When Clients Don’t Pay For Your Writing and Research

suejeff — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:18:09 +0000

People in the writing and research business, whether clients or providers, are generally up front and honest. Very occasionally you might get stiffed by a client, as I did recently. These people must have known when they accepted my work that their business was on a nose dive. Instead of letting me down gently and promising payment for work already completed, this company let me continue believing that last month’s invoice had been forgotten and would be paid with this month’s (start of the month).

I don’t usually complain too much, if a client is in trouble and can’t pay me for $20 of work then it is easy to write off against experience. This company seemed like a respectable seo company who needed a copy editor. I’m quite proficient at editing because of my time in academic circles, editing students’ work.

Long story short I undertook almost $400 of work for them and now they say they don’t know when or if they can pay me, and they want all of the work delivered again to remind them of what I had done. Luckily I always keep copies on my hard drive for several months at least, in case something goes wrong. So now I have to locate everything and get it back to them not knowing whether or not I will ever see the $400 I can ill afford to lose.

Lesson Learned

The lesson I have learned is one that I should have learned long ago, don’t work without some sort of upfront payment agreement.

Possibly Related Posts:

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post

Location Independent Writing and Research

suejeff — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:46:38 +0000

Being a location independent writer and researcher is great, I wouldn’t change it for anything. I can get up late if I’m not feeling too bright and I can go to bed late when I am on a roll. I don’t have to worry about signing in or whether my boss will be in a good mood that day (although sometimes clients try to assume the role of boss) because I can earn a living from home. What many people miss when you tell them you are a freelancer, is that freelancing involves work, and if you are the breadwinner in the family then you sometimes still have to work when you don’t feel like it

The Temptations of Freelancing

One of the temptations of freelancing is catching up with emails and Twitter when you should be writing the fifteenth article on personal finance or orgnic dog food. It’s all too easy to waste time and then lose sleep in order to catch up on work. Ok, so if it’s a great day and you’re location independent then you can take your laptop or your notebook to the nearest park or even out into the garden, then the temptation is to sit and look at flowers or to go over and smell the roses – although I always find that roses smell better just after a summer shower.

Freelancing BugBears

Other people don’t regard freelancing as real work, they tend to take the view that sitting at a computer most of the day means that you are goofing off rather than working. It doesn’t matter how much I tell friends and relatives that just because I am at home doesn’t mean I am available, they still keep coming. I screen calls now and deal with non-urgent ones at lunch time or mid-afternoon, then when they find out that I was at home when they called they are not happy.

When I was teaching at the local uni I didn’t have these problems, people respected the fact that I was ‘at work’ and only left messages on my mobile in emergencies. I don’t get the same kind of courtesy when working from home because it is not seen as real work.

Inspite of the temptations and the bugbears, freelancing is great. I like the freedom of being able to choose the hours that I work, and the people I work with rather than for. I love being able to say quite legitimately that I am a writer, a location independent writing and research fan.