighthearted look at serious issues some freelance writers face (while offering a tip or two for overcoming them). We started working on the first episode of this project way back in July. Although it took much longer than expected to get logistics worked out to have it ready, we’re hoping to release one episode monthly moving forward (today I’m actually finishing up the rough draft for our second show and Yo’s already working on December’s).

The MadLance Series

We were inspired by old horror-style radio shows, so you’ll see a bit of influence from that style in the first series we’ve launched — the MadLance series. Our first episode of the series covers the issue of “vampire clients” who seem to suck the life right out of you from time to time. You can listen to “The Dead Don’t Write” at FreelanceTheater.com (the “Theatre” version should also properly redirect for our “Queen’s English” folks). There’s also an .mp3 download link available in the post for the episode, so you can listen to us on the go if you prefer.

While there’s a way you can embed the episode on your own site if you’d like to (a feature we’re hoping future guests will enjoy to promote their own shows), I’m going to ask that you don’t do it for now. We’re going to be switching to another podcast host soon that will allow better embed features, iTunes inclusion and more (if I’m not mistaken), so there will be some minor changes before the next episode goes up.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy “The Dead Don’t Write.”

Note: Oh, and the guy doing the show introduction? That’s Yo’s hubby. He’s awesome. In fact he puts the rest to shame. So a big thanks to Hubby Prinzel for his help with the project, not to mention our awesome WordPress designer and logo designer who will soon be featured on the site’s About page — I wholeheartedly recommend either of them for your coding or design projects. :)

Freelance Theater: Coming Soon(ish)

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:31:10 +0000

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen past tweets where a hush-hush project in the works with Yolander Prinzel of Freelance Writerville was mentioned. Well, we’ve decided it’s time to give you an early sneak peak at what’s coming, and “what’s coming” is Freelance Theater.

As you can see, there’s really nothing on the site yet — just some dummy text to test features and a temporary intro post until a bit closer to launch time when we’ll reveal more about the first episode.

The launch has been a slow, but quite amusing and rewarding, one. The first show was scripted back in July, and we’ve finished rehearsing and will be dealing with recording and production very shortly. We’re hoping for a launch either at the end of September or early October.

While Freelance Theater will be something a little bit different than your typical freelance writing blogs, you’ll still get plenty of our signature tough love, doses of reality, and smart-ass quips (all accompanied by good intentions as always). We’re combining freelance and fiction to create a new brand of fun for freelance writers. And to be quite honest, it just amused the hell out of us to do it which I suppose is the real reason behind it. I guess you can say we were tired of having to say the same things over and over and over again without it sinking in. We’ve been driven batty enough that we felt the only solution was just to poke fun at some of the ridiculous realities of what freelance writers face (and choose to put themselves through).

So we hope you’ll follow us on Twitter to get updates on the progress, and check out the first show on launch. But more on that later….