Jake's Take

In praise of Verizon

2011-04-26T15:30:00.000-03:00

I resisted getting our two teenagers cell phones for as long as possible, before finally relenting a few months back. I pretty quickly regretted my decision when I received a Verizon bill for several hundred dollars for going over the limit on texts. Yeah, call me Naive Dad, Poor Dad.

But there was a catch — in previous months, when they'd exceeded the allotted number, I'd received a warning from Verizon so I could tell the kids to cool it. This time, the bill came through without a peep.

I called customer service to plead my case. The first person I spoke to offered a 50% discount. Thanks, but no thanks. Moreover, she basically blamed me for not keeping track of the account usage, and said the warnings were at Verizon's option. I asked to speak to a supervisor, but she was at lunch, so she would call me back later. She didn't.

A few days later, I called and pleaded my case to a different rep. This guy repeated the same 50% offer, which I declined, but also took the extra step to inform me of a better plan for our usage pattern. I signed up immediately. Again, no supervisor was available, but someone would call me back.

And again, no callback came. So, this weekend I made one final call and finally hit paydirt:

The rep, Pam, heard me out without interruption or a guilt trip.
She agreed that the situation was not right.
She apologized that I had received poor customer service from previous reps.
She immediately put me on the line with a supervisor.

The conversation with Vonda the supervisor lasted about 2 minutes. I gave her the Reader's Digest version, she was profusely apologetic, and credited my account as I'd been requesting since Call #1. I thanked her and let her know that she had renewed my faith as a longtime and loyal Verizon customer.

Was I disappointed that it took so long to resolve my issue? Sure. But I'm a cheap SOB and nothing if not persistent when it comes to a couple hundred bucks! The customer service lesson in here is a familiar one: Ask the person what he or she wants, and solve the problem on the first call if you can.

Embrace your inner honey badger

2011-04-06T16:06:00.000-03:00

The following video is 100% utterly not safe for work (NSFW), so don't say I didn't warn ya. But amongst the rough language and ewww-disgusting imagery...well, there are a few lessons for freelancers, just as there were in the analogy of "I am MacGyver." I say, embrace your inner honey badger!

Freelancing isn't risk free — it's some pretty rough terrain on which to stake your livelihood. So what's the takeaway from the wacky antics of this lovable little creature?

Sometimes, you've got to be a bad***, whether it's chasing away jackals or digging into a bee's nest.
Once in a while, you're going to do all the digging, and some other creature will benefit unfairly from the fruits of your labors. "Thanks for the web content, Stupid!"
You need to have broad shoulders, and thick skin helps, too.
Don't give a s*** about being bitten by the occasional cobra. Take a nap and get back to work.

Where can I find high paying writing freelance jobs?

2011-03-22T11:34:00.000-03:00

I usually refrain from promoting my Dr. Freelance entries here, but I'm making an exception for a guest poster, All Freelance Writing's Jennifer Mattern: "Where can I find high paying freelance writing jobs?"

Her sage advice applies not only to freelancers who focus on writing and editing, but any creative field, as well as entrepreneurs of any stripe. If you hope to find gigs that pay well, you need to go beyond the publicly available listings of what's available out there — and Jenn's provided some excellent, practical thoughts on exactly how to do that.

Go ahead, go on strike

2011-03-04T18:26:00.000-04:00

The Huffington Post blogger brouhaha has descended from farce into...whatever the heck is one step stupider than "farce."

Here's the most recent bit: "Arianna Huffington: 'Go Ahead, Go on Strike -- No One Will Notice.'" (Practical question: Can you really go on strike from a job that you weren't even paid for?)

Sorry, bloggers-for-nothing: You've been pwnd. You voluntarily chose to work for free, in the naive hope of getting famous. Nobody forced you to do it. Your boss-owner may not be the most gracious person in the world, but she made a zillion dollars, and you'll see none of it, regardless of the lamentations of The Newspaper Guild, California Media Workers Guild, and National Writers Union of how unfair it all is.

You cut your own deal, and it was an epically crappy one from a business perspective. And quite frankly, you pretty much piss me off, since your lack of business acumen devalued what freelancers do.

I'm sorry, Jake. I'm afraid I can't do that...

2011-02-22T17:17:00.000-04:00

Apple Time Machine saved my business last night. It also saved all of the digital photos my family has taken in the past decade, all of the music we've accumulated (including painstaking rips from vinyl to MP3s), our tax records since the early '90s, and a thousand other items I won't belabor.

Here's how it went down. 6:03 p.m., I'm about to wrap things up for the day. I quit Firefox, or rather *attempted* to quit Firefox. But instead of shutting down, I got the little Spinning Beach Ball of Death. Calmly, I tried to force quit the application, and in the back of my head I hear HAL from 2001 intoning, "I'm sorry, Jake. I'm afraid I can't do that." It doesn't work, which has never happened to me. So, I power down the computer.

But when I tried to reboot, I got the flashing question mark folder instead of the Apple. I tried the usual schtick: Reset the PRAM. Nothing. Safe reboot. Nada. I hop on the laptop, do a quick search describing the symptoms, and conclude the hard drive is kaput.

At some level, nagging people to "back up your computer" is a bit like anti-smoking or anti-obesity ranting. It's something that we all know. Either you heed the warnings or you don't, devil take the hindmost. The fact that I'd protected myself allowed me to sleep last night...knowing that a new $79 hard drive and a click of the "restore" button would bring me right back to where I left off, semi-panicked, last night.

Welcome to 1984, but lamer

2011-02-01T17:48:00.000-04:00

My 8th grade daughter came home from school the other day and informed us that they're not allowed to use the word "dice" in school anymore. In a political-correctness-run-amok moment, they're now known as "number cubes."

I wish I were joking. I am not.

Heck, by the time I was in 7th grade, my dad and I had a weekly nickel-dime-quarter poker game with my best friend and his dad, and I have taught my kids everything I know about poker, blackjack and craps strategy. Indeed, I consider it one of my core parental responsibilities, based on the old gambling saying that "If you're at the table for 5 minutes and can't spot the sucker, it's you." As in cards, so in life.

And if the schools believe that they're somehow going to deter kids from gambling with a P.C. word construction as lame as "number cubes," they are simply delusional. Ignorance is not strength, no matter what the Ministry of Truth might want you to believe.

Suckerpunched (or Why Friends and Family Make Lousy Clients)

2011-01-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

Dante's circle for unscrupulous businessmen

Tim Berry at Planning Startups Stories wrote a nice post earlier this week titled "Tip: Mistakes are more fun than tips." In that spirit, allow me to share a doozy of a stupid that I committed a few months ago that finally imploded yesterday.

As a general rule, I don't do paid work for friends and family. My experience is that they expect too much for too little, and emotions play too much of a role — i.e., they're lousy clients.

But in late fall, during a slow week and as a favor to a family friend, I took on a referral for writing the content for a small website. The owner seemed nice enough, her website was ghastly, and she needed a few business letters written. I offered a modest bid. Which she promptly accepted.

The two business letters were the top priority, so I promptly and heavily rewrote what she'd sent me, and she signed off on them after a round or two of revisions. So far, so good. I commenced on the website copy, and she seemed to be happy with the initial two pages.

She's an event promoter, so the remaining items were brief summaries of the various events she handles. And that's where things got sticky. It turned out, there really wasn't any source information on the events other than what she'd posted in previous years, and some of the events had no information at all. So, I asked if I could interview her in order to gather some raw ideas about what she wanted. She was unresponsive. I MacGyvered it as best I could, but she wanted more and fresher information. I reminded her of my offer to do it interview style, and again, she just seemed more inclined to grumble than to help me help her.

At this point she wanted to know exactly how much her tally was. I provided a summary, subtracting out what she claimed was unusable. She asked me to send an invoice, and I did.

Then I didn't hear from her. Then I sent a second notice, and a polite email asking when I could expect payment or if she'd like to break it up into two installments. No response.

Fast forward to yesterday. I called her, and again, as politely as possible, inquired about the status of the invoice. At which point she informed me:

She had to heavily rewrite the letters I'd given her (which was news to me, since she'd approved them)
She had to rewrite the copy I'd provided for the web page (which was an outright lie, based on comparing what I sent her to what's currently posted on the site)
She had shown my invoice to another writer she knows (!) who thought that it was too high (unsurprising, given that the other writer charges her about half my hourly rate)

I'd been suckerpunched. I asserted that she did indeed sign off on the items I'd provided, and she retorted, essentially, "Nuh-uh-no-I-didn't." I stood by the invoice, in which I'd been painfully generous, and she basically spat on it. After a bit of back-and-forth, I simply said, "You know what, Sandy [not her real name], clearly we're not getting anywhere here. I think it's best if you just send me a check for what you believe you owe me. If that's $0, that's your prerogative."

I've already wasted the time, no sense in wasting further mental energy, and the piddling amount isn't worth pursuing legal action. Even after full-time freelancing for almost 12 years now, evidently I occasionally need to re-learn stupid mistakes in order to remember them. Tattoo it on my butt and carve it on my tombstone: No more friends and family clients.

Freelancer Bill of Rights? No, thanks.

2011-01-15T11:50:00.001-04:00

My friend Katharine O'Moore-Klopf of KOK Edit posted an item about the Freelancers Union Freelancer Bill of Rights over at the EFA Yahoo Groups board, and I couldn't help but toss in my two cents. (Update: As Katharine notes in the comments, she is not affiliated with the Freelancers Union and was only providing information for freelancers to check out. My apologies for not making that clear!)

I confess I don't particularly groove on the language from their intro page: Freelancers have the right "to empower themselves to demand fair treatment from clients."

Really? *Demand*? I'd argue that fair treatment is earned, not guaranteed.

The list itself? Meh. Nothing you haven't heard before. Frankly, you can already do all of the items they outline if you'd like — but I come down in the camp of the commenter who said: "If every time I hired a plumber, electrician, or snow plow guy he came back with a 'Plumber/Electrician/Plow Guy Bill of Rights' I wouldn't do business with him." Bingo. My primary issues are these:

A document such as the Freelancer Bill of Rights positions clients as adversaries rather than business partners.
Do you really want to come across as defensive and difficult to work with? Chill, breeze.
As Lori Widmer riffed in "The Freelance Nevers" and "Writerly Misconceptions" this week, there are no absolutes.

Call me cynical (trust me, you won't be the first), but I believe this type of initiative actually holds freelancers back: Thinking that there's some sort of magic pill that'll make all the bad clients go away. Thinking a big brother like a union will enforce The Rules to protect you. Thinking that setting a minimum price will protect you from lowball clients.

As we discussed on Halloween, it all comes down to watching your own tail. You choose, every day, what you want to do, who you want to do it with, and how you want to do it. No like? Don't do.

Waterboarding the English language

2011-01-06T10:43:00.000-04:00

Last week, I received an emergency story assignment from one of my longtime editors who was heading out the door for vacation. I needed to get a short quote from a few different sources for a piece about improving your finances in the coming year. Easy peasy.

I was reminded, in the process, that our country is litigating itself into oblivion.

I'm accustomed to running quotes by my sources, though there are reasons why I won't show someone the entire story. That said, this particular situation was truly a stunner. One of my sources gave me a two-sentence quote of fairly standard financial advice that needed approval from her compliance department. As it happens, she had received an honor in 2010 as one of the country's top 100 women in her field, and I wanted to mention that as a way of boosting her credentials. The compliance department said that was fine, as long as I included the following disclaimer:

"Source: Magazine X's Top 100 Women [in her field], [month/date], as identified by Magazine X, using quantitative and qualitative criteria and selected from a pool of over 450 nominations. [People] in the Top 100 Women [in her field] have a minimum of seven years of [experience] and [seriously large amount of money that they manage]. Qualitative factors include, but are not limited to, compliance record, interviews with senior management and philanthropic work. [Specific performance] is not a criterion. The rating may not be representative of any one client's experience and is not indicative of the [specific job title's] future performance. Neither [the source's company] nor its [people in the same job as my source] pay a fee to Magazine X in exchange for the rating. Magazine X is a registered trademark of the [even bigger publishing conglomerate name]. All rights reserved."

In case you're not counting, that's about 150 words to disclaim a 8-word phrase that stated a simple fact that someone had received an industry honor.

How, exactly, those bon mots of legalese would prevent anyone making a foolish decision with his or her money, I am not sure. But, what I *am* confident of is that this little exercise in the waterboarding of the English language — not to mention common sense — surely cost the interviewee's company several hundred dollars in legal fees.

Fees which the parent company eventually charges as fees to its customers, making life more expensive and retirement ever more elusive...and proving that our lawyer-legislators are ignorant, above all, of The Law of Unintended Consequences.

Why hasn't Apple thought of that?

2010-12-08T18:11:00.000-04:00

When things are moving fast and furious around here, I tend to be pretty quick on the "SEND" button...which means that I'll occasionally send an email without an attachment. No harm done, and I'll usually just make a joke about it with the client.

