There are many myths floating around about freelance writing and working from home in general, and you have probably heard or seen them already. Comments like it’s easy to write for a living, anyone who can put together a sentence can be a writer and you can make big bucks your first day as a freelancer (one of my personal favorites).
Rather than perpetuating myths about freelance writing, today I’d like to share some truth, or at least the truth as I see it.
Clients are not an interruption to a freelancer’s schedule.
I’ve had clients want to talk to me but tell me they hesitate because they don’t want to “distract” or “interrupt” me. A client is not an interruption to my work – they are the reason I have work. If they have a question, concern or a comment about something I am working on or I’ve done for them, I want to know about it, and I don’t ever want them to think that I’m “too busy” to listen.
The guy (or gal) paying the fee is never a pain in the a$$.
Yes, I told a client this once when he had a concern that he was being too demanding. (He wasn’t.) Everyone you work with has a slightly different work style. Some people are all business, and only talk about the job at hand. Others want to chat first before talking about work stuff. Every so often, you run into someone who becomes a friend as well as a client and you share details about your life more openly with them.
Whatever the person’s work style is, the fact remains that if they are paying me to do a job for them, then they deserve to have the job done the way they want, and if they need communicate often or ask for updates or whatever, so be it – which brings me to the third point I wanted to make:
It’s not about me.
I can ask questions or make suggestions but ultimately, I’m getting paid to give the client what he or she wants. If I can’t do that or I don’t like something about the terms of the gig, I can choose not to work with that person anymore. Sometimes the fit between a freelance writer and a client just doesn’t work out. It doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with either party, just that the working relationship wasn’t a good one. The best choice may be to admit that fact and move on.
What truths about freelance writing would you like to share?
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