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Commenting on Get the most out of your freelance copywriter/editor
Jo Duxbury
Fantastic article-
Tiffany, you've got this spot on :-)

Many clients don't see the value of getting their copy professionally written or edited, but it truly is a skill and can add so much to your communications. There's no point spending thousands on beautiful design or a great web site, only to undermine your credibility with text that's peppered with spelling and grammar mistakes, or copy that's clunky and difficult to digest. Getting an outsider - a professional writer/editor - to review your copy may also help you spot the little gems in your offering that you perhaps can't see as you're too close to your business.

At the very least, clients should hire a professional copy editor to 'sanity check' and proofread their copy. The Facebook group 'I judge you when you use poor grammar' is nearly half a million members strong... that's pretty telling :-) Posted on 5 Mar 2010 12:05
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Natashia van Buuren
loved it-
Love this article - very informative. Posted on 5 Mar 2010 12:13
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Lucille
Great words!-
Finally an article that explains what writers do! Thanks! Posted on 5 Mar 2010 13:27
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FLWriter
Great article - what about payment?-
You forgot to mention that freelancers will bend over backwards for clients who pay fairly and on time. The rest - not so much! Posted on 5 Mar 2010 13:53
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Old hand
The Biggest Challenge-
After all is said and done, getting paid (timeously) has to be the biggest challenge for freelancers.

I've done everything -- even offering a 5% discount for payment within a week of invoice (and believe me, my invoices go out the minute the job is complete). Not that I can afford that discount, but it's better than waiting six weeks to be paid for a job that was a last-minute matter of life and death for the client. Posted on 8 Mar 2010 11:39
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Nicolette Croucamp
About that 5%-
Great article thank you Tiffany, I will definitely be using it as a checklist with my 5%. Usually the same want turnaround in 24 hours and want to pay in 30 days. I'm not sure what other freelancers payment terms are, but I find 30 days challenging on my cash flow! Do you have any guidelines for the fabulous 5% on compensating their hardworking writers and editors? Posted on 5 Mar 2010 15:18
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Chantal Collings
Well Said-
Great article, Tiffany, it will certainly help to put this 'freelance writing lark' into perspective for a lot of potential clients! ;-)

Nicolette, I would be interested to hear what other FL's have to say re this 30-day payment thing. I've even been told by a client (a publicity agency) that it's because they are 'carrying all the risk' and must wait for their clients to pay them first in order to pay me!? To me, this is akin to going into a shop, taking clothes off the rack, popping them on and then walking out the shop after informing the manager that I will pay for the clothes in 30-days when client x pays me for my writing?! *lol*

So yes, how do other FL's find the payment situation out there and any suggestions as to how to circumnavigate the payment bumpf? Posted on 5 Mar 2010 16:24
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Old hand
Same story-
30 days if you're lucky in the mag industry.

Any suggestions? Posted on 8 Mar 2010 11:44
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James Blonde
I've got a suggestion.-
Maybe it's time to call yourselves Paylancers. Posted on 10 Mar 2010 08:51
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Old hand
see my comment above-
Hi Nicolette.

You are spot on.

And, with some companies, 30 days would be bloody marvelous. Got two clients who seem to be think six weeks is reasonable Posted on 8 Mar 2010 11:42
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Pen Pal
50% upfront - 50% on delivery. Unless there's a retainer.-
As suppliers, which FLs are, it should be standard practice. No production company goes ahead without 50% payment upfront, as they start incurring costs immediately. Same with photographers. As a FL you incur costs the moment you start taking the brief - so why not get some payment upfront to cover these costs? Makes business sense. Maybe we're all bad business people. Maybe we should start becoming better business people. Posted on 10 Mar 2010 09:30
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Jeanne-Ann Stott
True, very true-
It's too true for words Posted on 5 Mar 2010 16:57
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Tiffany Markman
Thanks, all, for the comments...-
Planning a long, detailed article-type response, co-written by Freelancentral's superlative Jo Duxbury, to the payment terms/30 days issue. Will post here when it's done and gone live somewhere.