Anyway, I use Apple's stock Mail program for my everyday correspondence. I have one client, however, who's big on Google chat, so I use Gmail when I email him because it's more convenient. Imagine my surprise when I just went to email a file to him and the following error message pops up:

Did you mean to attach files?
You wrote "I've attached" in your message, but there are no files attached. Send anyway?

Sure enough, Gmail had prevented me from a minor faux pas. It ain't rocket science, but it is a nice safety valve for those of us with an itchy "SEND" finger. So, whaddaya say, Apple? You already warn me if I try to send a message without a subject line. Think you might implement a no-attachment-preventer in Mail Version 3.6.1?

Freelance Forecast 2011 surveys

2010-12-03T19:50:00.000-04:00

If you're a freelancer or someone who hires creative freelancers for your business, it's time to head over to Dr. Freelance for the details on Freelance Forecast 2011!

Cooks Source gets its just desserts

2010-11-17T19:02:00.001-04:00

When I blogged today on Dr. Freelance about "would a magazine editor steal my story idea?", I had no idea that it would be the day that Cooks Source editor Judith Griggs announced the magazine's demise , precipitated by their stealing a freelancer's story in its entirety. (Certainly a magnitude greater than idea-filching.) If you haven't been privy to the scuttlebutt, the background can be found here.

Heaven knows I'm just piling on by even writing about this, but I'd be remiss if I didn't add my one overriding thought: As businesspeople, freelancers deal in intellectual property, and that's a lot harder to defend than installing an alarm system or pulling out your shotgun on a home intruder. It's nebulous. People don't understand it, or choose to ignore it. We live in a time when music and video file-sharing is considered A-OK by a good percentage of the population. Copy and paste is part of getting through an average person's day, and apparently part of an occasional publishing person's day — one who should have known better.

I won't shed a tear for Ms. Griggs, who seems focused on enumerating excuses rather than repenting. I can't say if the punishment, the loss of everything she's worked for, fits the crime.

But perhaps, just perhaps, freelancers owe her a debt of gratitude while they're enjoying a steaming bowl of schadenfreude. If Judith Griggs has served a purpose, let's hope it will be as a deterrent — to make other folks think twice about stealing intellectual property.

UPDATES:
Gawker snarks.
TechCrunch says "Congrats, Self-Righteous Internet Mob. You Killed a Magazine."

Mean handshakes, toddler criminals and watching your own tail

2010-11-01T18:44:00.000-03:00

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
And I'm down on my luck
—Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money"

On back-to-back days this week, I came across articles with the following headlines:

4-Year-Old Can Be Sued, Judge Rules in Bike Case
and
Candidate Files Criminal Complaint Over Firm Handshake

Then, last night, a 5-year-old girl dressed as a lion for Halloween told my wife, "My mom says that you shouldn't have candles in your pumpkin, because my tail is flammable."

To which my wife replied, "You're going to have to watch your own tail."

Indeed. I really wish that people would watch their own tails.

What kind of society do we live in that can sue a toddler for negligence on a bike, in which a politician can gripe over a grip-and-grin, or in which a kindergartener is allowed to scold an adult for having a votive candle burning inside a gourd?

Now, in the case of the elderly woman who got hit by the runaway cyclist and broke her hip — yes, it sucks. If you're a political candidate, and you get kung-fu gripped, sorry, that's part of the territory. If you're out on Halloween night and you're in a flammable outfit, by all means, please stay away from open flames.

Stuff happens. Sometimes awful stuff. No one should expect to be entitled to a risk-free life, and there is no way to legislate or adjudicate every single bad thing that occurs. According to a book by Harvey A. Silverglate that's next on my reading list, the average person commits Three Felonies a Day without even knowing it. Every year, more laws and more byzantine rules about every aspect of our lives go into the books...and our ability to take personal responsibility and manage happenstance seems to erode.

And, as a result, I suspect that the young lady in the lion suit has a promising career ahead of her as a personal-injury lawyer. Or if she works on her grip strength, maybe even a politician.

Federal copy editors run amok

2010-10-08T20:26:00.000-03:00

Cross posted from Dr. Freelance. Just because.

There isn't much breaking news in the world of editorial jobs, but this article from The New York Post, "$27 million to change NYC signs from all-caps," is straight from the are-you-freaking-kidding-me file, sure to warm the heart of the most strident grammar pedant.

At the risk of offending any of my friends or readers who happen to have one of these federal copy editor jobs (Really? Such a position exists? What's the annual salary, I wonder...), I have to say this is asinine. It's worth reading the whole thing to get a sweet taste of the pure, harebrained wastefulness, but here's a quick excerpt:

Federal copy editors are demanding the city change its 250,900 street signs -- such as these for Perry Avenue in The Bronx -- from the all-caps style used for more than a century to ones that capitalize only the first letters.

Changing BROADWAY to Broadway will save lives, the Federal Highway Administration contends in its updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, citing improved readability.

At $110 per sign, it will also cost the state $27.6 million, city officials said.

For starters, when is an editor allowed to "demand" anything?

Mind you, I am no fan of all caps. It is harder to read. It looks like you're shouting. I'm also no fan of signs that are misleading, misspelled, misaligned or mis-whatever. I'm sure it would be awful to have people looking for "Broadway" and driving right past a sign for "Brawdweigh." Replacing signs at the usual rate of 8,000 a year, OK, whatever.

But as Jason Alexander's character in Shallow Hal says, let's just cut through the old crap cake here. This is money being spent on an accelerated basis in a weak economy on the weakest of premises. Upper-lower formatting and changing from standard-issue highway font to Clearview is going to SAVE LIVES? SAVE FREAKING LIVES? (Yes, this is me shouting.)

Maybe I'd feel better if they would simply be honest about this and admit it's a make-work (please don't call it a stimulus!) program to keep starving copy editors and signmakers off the dole. But if they insist on trying to spin it as some sort of do-gooder way of preventing old people from getting into fender benders, I'm having none of it.

GOVERNMENT. COPY EDITOR. FAIL.

Disposing with dignity

2010-09-30T14:21:00.000-03:00

Hold on a sec. Not talking about eliminating dignity, here — I'm referring to throwing away things on your own terms.
We recently moved, and part of that process included disassembling my office over THERE and re-creating it over HERE (in a slightly smaller space). As I gazed upon the stuff that had accumulated over the years, I knew that there were a couple of Hefty bags in my future.

Which brings me to disposing with dignity. With some items -- boxes for electronics past their warranty, faded neon paper that I used for a long-ago direct mail campaign, several miles' worth of USB, Firewire and ethernet cable — it's not a hard decision to pitch.

But then you get to those things that may once have held some meaning but now just collect dust: stacks of photos that didn't make the cut into an album or onto a wall; silly awards; CDs of stale computer archives; and, perhaps most painfully and poignantly for a freelance writer, stacks of magazines, samples and old clips that are way past their expiration date.

I threw it all away. The "disposing with dignity" principle is something my wife and I formulated and have employed (usually when moving), and it comes down to this: As the owner/possessor of an item that has some emotional value to you alone, it's best that you are the one to throw it away. Not to go too morbid on you here, but if you were to die tomorrow, this is stuff that would be chucked away without remorse. In fact, it might only serve to annoy the people who wondered why you kept all that crap.

In any event, purging felt good. I had one final chance to pay my respects and reminisce on those things that I didn't really need anymore. I just heard the garbage truck do its pickup...but I still have my memories.

International Freelancers Day online conference

2010-09-21T15:08:00.000-03:00

If you haven't already heard or signed up, the International Freelancers Day online conference will be taking place on September 24, 2010. A quick look at the agenda and 25 speakers makes it look like a worthwhile confab. It's founded by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia of TheWealthyFreelancer.com, which is one of my regular RSS reads.

And it's free, too.

If you're registered, you'll also be able to watch replays of the presentations, in case you're working on deadline or out of town.

I am MacGyver

2010-09-17T11:02:00.000-03:00

No, I'm not talking about the mullet I wore back in the late 1980s. I'm talking about the fact that, as a freelance writer, there are going to be times when you're given a piece of dental floss, a stick of gum, and a Bic lighter, and you're expected to create ~~a nuclear weapon~~ a brochure or ad campaign or website out of it.

Earlier this week, I started work on a project for a longtime client. He's a great guy, funny as hell, and I know exactly how he works: It starts with a kind of fuzzy, two-sentence email about what he wants the project to be. That's followed up by me giving him a call to find out the details...only to find out that there really aren't any yet, just kind of a big picture this-is-what-I-want-it-to-be. Next, he sends a couple of links to websites that kinda do what he wants to do, but not quite. Similar, but different.

Day two, he sends me a follow-up email to find out how it's going. Which prompts another call from me to say I need more information. Now, I click on the digital tape recorder, and play Mr. Reporter for a while, asking as many questions as I can, grasping at threads. The conversation ends, I transcribe the file, and I'm marginally farther along.

I start writing babble-style, then suddenly the piece starts to take form. Hmmm, not half bad. I shoot him the draft, he shoots a bunch of holes in it (as I mutter to myself, "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?), and I give it a rework. In the end, he's happy, I'm relieved, it's all good, another one's in the books.

The reality is, I wouldn't put up with these antics if I didn't genuinely like him and know that it's just the way he is. It wouldn't do me any good to try to change his style, either. I simply accept it, and I know I'll provide him a product that does what he needs it to do.

And the other reality is, it's kind of a kick to strap on my MacGyver mullet-wig, and create something explosive out of damn near nothing.

Now, where the heck did I put my Bic?

Losing a loyal client or editor

2010-09-03T15:55:00.000-03:00

It happens to all of us eventually: Losing a loyal client or editor to a new position elsewhere. But hey, I'm nothing but an undaunted optimist — in fact, it can be a bit of a Johnny Appleseed opportunity, with new work and opportunities in a new company with an old friend. Developing a strong client relationship, always, always, always, is a freelancer's best business strategy.

More details and thoughts on how to handle a client/editor departure at my newest Freelance-Zone.com post, "Losing a loyal client."

Freelance Follies: "How much is it going to cost?"

2010-08-30T15:03:00.000-03:00

Time's short today...we're moving and I have to install a hardwood floor in my new office before I can transition the desk, computer and filing cabinets over. And in the midst of it all, trying to get all my work done.

In the meantime, enjoy Freelance Follies, Episode 3: "How much is it going to cost?"

Lessons in self perception

2010-08-26T13:06:00.000-03:00

It's a bit hackneyed to say that playing a round of golf with people will tell you everything you need to know about what they're like in business: Are they fun? Do they cheat? Are they a stickler for the rules? Do they take stupid risks?

I'm reminded of all this as I recently returned to playing golf after a 16-year hiatus. I used to be halfway decent; in fact, my first two editorial jobs were with Golf Digest and Golf Illustrated. Today, I have several clients in the golf business, so I've committed to bringing my game to an acceptable standard.

But coming out of retirement has been a reality check: I am older, weaker, less flexible, and have worse depth perception. On the flip side, I'm also a bit wiser, slower to anger, and more patient -- funny enough, much like I have become in business. Recognizing that I was getting worse with each progressive round, I knew that I needed help, or I might just abandon the game again for good.

So, I paid a visit to a pro at the local municipal course last night. Before doing anything, she asked me to hit a couple of balls to see what my swing looked like. Stage fright took over, and I hit a series of awful-looking line drives and topped shots that bounded feebly down the range.

After making a few quick technical adjustments, though, we spent the next hour working almost exclusively on perception vs. reality. What I thought I was doing was pretty different from what I was actually doing. Really, you kind of need to trick your brain into rethinking its understanding of alignment. One hour didn't get me back to 1994, but I was amazed at how much more comfortable I felt. There's hope for me yet.

Your mileage may vary, as far as using golf (or any activity) as a way of judging personality. But the business lesson for me was very personal: Getting to the end of my rope, and seeking out the help of a skilled third-party professional, was a reminder that we're often terrible self-judges of what we're doing.

And perhaps more important, that asking for help is not a weakness, it's a strength.

The taxonomy of bad freelancers

2010-08-16T17:13:00.000-03:00

Reading "Freelance Screw-offs" this morning at Lori Widmer's Words on the Page blog, I was reminded of one of the reasons I got into freelancing in the first place: As an editor, I knew quite a few freelancers who weren't particularly skilled writers or adequately responsive to my needs. Missed deadlines, botched assignments, and a bucketful of excuses is no way to go through life, son.

Yet, they seemed to make enough money to survive. I figured I could do better, simply by operating as a business rather than someone who took assignments for granted and expected a dollar a word for a mail-it-in effort.

In any case, I highly recommend a click over to Lori's blog, whether to make yourself feel better (you'd never make any of those mistakes, right?) or to remind yourself to hew to a higher standard -- and avoid a place in the taxonomy of bad freelancers.

Freelance Follies: "When are you going to get a real job?"

2010-08-13T17:16:00.001-03:00

It's every freelancer's favorite question: "When are you going to get a real job?" (I think I finally stopped hearing that after I'd been in business for myself for about, oh, five years. Your mileage may vary!) Then again, depending on how much someone likes working for The Man, they just may never understand why you'd want to be an independent freelancer.

The psychology of "inclusive we"

2010-08-10T12:58:00.001-03:00

In grammar, there's an inclusive we, which means you're including the addressee, and an exclusive we, which means you aren't (not to be confused with the royal we, which is just...you, being snobby). Wiki's definition does a good job of illustrating the distinction.

What I'd like to throw out for consideration today is the power of using the inclusive we during the sales process—and I believe it's critically important for a freelancer. When I'm in a prospective client meeting, the sooner I can get a prospect to think of me as a member of his or her team, the better. As an example:

Outside Consultant Voice—"Your large email database makes an e-newsletter an affordable option."
Team Member Voice—"It'll be a slam-dunk to generate ROI for our e-newsletter."

Or...

Outside Consultant Voice—"What's my deadline?"
Team Member Voice—"What's our timeframe on getting this completed?"

It's a subtle shift in psychology by being conscious of the words you use. On the other hand, you don't want to overwork it, or make the shift too soon, lest you come across as presumptuous (or pompous, a.k.a., being mistaken for the royal we). You need to have established some basic rapport for it to be credible; which means being sensitive to the client's demeanor. (Which is what it all comes down to in sales, anyway!)

So, are we on the same page? I thought so.

Curing writer's block

2010-08-06T16:01:00.000-03:00

Before you get your hopes up that I've conjured up a magic elixir of inspiration, my post "Curing writer's block" at Freelance-Zone actually takes a more cynical view of what gets lumped into writer's block and why curing it really ought to be a non-issue for the professional freelancer.

Read it there, and comment on it there...or here! Sorry for being lazy and stealing from myself, but I've got two meetings and several deadlines before the day runs out.

Yiddish folklore and the freelancer

2010-08-02T14:56:00.000-03:00

In my days at McMurry (an excellent custom magazine publisher and communications firm based here in Phoenix), a coworker of mine told me an old Yiddish folk tale that went something like this...

There was an office drone who ignored his inbox for a good period of time, and it stacked up halfway to the ceiling. At some point, he decided that it was a danger to his job, and maybe a fire hazard, so it was time to address the accumulated pile.

He started from the bottom. The issue in the first memo had already been solved. Reading the second piece of paper, he found that it was about a project that had been dropped. Same with the third, fourth and so on—every single problem had either been resolved, put on hold or abandoned entirely.

Upon returning from my vacation, my inbox isn't necessarily like that. But I am comforted by the fact that nothing blew up while I was away. I'd like to think it's because I planned well, gave all my clients plenty of notice, and left things in relatively good shape. The reality is, it's more likely because things always seem more emergent when you're available to work on them.

Now, gotta go. Back to my inbox.

New FreelanceZone post up

2010-07-23T20:14:00.000-03:00

In the interest of turning a negative experience into a positive, educational one, I posted "9 rules of effective voicemail messages" to FreelanceZone this morning. Certainly email remains the best tool of reaching out to someone (in my opinion) but voice-to-voice still has its place for the freelancer trying to make contact with a client or interview source.

Things will be quiet, well, actually complete silent, around here next week, as I'm journeying out for some much-needed, no electronics R&R. And if you haven't taken a vacation in recent memory because you're a sole proprietor and think the world will end without your presence, take a quick refresher at my post from last year—"Vacation, all I ever wanted"—and start making plans!

"Are you done yet?"

2010-07-21T11:36:00.001-03:00

Based (very!) loosely on a recent client experience. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty. And I've given the, uh, actor playing me a lovely head of blond hair.

Apologizing when you blow it

2010-07-19T15:34:00.000-03:00

This morning's post by Dan Smith at All Freelance Writing, "How to Turn Down a Freelance Job Professionally and Respectfully," hit home with me, because this week I blew it—failing to deliver a new-project estimate after a few weeks had elapsed. It fell off my radar while excuses piled up in my head: I've been super busy, the project was a bit outside my comfort zone, did I really want to add another microclient...and so on. The longer I waited, the more my anxiety increased and the less I wanted to do anything.

Let's just state for the record, however, that "Not responding at all" doesn't qualify as professional or respectful, even if it's a tiny job for an unknown prospect. I've been doing this long enough that I should have known to use two of the items Dan mentions—explain why you can't do it and offer an alternative—to simply say, "No, but thank you for your interest, I'm all booked up." I'm still not sure why I didn't heed my instincts that I already had too much on my plate.

So here's what I wrote and emailed this morning:

Dear Mr. X:

I need to apologize for not getting back to you. I won't make excuses, but simply wanted to email and say that I am sorry. I strive to hold myself to a higher professional standard than what I've shown you, but have fallen far short in this case.

If you prefer to take another direction, I completely understand, and I wish you the best in your pursuits. If not, please give me a call.

Thank you for your understanding,
Jake

***

Short, to the point, sans excuses. I don't know if I'll hear back from him or not, but apologizing cleared my own head of guilt, even while it serves as a reminder to myself that 1) I'm not perfect and 2) a fellow businessperson deserves to be treated better than that.

Who do you write like?

2010-07-13T19:59:00.000-03:00

Found this nifty little Tuesday time-waster from fellow writer Nate Hansen:

I Write Like.

Check what famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them to those of the famous writers.

Any text in English will do: your latest blog post, journal entry, Reddit comment, chapter of your unfinished book, etc. For reliable results paste at least a few paragraphs (not tweets).

I produced Kurt Vonnegut on one try, and Douglas Adams on another. Take it, and share your results in the comments!

Freelance lemmings go Komando

2010-07-06T17:34:00.002-03:00

I've never been a Kim Komando fan--too much Microsoft cheerleading, and computer talk makes for crappy radio regardless--but there's no question that she's succeeded in carving out a lucrative geek niche.

However, I darn near puked on my dashboard this morning as I pulled into the parking lot for a meeting, and a new radio ad piped through my speakers: Komando is now shilling for Associated Content and Helium, content mills extraordinaire, as a way for aspiring writers to Get Published!!! and Get Paid!!!

Mind you, I am a red-blooded capitalist. Frankly, I don't give a damn about the existence of the content mills, because they're so far from providing quality that I don't consider myself to be in the same business. And I don't begrudge Komando's ability to leverage her "personality" into a payday.

I just hope all of her fanboy/fangirl lemmings realize what they're getting into before they jump the cliff & quit their day jobs to ~~augment the country's already scary unemployment numbers~~ become professional writers. The ad should really come with a Surgeon General's warning rather than "America's Digital Goddess's" seal of approval.

Writing in your head

2010-07-02T17:12:00.000-03:00

On my old web site, I used to have a collection of a dozen or so sayings about the craft of writing. One of them ran to the effect of "If you sit down to write, but don't put anything on the paper, your intention was not to write." I've googled and can't find it, and I'm on my laptop without access to archives, so I can't dig up the original. So it goes.

But the point of it is this: You should never confuse thinking, pondering or musing with writing. And there is value, for me, in thinking without writing. If the definition of an extrovert is a person for whom no thought goes unverbalized, I don't necessarily feel the compulsion as a writer for my every word to exit my fingers into a keyboard or pen.

Sometimes, thinking, and being alone in my thoughts, is exactly what I intended to do.

Father's Day musing: Is entrepreneurship genetic?

2010-06-11T09:49:00.001-03:00

Is entrepreneurship genetic? As the freelancer son of a self-employed dad, it didn't surprise me to learn that a study from Case Western Reserve University discovered a hereditary component: roughly one third to 40 percent of the tendency to be an entrepreneur is innate rather than taught. Independence, tolerance for risk, ability to recognize opportunity, and leadership are all affected by your genes. The study's author, Scott Shane, published "Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders: How Your Genes Affect Your Worklife" this spring.

My dad died a few weeks before Father's Day in 2000. (Far too young, five months shy of his 60th birthday.) Like me, he had spent his early career in corporate jobs — in sales rather than editorial — before becoming self-employed. A few months into my first "real world" job after college, I was whining to him on the phone about some office injustice or another, and he came right out and said, "You know, you're eventually going to work for yourself."

As is the case for many hereditary traits, it took an environmental trigger to actualize my entrepreneurial gene as a freelancer not quite a decade later. In fact, I made the freelance leap just a few months before my dad passed away, but I sensed that among all the people who were worried as hell about me and my family surviving (me included), he wasn't concerned in the slightest — he was proud I had the cojones to do it and knew that I'd succeed.

I'd also like to think he knew he had set a business example I could follow:

He worked hard in bursts (and took plenty of time off, even random weekdays)
He saved enough money during good times that we could squeeze through the occasional rough patch
He celebrated success when he made a big sale (I can still taste the sicky-sweet André Cold Duck on my mind's tongue)
He was a bullheaded optimist (even during the gawdawful Carter years, when he netted $0.00 a couple of times)
He pretty much didn't give a crap about what other people thought

The time-worn saying is that "the older I get, the smarter my old man was." I don't know if he gave me a freelance gene or sales DNA...and ultimately, it doesn't matter. Regardless of my nature, I value and appreciate my nurture more. Thanks, Dad.

The photo at the top is from '84, when I caddied for my dad in the finals of the golf club championship at our home course south of Boston. He didn't win, but played a gritty, grinding match in his typical style.

Social media for freelancers EFA teleconference

2010-06-07T16:31:00.001-03:00

Some exciting news: I'm one of two guest panelists for an Editorial Freelancers Association teleconference on June 8 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The topic is using popular social media platforms (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) to increase professional visibility and make connections with clients and colleagues. My co-guest will be social media strategist Greg Pincus of TheHappyAccident.net. You have to be an EFA member to attend (and if you're an editorial freelancer, you should definitely look into joining!), but I'll be sure to share applicable insights here as well as at Dear Dr. Freelance.

Customer relationship lesson: For want of a penny

2010-05-25T14:32:00.002-03:00

I've been a loyal customer of a local credit union for nearly 20 years now. In light of the government-funded shenanigans at the Too Big To Fail banks, I'm even more committed to keeping my money local in my own quixotic attempt to starve The Beast. And an experience yesterday underscored my beliefs that you get better service from a bank you have a relationship with.

In addition to our primary checking account, I keep a small emergency business fund at this bank, right at the limit which avoids the monthly service fee. A few months ago, they raised the limit by $500, and dutifully, I added $500 to my account.
The problem was that my average account balance still came just under the limit for the month—and by deducting the $10, it put me under the limit for the following month by $0.01. Yes, a penny. That, of course, resulted in another $10 charge that put me further under the limit. You can see where this was headed.

So, I called and pleaded my case that it seemed pretty cruel for a 1-penny shortfall to result in a cascade of $10 charges, and reminded him that we've been long-term customers and keep a fairly large overall sum at their bank. The customer service agent stuck to his guns at first, and there was a bit of back-and-forth.

Ultimately he asked what I wanted as a solution; I said I didn't even care about the original charge, that all I was interested in was the $10.01 which would put me back above the line. He put me on hold and came back with more than I asked for: They wiped both charges. Based on past experience, I am confident that there's no way in hell Wells Fargo or Citi would have done that.

The customer service lesson here is that asking your client what they want is often the fastest route to resolving a problem. The fact that the credit union actually gave me more than I asked for, well, that was just icing on the relationship cake.

"Poor planning on your part..."

2010-05-20T13:03:00.002-03:00

Say it with me: "...doesn't constitute an emergency on my part."

If you've spent any time in a corporate environment, you've known someone with that saying tacked to their office wall. It's usually (though not always) a signal of a person who's out the door at 5 p.m. on the spot, and not likely to pitch in when things go sideways.

The successful freelancer can't afford to adopt such a poisonous customer service attitude, unless you don't want to eat and/or have any client loyalty. The key is to de-escalate whatever you can. For the past week, I've dealt with a number of emergency projects; my general guiding principles can be summarized thusly:

Find out what the true problem and key components are—sometimes the client is not communicating clearly in the panic.
Uncover what the client thinks he or she needs—right now, you're just listening; don't talk solutions yet.
What's the timeline and deadline?—ask for specifics, don't settle for "OMG ASAP!!!!"
If the solution is easy, present your idea immediately.
If the solution requires more thought, say you'll get back to them in a half-hour with a couple of ideas.

Now it's time to consider your own situation: Is this a long-term client or a client with long-term potential? Do you have any pressing deadlines that you need to manage? Do you have a couple of different ideas on how to accomplish what the client needs? Are there other resources you could draw upon to help you out? What is the simplest, fastest way to put out the fire?

Ultimately, if you feel the need to tape a sign to your wall, it should be "My loyal clients are worth my 100% support in a crisis. It will pay off in the future."

All that said, if you have...

a task that is truly, objectively impossible given the time and resources, say so as soon as you realize it; i.e., don't start something that you know has no way of succeeding.
a Client Who Cried Emergency on your hands, i.e., someone who *never, ever* has a plan, you need to do a better job of guiding them...or you might be better off parting ways.
a client whose *first* job is a five-alarm emergency, the universe has kindly given you a glimpse into the future. Plan accordingly.