Ta again. Appreciate all feedback.

Best,

Tiffany Posted on 6 Mar 2010 15:25
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Anne
I agree, we cannot do the all the guesswork-
I completely support what you have written. Too often clients expect us to somehow submerge ourselves into their minds to write what they want. But how are we to achieve this if they don't/aren't able to make the essential information available? Posted on 7 Mar 2010 19:13
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Keri-Ann Clark
Working with freelancers: an agency perspective-
Another great article Tiffany - your pieces are often found on our walls! Just a perspective from an agency side: whilst I do have a great in-house writer, we outsource specialised, high-level writing to a pool of four of five writers that all have their own area of expertise.

They invoice us twice a month, on the 15th and the 30th, and they are paid 30 days from each invoice. Those are our terms and conditions, they are made very clear upfront so we are all on the same page.

We are a small agency and whilst we ask for money upfront, our clients pay us 30, 60 and sometimes 90 days. So yes, we do carry the risk in paying out writers when we ourselves have not been paid. In our early days we ourselves did writing for one of the PR giants, who paid us 120 days if we were lucky. I chose to stop accepting this work because it made no business sense for me at the time. I did not yell, cry, scream, shout, beg. I simply thanked them for the opportunity of working with them but said I could not comply with the payment terms.

However, some of the freelance writers that we have come across seem not to grasp this professionalism and business sense. We have been sent emails dripping with sarcasm, had tantrums, postings, tears all because they believe they are doing us a favour by doing our writing and we should pay immediately or on their terms. It makes no business sense.

Please listen people. Find a company that is ethical, credible and reputable. Find out their terms and conditions. Decide if you want to accept them or not. Work with them for a couple of months and see if they are true to their word: do they pay on time etc. If they do, then treat them like gold, they are few and far between.

We outsource roughly R30k worth of writing a month: some projects are tiny amounts, some projects are extremely lucrative. If you are with us for the long haul then what you lose on the lows you more than make on the highs. But lose the demands, the sarcasm, the rantings - writers are emotional beings - talented emotional beings, but writers also need to get to grips with the realities of business and cashflow.

All our writers recieve the same written brief, detailing project fee and deadline. If they can't make that deadline or don't want to accept that fee, they simply decline. It is honest and transparent. As I said before, sometimes the money is great, sometimes it is not - but it is what we can afford.

I have a stable company (five years old) and we have never not paid a writer on time. Yet even we have problems with some freelance writers. We also want to work with writers that are pleasant and happy to do our work and THANK us for our work. The attitude of constantly doing us a favour wears us down and makes us look at doing things like hiring a 2nd in-house writer! Posted on 11 Mar 2010 15:26
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Tiffany Markman
Wow - what valuable insights...-
Thanks. I really appreciate the time you took to write that comment, which certainly serves to put the other side of the coin into focus. I agree with everything you've said, particularly,

'Find a company that is ethical, credible and reputable. Find out their terms and conditions. Decide if you want to accept them or not. Work with them for a couple of months and see if they are true to their word: do they pay on time etc. If they do, then treat them like gold, they are few and far between.'

Ultimately, the writer doesn't have a gun held to his/her head, and can choose to 'make an exception' for a middleman, or not. This also speaks to my point about giving and getting as much upfront info and clarity as is possible.

Thanks again. Posted on 12 Mar 2010 14:19
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Tiffany Markman
So, we answered your questions...-
You'll find a whole lot of payment Q&As, collated and answered by Jo Duxbury and I, on the Biz landing page today. Enjoy!

Tiffany Posted on 19 Mar 2010 12:26
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Solly MOENG
Great, but to educate the 5%?-
This is a great, practical article indeed. It's a pity that it seems to be directd at the industry, the poor FL who are at the receiving end of client ignorance and abuse and are already aware of the problem. The challenge is to get clients to understsnd that they cannot just expect copy work to be done for them free of charge. Many can simply not put value to the work done by freelancers! . Posted on 20 Mar 2010 11:04
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