New contributor at Freelance-Zone.com

2010-05-12T16:58:00.000-03:00

Hey all, it's been a crazybusy couple of weeks, hence the intermittent posting regimen. Wanted to let everyone in on some great news, which is that I've made the leap from regular commenter to regular contributor at Freelance-Zone.com. They're one of Writer's Digest's Top 100 Blogs for Writers, so I am thrilled to become a part of their crew. My first post, "The 411 on new 1099-MISC rules for freelance writers," addresses a scary accounting change that comes to us self-employeds as a result of the new healthcare law. If it stands, it will mean a LOT more paperwork and research during tax time.

I'll still be posting my ruminations here, as well as at my Dear Dr. Freelance site--so please don't delete any bookmarks! In fact, you can make life easier for yourself by subscribing to the RSS feeds...and that way you'll be notified any time a new post comes up.

Are you attracting the clients from hell?

2010-05-03T11:01:00.000-03:00

Legendary stock investor Benjamin Graham (a hero of Warren Buffett), once said something to the effect that, in the short run, stocks are a voting machine; in the long run, they are a weighing machine. In other words, the true underlying value will eventually emerge.

This connection to client-freelancers relationships was made in my brain by a recent post on Freelance Folder, "Clients Are Not Demons From Hell." I appreciated the fact that the author attributed a challenging client's ill behavior to lack of understanding rather than malice. Hey, we all love sharing a client horror story or too (and I posted a Dr. Freelance anecdote in the comments that I won't take the space to repeat here), and there is plenty to learn from songs sung blue.

And I'm not saying that there aren't bad clients out there.

What I *am* saying, however, is that if you find yourself with a glut of clients who take you to the brink of insanity, you need to take a long, hard look at what you're doing:

Are you attracting clients who aren't a good philosophical, emotional, or technical fit?
Are you establishing a positive, professional rapport from the outset, with clear expectations on both sides?
Are you completing the assignments with every ounce of your skill and attention...or are you withholding that last little bit because you don't want to waste it or risk it?

Some day, when you look back at the sum total of your career, you'll get a pretty good view of what the market's "weighing machine" had to say about your skills, abilities and approach. You can take responsibility for that whenever you like.

The Naked Marketers podcast, Episode 07

2010-04-22T14:25:00.004-03:00

Good morning all. I've been swamped here and I should be writing instead of posting, but I needed a mental break, so it goes. It's a quickie, which assuages my guilt somewhat. Somewhat.

I had the great honor and pleasure of being the featured (and fully clothed) guest on the Naked Marketers Episode 07 podcast with my friend Pete Wright of Fifth & Main in Portland, whom I spoke about last year on my 10th anniversary of being in business. The whole episode is worth listening to, as the panel talks Tiger to marketing and social media trends to technology and Pete's infatuation with the new iPad. My segment, which dives into a variety of freelance writing topics—choosing your battles, the importance of experimenting, how to tighten up your copy, and how technology is changing the lay of the land—starts around minute 40.

Paging Dr. Freelance

2010-04-19T11:56:00.003-03:00

I've been populating content into a separate blogging project for a while, and it's high time to release it into the wild: Dear Dr. Freelance.

I receive thought-provoking questions on a regular basis from a variety of colleagues, friends and over-the-transom folks, and I thought that an advice column for freelancers (or for clients with questions about working with their creative independent contractors) would be the ideal format to amplify that. The healthcare theme, ripe with metaphors of diagnosis, sickness, healing and wellness, seemed just goofy enough to be perfect for me.

And my parents always wanted me to be a doctor.

I'll still be posting regularly here at Jake's Takes, continuing to focus on my usual "business anecdotes with a moral" theme.

Just 15 more days till tax day...in Canada

2010-04-15T13:29:00.006-03:00

My family and I spent most of 2009 as expatriates in New Brunswick, Canada, but today, alas, I bring no bawdy tales of being screeched in as an honorary Newfoundlander, or of seeing mooses in Cape Breton, or of watching whales blow in the Bay of Fundy, or learning how to curl (which is far more difficult than it looks).

No, comrades, the topic du jour is an international freelancer's view of the differences in our income tax systems, which for some reason is on top of my mind today.

I can't speak for anyone else, but at our income level, a Canadian pays more than a comparable U.S. citizen. A lot more. Keep in mind, this is on top of an already-nasty federal/provincial sales tax (13% in N.B.) and, worst of all, wicked tariffs on liquor. Oddly enough, easy access to unemployment benefits (known shorthand as "EI," for Employment Insurance) and healthcare are not free. They are expensive.
Although we paid into the healthcare and EI systems, we were not eligible for benefits. We were covered by a Cigna International policy.
That being said, I admire how simple the Canadian T1 General Income Tax and Benefit Return is. Ours was 19 pages long, and it covered both federal and provincial taxes.
By comparison, our fed and Arizona forms ran 47 and 16 pages, respectively. And to add insult to injury, the postage to mail our 1040 cost almost a dollar more than the T1!
The T1 is also admirably clear about what your tax rate calculation is, compared to the byzantine B.S. charts in the U.S. system. The Canadian government appears quite content to spell out how badly you're getting reamed.

On a final note, for U.S. citizen freelancers who find themselves outposted north of the border: Make sure you're an LLC. As it turns out, freelancing in Canada went very smoothly and my fears from last May of owing taxes to the Dominion on my worldwide income were unfounded. Our tax preparer concluded that "Boomvang Creative does not carry on business in Canada through a permanent establishment maintained in Canada."

Uncle Sam, you're very welcome.

Client communication 101 (and Schrödinger's Deadline)

2010-04-08T19:55:00.003-03:00

I was recently working for a client for whom English is a second language, quickly discovering that our easiest form of communication was chat. The project at hand was hot, requiring a good chunk of my time several days in a row. On Day 2, he asked me how long I thought a certain section would take to write, and I answered, "Oh, about an hour." He responded that he thought that seemed fast, and I typed back that it might take a bit more time in revisions, but the first draft would indeed take around that long.

The next day, panic struck. I found out through a third party that I "wasn't hitting my deadlines." I was a bit dumbfounded, since I really hadn't been given a specific deadline in the first place. How can you miss a deadline that you didn't know about? (I'm coining it a Schrödinger's Deadline™, in tribute to the famous thought experiment with the cat in a box that might be dead or alive depending on whether a radioactive source had broken open a flask of poison. It's a quantum physics thang.)

Anyway, I puzzled for a while before coming to the explanation: He had expected to have the piece in his hands 60 minutes after our initial conversation.

I sent this knowledge back up the chain of command, and as far as I can tell, everything was effectively patched up. What I do know for certain, even if I'm still unaware of a deadline, I know in the future to cite not only the duration, but the projected time of arrival.

9 secrets to becoming Superclient

2010-04-02T12:26:00.001-03:00

(OK, maybe "Superclient" is a bit strong, but at least a client who makes us creatives super happy and therefore super productive. And that's what you want, isn't it?)

The always-entertaining Ad Chick runs a little ad agency in Hooterville, U.S.A., and her Wednesday post, "Being a good client" hits the mark on a number of levels. I found it particularly interesting that it was driven by a client 1) realizing that they had been Behaving Badly and 2) wanting to turn that around. In all my years, I've never heard of that before.

For me, Ad Chick's list underscores the importance of respect and trust in the client-vendor relationship. (It's also a good reminder for those of us who put on the client hat when we sub out work to other solo entrepreneurs.) Not only is it more productive that way, it's a helluva lot more fun.

Motivating yourself with a "win" board

2010-03-31T14:32:00.000-03:00

One of my independent-creative friends joked that it's tough playing hooky when you work for yourself, because you're automatically busted. That set off a string of banter about there being no point to calling in sick, how it's awkward to give yourself an annual review, and the difficulty of reprimanding yourself.

The truth is, freelancing can be a pretty solitary enterprise if you let it. (Some prefer it that way!) And if you're in the business long enough, it can often seem like you've fallen into a feedback-free zone or a negative-feedback-only rut.

As a matter of practice, anytime I get an attaboy from a client--could be a thank you, or a compliment about a story, a positive anecdote, a great result from an advertising campaign--I print it out and push-pin it to a bulletin board on my wall. I'm a very internally motivated person, and I don't waste much time worrying about criticism, but there are times my "win" board serves as a reminder of why I do what I do. Even when things go sideways with one client, it sure helps to have a reminder that your skills have been appreciated by a horde of others.

Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies

2010-03-30T21:21:00.000-03:00

The always-insightful George "Geo" Tannenbaum at Ad Aged is constructing a list titled "99 lies. A work in progress." The count was up to 43 as of a moment ago, but he's continuing to add if you want to give a shot at mocking ad agency/creative world prevarication.

His first five are:

I will never lie to you.
We're all in this together.
The only thing that matters is the work.
I'm a straight shooter.
I like it.

For what it's worth, my suggestions were:

We're interested in trying something different.
I'm not worried about face time.
We're focused on the results, not the process.
It's not my call.
That's my final offer.

10 things you shouldn't ask a freelance writer

2010-03-30T17:56:00.001-03:00

Susan Johnston at the Urban Muse posted a nifty little item yesterday, "10 Things You Should NOT Ask a Freelance Writer," assembled from an informal poll of her Twitter and Facebook followers. She was kind enough to h/t me for her #9 item--but all of them will surely generate a laugh or a cringe from anyone who's been in the biz for more than a few minutes.

Is self employment really what you want?

2010-03-26T12:06:00.001-03:00

I recently had lunch with a longtime friend and business associate, let's call her Kathy, who got laid off a few months ago. She's been filling the time with intermittent freelance gigs, but her frustration is palpable--having been at her previous corporate employer for more than a decade, and given the state of the economy, perhaps that's no surprise.

So our conversation turned to what she has found most difficult about self employment and the freelance world. For Kathy, it's "Not knowing where my next project is going to come from, or when it's going to happen."

That intrigued me, because I'd say that's one of the aspects I like *most* about running my own business. I totally groove on the excitement of not knowing what's around the next bend, what that next phone ring will bring. Sure, sometimes it takes a bit longer than you'd like, but eventually the committed entrepreneur needs to come to grips with it. If not, you're likely better off in an office environment where the assignments (and paychecks) come more regularly. No shame in that, though probably best recognized early on. A desperate freelancer can't be a successful one.

Kathy also made an important point for those of us who are in a position to help someone who's unemployed or underemployed. She said it's amazing to see the number of people who she thought she could depend on who suddenly weren't available when she ran into tough times. If you're a writer, editor or graphic designer, a free resume/cover letter polish goes a long way; if you're a web guru, provide some help to someone who could use an online portfolio. Lend a sympathetic ear. Make a phone call. Send an email. Pay it forward.

PR Pro, Part II: 3.5 reasons why I can't show you the story

2010-03-18T17:13:00.004-03:00

Last week, I recounted one of the best encounters I've ever had with a public relations professional helping me with a story. (Go here; I'll be here when you get back.)

Today, I want to touch briefly on the reasons why the surprisingly common "Can I see the story before it runs?" request chafes me so terribly:

By asking the question, you're subtly implying that I might misconstrue your story, make your company look bad, make your competitor look good, etc., etc. It's much nicer to operate from a position of mutual trust and respect. After all, I'm assuming that you're giving me the straight scoop about your client. (You are, aren't you?)
Most editorial policies preclude me from showing you anything other than direct quotes. Thus, you're putting me in the awkward position of telling you "no" right after you did me the favor of providing resources for my story. I'm a nice guy, but my allegiance is to the publication that gave me the assignment.
Even if I did show the story to you, I wouldn't change anything unless it was factually incorrect. I calls 'em like I sees 'em, and I pride myself on getting things right.

Finally, Reason 3.5 is this: Keep in mind that, if I have a question about whether something is accurate, I will certainly contact you.

Now, in defense of the PR pros who insist on asking the question, I suppose there is the occasional writer, editor or publisher who says, "Sure! I'll send it right over!" (I've even known a couple of ad salespeople who've sent a galley proof clandestinely, which is about the sleaziest thing you can do.)

Using the shotgun method to find those people is your right. At the same time, it's my right to stick to my own guns: Trust me.

Sex, violence and the freelancer

2010-03-16T15:11:00.003-03:00

This past weekend, I headed down I-10 to the Tucson Festival of Books, where I staffed the Editorial Freelancers Association booth for a couple of hours each day. During one of my breaks, I attended a workshop titled "Writing Convincing Sex Scenes (the PG Version)." While I'm not currently working on a novel, the title broke through the cacophony of "how to get published" and "you can make a living as a writer" offerings that populated much of the schedule. I figured, why not?

David Fulmer, author of The Blue Door and Chasing the Devil's Tail, among others, taught the session. He was at turns hilarious and insightful about these sensitive topics, which he has taught at the university level. (The course title usually includes violence as well as sex, but it was truncated to fit in the festival program.) In his own books, he uses profanity sparingly, doesn't talk about specific body parts, and cuts the scene "when the clothes hit the floor" so that the reader has to do some of the work.

Obviously, most of us don't spend much time freelancing about sex or violence--at least the circles I travel in! Nevertheless, Fulmer made a number of points that apply to our craft in more general terms:

You can't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone.
You can't care about what friends and family think, or you're in the wrong business.
As a storyteller, everything you do needs to move the plot forward--if it's gratuitous, dump it.
To succeed, you have to blend a writer's creativity with an editor's objectivity.

I'm not sure I've got the guts to write the ultimate steamy scene, nor do I know how many projects I'll get out of the festival, but at the very least I collected a pocketful of business cards and oddball stories. And in the meantime, heaven knows what kind of entertaining Google search word hits it'll drive having "sex" in the headline.

In praise of a PR pro

2010-03-05T19:39:00.005-04:00

Public relations and its practitioners often get a bad rap. (I still have scars from a quick stint in corporate PR back in the early 1990s.) Sometimes it's self-inflicted--Exhibit A being the follow-up calls to ask "Did you get my press release?"--but just as often, it's the nature of the beast. Particularly in unskilled hands, PR comes across as a "push" industry in a world that favors "pull."

Today, I encountered a PR pro at the top of her game:

She wasn't dismissive or irritable when I told her my deadline is next week, even as she admitted that she couldn't get the interview that I was hoping for. I could tell she sensed I was in a bind, and guilt-tripping me wouldn't do her any good. It's amazing how many PR folk get crabby with an on-deadline writer...and equally amazing how much farther empathy, support and treating us like customers would get them and their clients.
When I asked her about the availability of hi-res photos, she had them and a media kit in my email box in less than 45 minutes. (And based on her time zone, she probably stayed late at the office to do it.) No effort required on my part, compared to the many resources nowadays that demand written requests in order to acquire a photo.
She didn't ask to see the article, which a surprising number of PR people do. (Most magazines don't permit anything but direct quotes to be reviewed by sources.) This is such an important issue, I'll dig deeper in an upcoming post.*
What impressed me most, however, is how she clearly delineated what makes her company different, without lapsing into a sales pitch. The way she described the industry and how her company fits into it was brief and objective; her presentation was confident, smooth and simple, she didn't really need to brag.

I'm still writing the story, so I'm not at liberty of naming the person and her company. I will do so at a future date. In the meantime, I just thought it would be a proper thing to end the week by spreading some good karma, as well as sharing the handiwork of a skilled professional.

*3-18-10 UPDATE: Followup to bullet #3 can be found here: "3.5 reasons I can't show you the story."

$100 and restoring my faith in humanity, kindasorta

2010-03-02T14:09:00.001-04:00

Late last spring I did a small brochure project for a new client who'd been referred by a local designer. Slam-dunk project, total price tag of $400. Wrote it, revised it, invoiced it.

Then waited. Then sent a reminder invoice, then another with a cc to my lawyer, then a phone call. Etc., etc., etc. I continued to follow up regularly; not only did I never get a check, I didn't even get a response. The brochure was on a real-estate-related topic, so I chalked it up to bankruptcy (not the only such case in the past year).

Fast forward to yesterday. I stopped by my office mailbox, and--lo and behold!--there's a check in there for $100, with a hand-written note: Hope to send more soon. Thanks for your patience.

In addition to learning what a "debtor in possession" is, I'd describe the experience as similar to finding a twenty in a pair of pants I hadn't worn in a while--not life-changing, but a pleasant surprise. Mentally, I'd written it off to a project that was so small and quick that (naively, in retrospect) a deposit didn't seem necessary. But, the net effect of the $100 and note was to restore my faith...maybe not in humanity, but at least in small businesses willing to do the right thing despite financial challenges.

Simplicity is hard. Let's go shopping!

2010-02-25T18:58:00.001-04:00

Simpler, generally speaking, is better. A clever little riff on the subject can be found here.

H/T to my tech-entrepreneur-iPhone-app-developer-and-deep-thinker bud Chris DeVore.

4 business tips for freelancers...from Molly Maid

2010-02-23T11:12:00.006-04:00

I know you're thinking, "Molly Maid? Really?" But hang with me here. A few weeks ago on a lazy Sunday, I contacted two cleaning services through their respective online forms. Here's how it went down:

The owner of the local Molly Maid franchise called me at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, while his competitor didn't call till later that afternoon. I know that there's a desire among freelancers to be perceived as busy and exclusive, but don't forget that there's considerable impact from being prompt and responsive, too.
The Molly Maid guy was brief on the phone. The other company's rep did way too much rambling and bragging about why his company is superior before he ever asked me about my needs. In the excitement of having a prospect, beware the temptation to gush information. (You'll have plenty of time to prove how wonderful you are once you start a project.) Ask questions instead.
The bid was presented as a range that would be finalized after the first cleaning. I'm a huge believer in "estimated ranges" for freelancers because they A) give the client an incentive to be easy to work with and B) give you an opportunity to reward that behavior. I was pleasantly surprised when our first cleaning came in at the low end of the range, whereas if he had just given a hard number and hit it, it wouldn't have thought anything of it.
A significant portion of Molly Maid's business comes from people weary of independent agents who were inexpensive, but inconsistent about how well they cleaned, or who would switch days and times, or simply not show up at all. So too, in many, many cases, a prospect for your creative services has been burned by a previous bad experience with Freelancerius flakius. Your job, particularly while mopping up someone else's mess, is to reassure them with professional reliability.

I've resisted the temptation in the headline and body text so far, but I can't any longer: Freelancing may be a Dirty Job, but these four tips can help you clean up.

What's in a word: "Backronym"

2010-02-16T14:30:00.001-04:00

Backronym is one of those neat words that means exactly what it says: Taking an existing word and retrofitting words to make an acronym from it. (It also happens to be an example of one of my other favorite word/concepts, a portmanteau: two words blended to make a new one with a meaning that combines the two. Lewis Carroll gets the credit for using that word first in Alice in Wonderland.)

Two famous examples of backronyms that come to mind from childhood are Fiat standing for "Fix it again, Tony" or Ford meaning "Found on roadside, dead." The backronym for posh--"port outbound, starboard home"--is falsely believed to derive from the location of wealthy passengers' berths on trips between England and India. More likely, it was derived from slang for money.

Backronym is such a terrific word that I was surprised to see that it's a relatively young one. Wikipedia attributes it (spelled "bacronym") to a Washington Post language contest in 1983.

And if you really, really have too much time on your hands, take a spin on the random Backronym Generator.

The S-word, the R-word, and the F-word

2010-02-08T14:08:00.003-04:00

When my daughter was about 4, she tattle-taled that her 5-year-old brother had said "the S-word." This didn't seem right to me; even though my wife and enjoy cussing, I was pretty confident that we'd shielded their young ears from four-letter words to that point. (That's no longer the case.)

After a bit of cross examination, I managed to get her to reveal that Nick had actually said "stupid"--yes, a banned word in our household, though mercifully not the one I'd feared.

Which brings me to the recent kerfuffle about "the R-word" as a placeholder for the word retard or retarded. I will say that Rahm Emmanuel's use of it, paired with the F-word gerund, is appalling language for a person in the public eye. It was appropriate for him to apologize. On the other hand, I'm not on board with the pledges to forcibly remove retard or retarded from the everyday lexicon, and scrubbing it from U.S. law seems quixotic at best, Orwellian at worst. It is a completely inappropriate pejorative, but where do you stop? Languages are full of nasty, hateful words.

I'm confident that turning "the R-word" into a euphemism for an ugly phrase doesn't solve the root problem, which is crudeness and thoughtlessness. Anyone with a brain knows EXACTLY what the placeholder means. That's why I loathe the phrase "the N-word." Hiding behind that "N" is a concept at its ugliest.

On a lighter note, I wonder who's in charge of deciding which word gets first rights to the use of each of the letters in the alphabet. (The OED?) On occasion, I'll jokingly call freelancing "the other F-word," because so many people have had a bad experience on one side of the fence or the other. But right now, you can just call me "the B-word": bored with the whole stupid issue.

The Derek Zoolander Center for People Who Can't Spel Gud

2010-02-03T10:52:00.003-04:00

During a recent visit to a hospital to cover a story, I spotted a suggestion box labeled "CHAPLIN REQUESTS." (Yes, I resisted the temptation to ask if they had any mustachioed silent-film stars handy for my amusement while I waited.)

In fact, I didn't say anything. The instant calculation in my head was that 1) it was not misleading as far as its intended purpose, 2) most people won't even realize it's misspelled, and 3) it's kind of funny.

If your brain is wired for language, you can't help but notice spelling and grammar abuse at every turn. Makes you feel superior, eh? The question, then, is whether to say anything when you do--hence the "instant calculation" I performed in my head. For me, the inputs include:

the seriousness of the error (lethal, misleading or just silly?)
the location it appears in (high traffic or inconsequential?)
the cost that it would take to fix it (signage, printed material or website?)
my relationship with the responsible party (client, vendor or someone who would likely think I was a know-it-all smartaleck?)

My longtime proofreader Bonnie Trenga has a section at her Sentence Sleuth blog for people to add their own "criminal sentences." She secured my business back in the mid-'90s by marking up a magazine that I edited and asking if we could use her services. A risky tactic, but it worked.

Challenging client? Pick up the phone.

2010-01-28T17:51:00.003-04:00

As writers, we're not afraid of expressing ourselves in text. Indeed, there's a certain amount of pride at our abilities to make the written word do a little jig on the page, to persuade, to entertain, to make people laugh, cry, etc. We can do anything with a clever turn of phrase, right?

But my experience has been that the phone is often the best tool to deal with an interminable back-and-forth with a client. The other day, I experienced a pingpong of emails with one of my usually low-maintenance clients. Little editorial tweaks on an article I'd written--nothing major, but each time required pulling up the file, making the change, and sending it over for re-approval.

I realized, after around Round 4, that we weren't getting to a resolution, so I called her up. It was the best decision I could have made: She was able to express herself much more quickly verbally than she was doing via email. And it also gave me a chance to schmooze her a little bit, ask her about how things are going, and get on her calendar for coffee in a few weeks.

A few closing thoughts:

Part of successful communication is understanding which mode is best suited to a given situation.
On the phone, you can pick up and deliver subtle cues that can't be conveyed in text.
As a businessperson, you need to recognize that being a skilled writer doesn't mean that it's the only or best tool in the box.

So, a question for you: What tricks do you use to derail the re:re:re:re train?

***

Note: While we're on the subject of client challenges, Planet Word has a two-entry series on "Selling Your Value" that's worth a read.

An earlier version of this was cross-posted at Freelance Writerville II [registration req'd].

Escaping the Freelance Habitrail

2010-01-25T15:01:00.002-04:00

"Whenever aspiring writers ask me for advice, I usually tell ’em this: Don’t just write there, do something. Learn how to shingle a roof, or tap-dance, or raise sled dogs. Because if you don’t do anything, you wind up [someone] for whom words are props and codes and metaphors but no longer expressive of anything real."
--Mark Steyn

Whether or not you embrace author/commentator Mark Steyn's worldview or political leanings, there's no question that he's an incisive and vivid writer. The point he makes here is an essential one, because it points toward the value of being a multidimensional human being, not just a skilled rearranger of words. We are the sum of our experiences; as a writer's career progresses, a danger lurks in remaining immersed solely in the world of language. It's where we're comfortable, often too much so.

I'd argue that it's even truer for those of us who transact in the corporate realm--clients dig insights that come from outside the advertising/marketing Habitrail. Reading about diverse topics can help, but nothing tops experiencing something out of the ordinary, or even experiencing the ordinary itself.

Time for Timer

2010-01-22T14:47:00.000-04:00

I've always envied those writers who sit down and crank out hundreds of words for hours on end. That's not the way my brain works. I'm more of a sprinter: write for short bursts of time, then do something else for a while--invoicing, filing, go for a run, etc.

So, the other day on the Wall Street Journal, I came across a review of time management/organizational techniques. The Pomodoro Technique description caught my eye for its simplicity: You set a timer for 25 minutes, after which you've earned a 5-minute break. (I downloaded the ebook but haven't read it yet...I'm wondering if I even need to.) There are several Mac Dashboard widgets to accomplish the task, but I chose "Egg Timer," which pings you with verbal message when it expires. Mine says, "Time to check the Pomodoro."

Also on the WSJ recommendation, I also purchased a copy of "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity," and it's an interesting read so far. It's designed to be a "whole-life" organizer, and I particularly like the ways in which it departs from the standard Franklin Planner method, which never really worked for me.

What your business can learn from another roadside attraction

2010-01-20T11:23:00.006-04:00

On the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick just shy of Nova Scotia, there's a tourist attraction called Magnetic Hill. It gained fame in the 1800s as a place where your horse cart would appear to roll uphill, though today it's arguably better known as an amusement park/water slide/zoo complex that also holds rock concerts for long-in-the-tooth headliners like AC/DC. There are enough "gravity hills" in the world that Wikipedia has an entry for the phenomenon, though the one from which this particular site takes its name is pretty well an afterthought at this point.

Like so many roadside attractions, Magnetic Hill is, alas, a tad underwhelming. You pay your five bucks, get your instructions from the hill attendant (a frontrunner for Boringest Jobs in North America), and drive to the appointed marker a hundred meters or so in the distance. Put the car in neutral, crane yourself around so you can see out the rear window, let off the brake and, voila, your brain thinks you're coasting uphill. The illusion isn't terribly convincing--as my teenage son put it, "I think it's more like Momentum Hill."

So, the business angle. You always hear experts say that you should never overpromise and underdeliver, but that's the business plan of just about any roadside attraction, isn't it? Their marketing abilities deserve the utmost respect, surviving on no more than an endless tease of billboards and quarter-page ads in local tourista publications. Because they're dependent on a fool-me-once clientele, the "underdeliver" part doesn't really matter. Repeat customers, on the other hand, require reliability and trust. The lesson in here for freelancers, or for that matter any type of businessperson, really comes down to promising and delivering. Say what you're going to do, then do it, and you'll have a good chance to do it until you don't want to anymore.

Then again, you could argue that our family has derived far more than our $5 worth of laughs since being lured off the highway on that fateful summer afternoon. Unforgettable experiences come in a variety of packages, eh?

Surveys in, tallying begins

2010-01-13T16:41:00.010-04:00

The Freelance Forecast 2010 surveys have closed, and the results of this year's more than 400 participants have been posted at DearDrFreelance.com

If you'd like to participate in next year's survey there is also an email sign-up link—welcome aboard!

5 conversation killers in a first-client meeting

2009-12-12T22:56:00.000-04:00

Driving through the mountains east of Pittsburgh yesterday, I caught a fuzzy radio broadcast with a great tease: "After the break...the 7 worst types of small talk."

Alas, the actual segment wasn't as juicy as I'd hoped--the guest's verboten topics were the things you could probably guess if you've ever been to a cocktail party: Don't talk about your golf game (no one cares, even other golfers), wine (unless you're sure the other person is a oenophile), what route you took to the party (ZZZZ), kids (no one cares, even other parents), dreams (unless you want to be flagged as a flake), and stocks (you're probably either bragging or whining). The signal faded out before the final one, but I'm guessing it was religion, politics or sex.

But it did strike me that there's an analogy for freelancers headed into a meeting with a prospective client, when the inevitable lull in conversation comes around but the sale hasn't closed. The nervousness and excitement can cause us to blurt, blab or otherwise inject nonsense in ways that can be every bit as deadly as the items above:

Talking about how slow business has been (smells like eau de desperation)
Talking about being super busy (it's a fine line between being highly sought and overwhelmed)
Recounting a tale of bad or unruly clients (risky, though you might be able to get away with something that's funny and has a happy ending)
Penalty fees/rules/restrictions (e.g., number of rounds of revisions)
Talking too much, period (even if it's positive and upbeat stuff)

You need to know yourself and how you react under the pressure of the first meeting. Better to be armed with a bunch of good questions that can drive the conversation where you want it to go. Ask the client if it's OK to record the conversation, and then listen to it afterward to identify the weak points of your presentation. And for the love of all that's holy...please don't talk about the weather.

Arizona Dust

2009-12-09T17:26:00.004-04:00

I'm taking a break from loading the trailer while a snowstorm drops the first of 30 centimeters on us. My computer will get boxed next, so this will be my last post till I hit the road in the morning.

Yes, our Canadian tour of duty is complete and it's time to head Phoenixward. Too many thoughts rattling around in my head to do any of them justice, so I'll let Blue Rodeo, a quintessentially Canadian band, handle the outro for me. Their lyric--"As I’m eating Arizona dust/And wishing I was home"--testifies to the power of returning to the places that make you happy, even if they're not the same for each of us (and occasionally 180 degrees different).

Announcing Freelance Forecast 2010 survey (again)

2009-12-07T07:22:00.004-04:00

An open letter to the White House "Jobs and Economic Growth Forum"

2009-12-03T19:01:00.014-04:00

Dear Friends:

Perhaps my invitation to today's White House forum got lost in the mail, but no worries--I'm not the kind of guy to risk a felony by crashing a party at your place.

While you were jawboning at roundtables and breakout sessions, talking about not talking about 30,000-foot solutions, munching on bagels and sipping fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice, it was an average day out here in the real world. The vast majority of your fellow citizens were busy at our desks, in the fields, at chalkboards, behind the wheel, on duty or patrol, working on projects, prospecting for new business, keeping people healthy and safe, and, depending on whose numbers you believe, 10.5 to 20 percent of us were simply looking for gainful employment.

As some are fond of saying, let me be clear. I'm not writing to whine--I love what I do. The reason I wanted to drop you a line is because of a couple of conversations I've had this week among peers and associates. You've surely heard the old aphorism that "the market hates uncertainty," and I'd say that fairly represents the feeling at the grassroots business level. Those of us microbusinesses that don't really register on your radar (because we don't have lobbyists, lawyers, stock tickers, or labor unions), well, we're a little freaked out. We're scared that The Powers That Be are going to bail out another company, bank or governmental entity, fund alarmist "emergencies," hire more bureaucrats, print money 24-7, or tax the bejeezus out of us, or all of the above.

Meanwhile, we small fry don't have the luxury of spending money we don't have currently or won't have in the future. We know we're not going to get billions of dollars in bonuses (*cough* Goldman Sachs *cough*). We wouldn't be eligible for unemployment benefits, so we just keep figuring out what we need to do in order to pay the bills. There ain't no such thing as "too small to fail."

You want more businesses to hire people? Start eliminating uncertainty. Stop wasting money on crap.

Then again, the realistic side of me reckons not much will come out of your little summit. (I've been to my share of forums, so I know that the baloney gets sliced pretty thin, and have heard the 4 p.m. cry of "More coffee, stat!") Indeed, the most comforting item I saw about your exclusive confab was a single sentence tucked way down at the tail end of an AP story: "Administration officials said they don't expect major policy announcements from the forum."

But, just for giggles, I'll look forward to seeing the meeting minutes once you've typed 'em up. Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,
Jake Poinier
Boomvang Creative Group
Phoenix, Ariz.

Announcing Freelance Forecast 2010

2009-12-01T16:36:00.015-04:00

The Freelance Forecast 2010 surveys have closed, and the results have been posted at DearDrFreelance.com.

If you'd like to participate in next year's survey, there is an easy email signup box in the right sidebar of the Dr. Freelance page.

Thankful

2009-11-24T13:29:00.001-04:00

When our kids were small and subject to dwelling on a bad day, we instituted a rule at bedtime: Each of us, including my wife and me, had to name the best thing that had happened during the day. If you wanted to list more than one, that was OK, but the idea was that you went to sleep with a clear positive thought even if you'd had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Nowadays our kids are up later than we are, and therefore no longer tuck-inable, but hopefully it is a principle that they can carry through the challenges that lay ahead in adolescence, young adulthood and parenthood.

It's a fine way to end a day. There's a great deal to be said for appreciating people and events that make us happy.

I'll be traveling tomorrow and unlikely to be online, so an early thanks to my readers--family and friends, peers and partners in all of your various media and with all your myriad talents, clients and your ideas and spirited approach to business--as we head into the holiday weekend. Happy Turkey.

7 reasons to reject lowball freelance work

2009-11-20T16:02:00.005-04:00

How low will you go in accepting an assignment? In 7 Reasons Why I Won't Write A $15 Blog, blogger Carol Tice describes being lowballed by an agency and enumerates the principles that led her to say "no." Of the seven reasons, #5 "I want to take a stand," leads her to create a petition for writers who won't take less than $50 for an assignment.

It is an interesting tactic. If nothing else, Tice elicited emotion--she drove lots of comments by posting on LinkedIn, and the topic also sparked a separate discussion over at Freelancer Writerville II (free registration required) when I posted the link there. A while back, I posted a video of Harlan Ellison ranting about people who work for free, screwing up things for everyone else, so, yeah, I am empathic to the concept that people should stand up for their right to be paid a fair wage.

While I wish her the best of luck, I see a couple of challenges in formalizing such a cause:

Although there is a Freelancers Union, we're inherently un-unionizable in any significant way. I cherish my independence, and I believe that the vast majority of freelancers feel similarly. I'm skeptical that a petition will carry much weight in the marketplace, and I'm confident enough in my own abilities to know that I'm my own best advocate.
At the risk of retreating into a sports metaphor, writing is analogous to professional baseball--some are superstars and some barely make it to the big leagues, but the vast majority toil away in AAA, AA, or A for smaller bucks...and a lot of others play just for fun. A player with marginal talent who wants to make a six-figure income ain't gonna get it. One with scads of talent who is underpaid needs to do a better job of negotiating.
I simply don't view this as a moral issue. As much as I disdain the content mills out there, I don't believe they're doing anything but meeting a need for low-cost, low-quality content. Nobody is forced to work for them, so using the word "sweatshop" is a bit precious. They're purchasing the editorial equivalent of cheesy clipart. Good luck with that.

Discussions about pay never fail to strike a nerve. Freelancing isn't unique in that respect, though it is very personal as far as what is acceptable. As Rodney Dangerfield once said, "Look out for #1...but don't step in #2."

Update: A great pricing anecdote via photographer Tim Gruber, Picasso and Pricing Your Work:

Legend has it that Pablo Picasso was sketching in the park when a bold woman approached him.

“It’s you — Picasso, the great artist! Oh, you must sketch my portrait! I insist.”

So Picasso agreed to sketch her. After studying her for a moment, he used a single pencil stroke to create her portrait. He handed the women his work of art.

“It’s perfect!” she gushed. “You managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank you! How much do I owe you?”

“Five thousand dollars,” the artist replied.

“B-b-but, what?” the woman sputtered. “How could you want so much money for this picture? It only took you a second to draw it!”

To which Picasso responded, “Madame, it took me my entire life.”

101 Reasons Freelancers Do It Better

2009-11-19T07:12:00.000-04:00

The Editorial Freelancers Association passed along this little item from HR World, of all odd places: "101 Reasons Freelancers Do It Better." Yeah, they stretched it a bit to tip it over the 101 mark, but they still get an "A" for blending humor & truth.

11 Myths of Owning a Small Business

2009-11-18T12:23:00.002-04:00

No matter how creative you are, your success as a freelancer ultimately hinges on your abilities as a businessperson. So, the headline "11 Myths of Owning a Small Business" in the Nov. 17 Forbes.com Entrepreneurs Newsletter caught my attention. And, as is always the case in listy-number thangs, I sat down to see how my experiences matched up with their opinions.

My conclusion? It's worth taking two minutes to read the article and another two minutes to run through the slide show, since the text only reveals some of the myths. (Which seemed goofy to me, but whatever.) I found myself agreeing with most, particularly how you can't "do it all yourself" and how risk-taking and passion are often overstated or overrated. Some of the myths don't really apply, such as "you can set your own schedule," but that may be more aimed at the bricks-and-mortar entrepreneurs in the Forbes audience. (Then again, deadlines can surely box you in if you let them.)

By the way, you can sign up for Forbes's free email newsletters in the right-hand column at the link, about halfway down the page. I've found there's usually at least one freelancer-applicable article per issue, sometimes more.

What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?

2009-11-13T11:25:00.005-04:00

I took a deep breath. I had scheduled a phone appointment with someone for a company newsletter article, but when I call, I get dumped straight into voicemail. When I finally reach her, 45 minutes later, she's in a meeting and...let's just say her demeanor is "gruff."

I provided an escape clause, "Is this an OK time? I'd be happy to reschedule," but she stepped out of her meeting and we did the very brief interview. I wrote up the article, and sent it to her for review the following morning.

To my amazement, she responded quickly, was complimentary and didn't have a single change. Interestingly enough, she also thanked me for "being patient" the previous day--so she evidently recognized that she'd been out of line.

I find it odd when people for whom you're essentially doing a favor act as if you're inconveniencing them. I was writing an intercompany article with the sole purpose of making her and her department look good. We'd booked a time that she neglected to put in her calendar--no big deal. Once you've blown it, however, in my version of The Game anyhow, you're supposed to default to an immediate, on-the-spot apology. You only get partial points for a day-after one.

I was "patient" because I recognized it as the only way of getting the job done, not because it's my preferred mode of operation. We're all busy, but courtesy makes life a lot more pleasant--and a much better impression.

Heading into the weekend, a video tie-in to the post headline. Elvis Costello cut the most famous version of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," but Nick Lowe (who wrote the song) sets a more leisurely pace.

Veterans and Remembrance days

2009-11-11T13:32:00.001-04:00

With one foot in the U.S. and one in Canada, a Veterans Day thank you to those who served and a Remembrance Day thank you for your sacrifices.

Playing grammar referee

2009-11-10T11:44:00.007-04:00

As an editor, you break up your fair share of grammar skirmishes and pray no one gets hurt. Yesterday afternoon, one of my creative partners asked me whether "important" or "importantly" was the correct word in this sentence:

More important(ly), can you help us find XXXXX?

I'd long ago been taught that's a ly-free zone, with "importantly" being reserved as an adverb to describe to describe an action; for example, "The judge strode importantly to the bench." With a bit of nagging doubt in my head, I did a bit of research to ensure I wasn't wrong.

As it turns out, it's a bit of a sister-kiss: Either one is acceptable usage according to Merriam-Webster's and other authorities, though my web search indicated a slight lean toward "more important." The reasoning is that it's not modifying a verb, it's modifying the entire phrase that follows it--you could think of it as "[What is] more important, can you help us..."

Alas, as with all grammar minutia, whichever way you write it, a stickler on the other side will read it and think "AHA! You big dummy!"...forgetting that it doesn't mean a darn thing in the ability to convey or understand the message. I am reminded of the big-endian vs. small-endian argument among the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels. Eat your softboiled egg any way you please.

UPDATED: While we're on the subject, Yolander Prinzel of Freelance Writerville alerted me to "Error Proof: How to defend yourself from grammar pedants" from the October 4, 2009, New York Times Magazine. Clever stuff.

Persistence vs. pestilence

2009-11-06T11:45:00.001-04:00

Recently I was talking with a freelance writer/editor who quoted a stat that made me cringe. She'd been to a seminar where the speaker had declared something to the effect that, on average, it takes 7 follow-up contacts with a prospective client before they'll do business with you.

Not only do I call B.S. and question how the heck this seminar swami derived the magic number, I'd suggest that type of approach is hazardous to a freelancer's business.

My professional experience is that, after one or two calls, a prospect is either in or out. I need to use my judgment on how close I am to a "yes" and if and when a follow-up is appropriate.
My experience as a prospect is that, if someone calls me that many times, I am going to get irritated. You don't have permission to do that, even if I expressed initial interest.
Rather than trotting back to the same "maybe" target repeatedly, you're likely better served to devote your energies to finding new prospects elsewhere. Contact enough of them, and you'll undoubtedly find a few that are happy-to-talk-to-you, one-call deals.

Horror story

2009-10-30T10:42:00.006-03:00

With Halloween lurking, I believe it's fitting to share the scariest moment in my freelance career. Back in the Early Aughts, I'd been assigned to write a profile of professional golfer Tom Lehman for a now-defunct magazine called 85255 (the ZIP code of a tony North Scottsdale, Ariz., suburb). The interview would take place at Tom's house, and would be simultaneous with the photo shoot--never ideal because of the mayhem, but you take what you get.

The interviews with Tom and his wife went smoothly, and the photos, including a shot of the whole family jumping on their backyard trampoline, were perfect. Energized and excited, I hopped in my car to drive home, and started to play back the interview tape so I could brainstorm the story.

It was empty.

I turned the volume all the way up till it was hissing. Nothing. To my utter and complete horror, I saw that I hadn't flicked the switch back from using it in "phone in" mode from a prior telephone interview. The cassette hadn't recorded a single word.

Heart pounding, I pulled onto the shoulder of the desert road, and frantically scribbled chunks of remembered dialogue and anecdotes on my yellow legal pad while they were still fresh in my head. (Mercifully, I had jotted a few notes during the interview, though not nearly sufficient to write a 1,000-word story.) I sat there for an hour, racking my brain to try to recreate the past hour's conversations.

Amazingly, augmented with a brief call to Tom's wife the next day to clear up some timelines, my scrambled roadside effort was enough. (Had I not discovered my error till a few days later, it would not have been.) Evidence, I suppose, that God looks out for widows, orphans, drunks...and freelancers.

I no longer own that old-school microcassette recorder, though its lessons of doing a sound check and having hard-copy backup are scorched into my brain. My digital recorder, which I wrote about over the summer, offers the peace of mind of a visual level monitor. But until I've completely transcribed an interview, and backed it up in my Time Machine, I have to confess: This experience always haunts me, and always will.

Do you have your own horror story, about a nightmare client, evil assignment or deadly deadline? Enter it into the Freelance Writerville II Scary Freelancing Story Contest (registration required)--in addition to fame and fortune, you could win a $10 gift certificate to Amazon!

SpecialtyBuzz profile is up

2009-10-29T13:46:00.000-03:00

A quick thanks and hat tip to Jenn Escalona at The Life and Times of a Freelance Writer for featuring me as her SpecialtyBuzz Q&A of the week. In addition to interviews with various writing style and subject matter experts, Jenn's blog features lots of thought-provoking posts and links--definitely worth adding to your daily feed.

Punctuated equilibrium and freelancer evolution

2009-10-29T08:48:00.004-03:00

In another life, equipped with better math skills, I would have been a scientist. Then again, it doesn't stop me from enjoying science any more than my marginal skating talents prevent me from rooting for the Boston Bruins.

One of the scientific theories that has always stuck in my head is punctuated equilibrium, popularized by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould in the early 1970s. At the risk of oversimplifying, the concept is that evolution occurs in bursts of rapid change and periods of stability rather than as small changes on a smooth curve.

You can probably see where I'm going here: Punctuated equilibrium is a pretty keen metaphor for our individual lives in general, and for our careers in particular.

Looking at the graph, you need to consider two types of punctuation event: 1) being acted upon by an outside force or 2) choosing to do something different. For me, examples of the former would include having a client go bankrupt or, more pleasantly, having my phone ring unexpectedly with a prospect for a multi-thousand-dollar project. Examples of the former include teaching myself html during the early days of the Web or doing a marketing blitz to announce a new service line.

On a deeper level, such events are inextricably tied--you make choices that subject you to outside forces, and outside forces require you to make choices. But I would argue that, unlike the dinosaurs who had no idea when a meteor was going to hit or a volcano was going to blow, as human beings we have the ability to read, react and adapt to our circumstances.

Over the next few days, consider where you are in the chart. Are you on a flat spot, cruising contentedly...but maybe a bit bored? Are you on a steep upramp, hanging on for dear life...but thrilled at the challenge? Like it or not, you're evolving.

Tech talk - Mighty Mouse gets disappeared?

2009-10-20T16:04:00.002-03:00

I'm a fan of Apple computers, but was 100% underwhelmed by the Mighty Mouse. The scroll ball was nifty when it was new, but there was no satisfactory way of cleaning it, and the Bluetooth interface was absolute crap. (I bought two of them before I said no mas and gave the Targus Wireless Mouse a shot.)

Evidently, I wasn't the only dissatisfied user--as of today, the Mighty Mouse appears to have been replaced with the Magic Mouse. "Look, Ma, no scroll ball!"

For the moment, I'm OK with the Targus and not in a hurry to drop $70 on the new MM. You'd never mistake the Targus for an Apple-designed product--it's awfully twitchy until you get used to it, and it's less customizable than I'd prefer. But rather than a ball, it has a glass lens on top of the mouse that allows you to scroll with tiny motions of your index finger, i.e., nothing to get dirty.

I suspect it will last until my dog drives her nose under my forearm and sends the thing flying across the room, which is one of her favorite tricks.

"Free" advice from Wired's Chris Anderson

2009-10-19T11:34:00.008-03:00

I don't commonly link to articles I've written, but I'm making an exception for "The Freeconomics of Speakonomics," which appears in the October issue of Speaker magazine. It's a feature about Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, from an interview we did shortly after his best-selling book Free came out.

My reason for posting is twofold:

Chris responded to my interview request within two hours of being asked, and within another two hours, his assistant had provided a half dozen times for me to choose from. That kind of response time is incredibly unusual, and should be praised to the skies.
Even though the story is targeted at professional speakers, there are some parallels and lessons for freelancers. As an entrepreneur, "free" is something that you can't ignore, but you can leverage to your advantage.

Whether you ultimately agree or disagree with Chris's conclusions, Free will challenge your assumptions about pricing and value. His blog, The Long Tail, is one of my regular reads for the same reason.

What is the sound of 10,000 motivational-guru heads exploding?

2009-10-16T08:21:00.008-03:00

While editing an article, I needed to research the author's use of the old saying that the Chinese characters for "danger" and "opportunity" combine to form the ideogram "crisis." (I initially thought the writer had the equation mixed up.) As it turns out, this well-worn phrase, which John F. Kennedy popularized and serves as a key tenet for more than a few motivational speaker/self-help empires, is to Far Eastern wisdom as Panda Express is to Asian cuisine:

How a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray. In addition to skewering the misused language, a professor of Chinese language and literature at University of Pennsylvania adds this gem: "Those who purvey [this] doctrine...are engaging in a type of muddled thinking that is a danger to society, for it lulls people into welcoming crises as unstable situations from which they can benefit."
Is the Chinese word for "crisis" a combination of "danger" and "opportunity"? The money quote? "Native Chinese speakers tend to think the crisis = danger/opportunity connection is complete bullshit."
Crisis = danger + opportunity: The plot thickens: I particularly like this historical perspective (the usage dates back to Chinese missionaries in the 1930s) and the fact that it cites a 1994 episode of The Simpsons.

Lisa: Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for "crisis" as they do for "opportunity"?
Homer: Yes! Cris-atunity.

I won't tell you how I edited the article, but I'm curious to know what you'd do under the same circumstance. What's your responsibility to the writer of an article containing a little nugget of popular-but-false wisdom?

Danger sign: The third wheel

2009-10-14T11:20:00.002-03:00

If you could invent a client Geiger counter, the sudden appearance of a third-party consultant would ring it like a freshly unearthed chunk of uranium.

It's only happened to me a few times, but I was reminded of the dangers a few weeks back in a first-meeting conference call. Everything was going swimmingly, until the client offhandedly mentioned that she had hired a marketing/branding expert to help hone her company image.

Uh-oh.

Our creative team gamely put together the folder and brochures on a rush schedule, but the die had been cast. The addition of another party--with a vote on our fate but with whom we had no contact or collaboration--created a process akin to doing microsurgery with mittens on. You just can't do it. We ended up getting paid for our time, but in the big picture, everyone's time was wasted. Ours. The consultant's. The client's. She would have been better off simply hiring the marketing/branding expert to provide the creative materials from the outset.

The moral of the story? The only time a third wheel makes sense is if you're building a tricycle.

Mommy-Blogging Bait

2009-10-07T16:41:00.004-03:00

I'm not a mommy blogger and don't consume beauty products other than soap and toothpaste, but as a former denizen of the custom-publishing world, this story in Ad Age caught my eye... "P&G to Launch Custom Beauty Magazine Rouge in U.S.: Package Goods Giant Plans to Build Database by Relying on Mommy Bloggers to Spread the Word." The scale of the project is pretty astounding for a mailed piece:

Procter & Gamble Co. is enlisting help from mommy bloggers as it makes over its Canadian custom-published quarterly Rouge for a full-scale U.S. launch expected to reach 11 million households in both countries by next year....

...The appeal driving mentions of Rouge among bloggers is pretty simple: It's available at the internet's favorite price (free) and comes loaded with coupons, which happen to drive much of the routine chatter regarding package-goods brands in social media.

I do wonder if the mommy bloggers will get behind the cause without a quid pro quo; maybe the bad economy is what makes coupons an attractive ploy. Even without knowing the cost per unit, I'm inclined to think that P&G will eventually kill the physical magazine and focus on the web site after a few issues (i.e., once they've captured the names). Then again, a custom publication isn't at the mercy of the horrific ad sales environment, and with publications going out of business, it may be a buyer's market in the print biz.

Anyway, they got their links and couple of minutes of free press out of me, so I guess I'm an honorary mommy blogger after all...

"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone"

2009-10-07T08:41:00.006-03:00

Posting about Miracle last week got me to thinking about my single favorite Herb Brooks quote from the movie. "You think you can win on talent alone? Gentlemen, you don't have enough talent to win on talent alone"--as he runs them through interminable, brutal drills immediately after a distracted pre-Olympics effort against Norway.

The point obviously applies as well to business as it does to sports, maybe even more so, because sports is more meritocratic. It's generally easier to judge athletic performance in terms of scoring, defense, and times than it is to measure business outcomes at a personal level. In the corporate world, there are usually too many variables (unless you are a front-line salesperson), and that dynamic compounds for creatives, because we're usually several steps removed from the sale.

So, what lies in the abyss beyond pure talent? Here are two thoughts...

Measure what you can, when you can: Marketing master Denny Hatch always talks about how direct mail is the acid test of creative skills. It is nothing if brutally honest, because it proves whether something got read and provoked an action. Even if you're not working on a direct-response project, is there something about your project you can measure? Can you test Sample A against Sample B? Did you create a more-efficient process that saved a quantifiable amount of money? (For the love of all that's holy, no focus groups, please.)

Augment your talent with superior internal or external customer service: Let's face it, creative brains come preinstalled with a hypercritical streak; some of us just do a better job of hiding it. A crabby SOB like baseball pitcher Randy Johnson can get away with it because he throws 100 mph, and people indulge photographer Annie Leibovitz's tantrums because of her skill behind the lens. I don't have that option. Whether you're a solo act or in an agency or corporate creative department, you can set yourself apart by developing a reputation for being easy to work with in addition to being talented. Take criticism objectively. Be flexible and come up with alternatives pre-emptively. Chant "Serenity now" until you've chased away the demons.

***

Follow up: Some interesting background about Friday's video in this article, How 4-year-old boy mastered 'Miracle' speech in YouTube hit.

Your weekend pep talk

2009-10-02T08:15:00.007-03:00

I'm on scads of deadlines today, so no time to talk shop. But a friend of mine posted this video that got me all pumped up, and I thought y'all might enjoy a little inspiration, too.

And if you don't recognize the speech, your penance is to rent "Miracle" this weekend.

Update: Behind the scenes...How 4-year-old boy mastered 'Miracle' speech in YouTube hit.

Miracle-Herb Brooks" Pre-Game Speech

What, exactly, are you scared of?

2009-09-30T11:00:00.001-03:00

If Facebook is a 24-7 gathering with friends, LinkedIn is the neverending tradeshow mixer, except that it's your gluteus that aches instead of your feet. The vast majority of conversations veer toward the tedious and self-promotional, and tediously self-promotional, but every once in a while there's an item that sparks a vigorous professional discussion.

Over the weekend, a guy claiming decades of freelance experience was asking for advice on acquiring new clients, since his usual contacts had dried up with business and referrals. Recommendations were all over the board; I was among the many who opined that cold-calling was the best approach. Everyone had positive, concrete, go-git-'em suggestions.

In response, he acknowledged that cold-calling was probably the right move, but then proceeded to explain the reasons he didn't really want to (he hates rejection, takes it personally). He added that what he *really* wanted to know was "what job title" he should be approaching at graphics companies to get work. Finally, he said that two emergency projects had come in, and so he was busy again. KThxBye.

I can't fathom how someone could survive or enjoy entrepreneurship with that kind of attitude. I also wondered what kind of customer service he delivers. Beyond that, what I really don't get is his fear of selling himself and his services, if he indeed approaches this as a business. Is a "no" honestly something that you should take personally? There's enormous peace of mind derived from being emotionally objective in the sales process. You are not your job. Rejection is no more a condemnation than acceptance is an indication that you're a wonderful human being.

"Honey, I think I've got writer's block!"

2009-09-27T19:20:00.005-03:00

Was doing a web search for the Algonquin Hotel in St-Andrews-by-the-Sea, located about an hour south of us in New Brunswick, Canada, when I was stopped in my tracks by the following promotion at the legendary Algonquin Hotel in New York City:

Writer's Block Rate: Receive 25% off of the best possible rate. When you book through our website, simply by showing a work in progress or a published work upon check-in.

"But, Jake," you say, "A center-city New York hotel is going to be expensive." True, but the bright side is that the $500-plus nightly rate means you'll "save" $125 or more!!! A glance at the history page reveals that it's more than an intriguing marketing pitch--truly, you might be able to pick up some positive writing mojo. (Which, for that kind of dough, you darn well better.):

From its inception, manager (and later owner) Frank Case created a vision for The Algonquin as New York’s center of literary and theatrical life. His enduring fascination with actors and writers led him to extend them credit, in the process luring such luminaries as Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and John Barrymore.

Famed women flocked to the hotel as well, as The Algonquin was unconventional early on in accommodating single women guests. Over the years, these have included Gertrude Stein, Simone de Beauvoir, Helen Hayes, Erica Jones, and Maya Angelou.

Three Nobel laureates visited on a regular basis, including Sinclair Lewis (who offered to buy the hotel), Derek Walcott, and most memorably William Faulkner, who drafted his Nobel Prize acceptance speech at The Algonquin in 1950.

The promotion, if you've got $375 plus tax burning a hole in your pocket, lasts through the end of 2009.

The Bully Pulpit

2009-09-24T13:47:00.001-03:00

"Don't worry," my friend Jim used to say. "You're not totally worthless--you can serve as a bad example." Today, as a counterpoint to my post-Labor Day post, an ode to workplace tyrants and bullies, and the "benefits" thereof. (Sorry, not naming names, eh.)

Most of us aren't in the working world terribly long before learning a lesson: No matter how tough your parents were, you have no idea what's in store once someone is paying you to obey, whether they're a freelance client or a full-time employer. There are maybe a half-dozen of them that stick out in my own career, ranging from garden-variety micromanager to full-on, desk-pounding, neck-vein-bulging maniac.

From a bully at my first job, I learned (daily) that titles don't necessarily equal talent, and vice versa, and so never to assume one from the other. Another taught me that tyrants can come in unassuming packages, a rule underscored by yesterday's parade of fools at the UN. And yet, several of the most-demanding managers, coworkers and clients were also the wisest, and pushed me to a higher standard, taught me innumerable tricks of the editorial and marketing trades, and provided insights about business in general. I guess you could describe such a dynamic as unpleasant but worthwhile--a rite of passage.

How you deal with the various incarnations of bossy behavior requires recognizing that what motivates you and deciding whether the best course of action is to stand your ground or catch the next bus. Because one thing is for sure: You're not going to change them.

"I sell my soul, but at the highest rates."--Harlan Ellison

2009-09-18T10:49:00.007-03:00

Crazy busy today, so I just wanted to pass along this epic rant--accompanied by a NSFW warning!--by legendary sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison: "Pay the Writer." He's got a bit of a reputation as a cranky guy, as you can see from his wiki entry, and it comes through loud and clear.

Nonetheless, what he says is absolutely on point. Writing is a business. Writers deserve to be paid. People who work for nothing are fools. Companies that want something for free should be scorned. (That's my G-rated version.)

Rinse. Repeat.

And did I mention the link is NSFW?

H/T to Liz Craig for the find, and for a darn good rant in her own right.

Minds thinking alike

2009-09-15T12:51:00.002-03:00

Direct-mail legend Denny Hatch is right on target with his musing today: "What authors can learn from the great copywriters." He takes several newspaper columnists to task for sloppy prose, with scathing examples.

In his little diatribe, he echoes the technique I described in my Friday post about the best writing advice I'd ever received:

Journalists and authors, please take note of the dictum by freelance direct response copywriter Pat Friesen: “Normally, the best lead paragraph is buried somewhere in the middle of your first draft copy.”

Anyway, it's worth reading the whole thing--Denny says it much better than I could summarize it. While you're at his site, I highly recommend signing up for his free "Business Common Sense" email newsletter, too. I don't always agree with him, particularly when he injects politics, but he always makes me think.

What's your best writing advice?

2009-09-11T10:44:00.005-03:00

What's the single most important piece of writing advice that you've ever received? I can name mine easily: Lew Fishman, an editor when I was on staff at Golf Digest's trade magazine, had bloodied up one of my articles. (Rightfully so.)

"Most of the time, the first two or three paragraphs you start with are B.S.," he said, pointing to two red-felt-pen "X" marks at the top of the paper. "Just cut them, and that's where your lead is."

It's a technique that, 20 years later, I use every day. The principle not only works for feature stories, but for web content, advertising copy, emails, press releases, written correspondence, editing someone else's copy...you name it. Don't vamp. Get to the point. At first, I felt awful about leaving carefully crafted text on the cutting-room floor. As I came to understand how effective it was, guilt gave way to relief.

For most creatives who are talented enough to make a living at it, trying to explain how you do what you do doesn't come easily, whether you're a writer, designer, illustrator or photographer. (It's a "feel" thing, right?) Nonetheless, it is worth occasionally revisiting the technical aspects of your craft, even if it's only to remind yourself of the power of the simplest tools.

Search me

2009-09-10T08:32:00.001-03:00

Took a quick cruise through my Google Analytics to assess what topics drove the most traffic over the summer. No big surprise that six-figure freelancing and mommy blogging were among the leaders, though I confess that's a tad disheartening; I was attempting to inject some realism into a get-rich-quick world. Then again, who am I to dash the hopes of boxer-short billionaires and tighty-whitey titans?

I had to chuckle at the fact that the Sons of Maxwell "United Breaks Guitars" video delivered a real spike. (Even though I'd used it as a jumping-off point to discuss customer service, I'm sure googlers were a bit baffled to end up on a blog discussing freelancing and small business topics.) On the other hand, it seems as good a time as any to link to their second video--which features a catchy singalong hook, guys in lederhosen, and a white van with UNITED duck-taped on every side:
United Breaks Guitars: Song 2

Velveeta sandwiches

2009-09-09T12:45:00.001-03:00

In an entry a few weeks back, "Res ipsa loquitur," I'd piled on (along with a million other people) in opining about an ad agency intern's public nastygram to her former employer.

Today's post is triggered by two items in the same vein: 1) An article in the New York Times about the trend in students (or rather their parents) to pay for internships, "Unpaid Work, but They Pay for the Privilege," and 2) a LinkedIn discussion this week based on a letter titled "A beginning writer bitches about the publishing industry."

It's said that bad luck and celebrity deaths come in threes, so perhaps it stands to reason that stupidity also is happiest in a trio. Several common threads run through these three items, but to me the most important is this: a sense of entitlement. The world does not owe you a living, and it doesn't even have to be nice to you. As a wise old man once told a younger me, when I was whining about something or other, "Son, 'fair' is something you enter your prize pig in."

So, what the heck does "Velveeta sandwiches" have to do with anything, you're wondering? They were my standard lunch fare when I was an intern (at a New York Times-owned magazine, ironically enough) making $4 an hour, after earning my bachelor's degree but before being hired full time. And, no, I wouldn't trade that summer for the world.

Ten years after

2009-09-08T13:55:00.006-03:00

I'm not one for remembering exact dates, but it was just about this time 10 years ago that I split the corporate scene and started my own enterprise. It has gone quickly, as good things do.

Recently, a business acquaintance of mine to whom I hadn't spoken in two years dropped me a line on a social networking site. I'm not one for remembering exact dialogue, but he told me that during our last conversation, I'd talked him off the ledge and gotten him re-energized on running his own business, which he's still doing and still enjoying. (You can check out Pete Wright's work at Fifth & Main, which features his Internet producing/broadcasting/storytelling talents, and Acoustic Conversations, which helps musicians promote their tunes and stories.) I was incredibly humbled that my words could have that kind of impact.

Which led me into a cascade of thinking about the people who've influenced me and supported me along the way, including teachers, coaches, friends, teammates, colleagues, bosses, editors, clients and my family. And not the least my dad, who advised me to sock away enough money that you can tell any boss at any time to, well, "take this job and shove it," though he wasn't that delicate about it. You can never be free if you're shackled to your next paycheck. It's true if you're in the corporate world, and equally valid if you're an entrepreneur.

I hope you took yesterday off to goof off, relax and recharge. On this day after Labor Day 2009, I encourage you to take a moment to reflect on the people who've helped you get where you are. And then take a moment to consider the people whom you influence in the business sphere...and what you can do to help them get to where they need to be.

And if you're like me, it's time to get back to that stack of overdue thank-you notes.

Tool of the trade

2009-08-26T14:47:00.008-03:00

Aside from my computer, there's no tool more important in my freelancing arsenal than my Olympus DS-2 digital recorder. (Prior to owning it, I went through probably a half-dozen microcassette recorders of varying crappy quality...and still have a bunch of those stupid tapes lingering around.) The other item that goes hand in hand with it is the TP-7 recording device, which is an ear bud that allows you to record both sides of the conversation when you're talking on the phone. Yes, I always ask if it's OK to record; I've only had two people say no.

In short, here's why I can't live without it:

If I'm playing back a fast talker, I can slow it down to 87%, 75%, 60% or even 50% of actual speed. If I need to blast through tedious stuff? Speed it up to 125%, etc.
It allows me to capture exactly what someone said, no note-taking required. Clients love it when they hear their own words...and interviewees appreciate the accuracy.
Depending on what quality setting it's on, it can hold hours of content
I can download everything to my computer through a USB cord

I'm not a huge gadget guy, but this thing is an absolute lifesaver. Note: The links are to Amazon, but you can shop around for a better price.

Are you serious?

2009-08-25T13:53:00.005-03:00

It's a constant refrain at this blog to treat your freelancing like a business. (That's not to say that you shouldn't be massively creative or just plain goofy much of the time, but rather that there are times when you can't.) Part of that is being responsible for yourself when things don't according to Hoyle. Yeah, I'm talking about insurance.

Health insurance. From my Freelance Forecast 2009 survey (click here to download the pdf) earlier this year, I know well that health insurance is a major sticking point for us solo practitioners. An article titled "Health Insurance for Freelancers" at Freelance Switch offers a wide range of ideas and links--the comments are recommended reading as well. It's worth the time to investigate your options and even revisiting the details of your current plan. Back when I first went freelance, for example, I discovered personally that COBRA was far more expensive than what I could get on my own for the coverage I wanted.

Disability income insurance. Today's cheery thought from Freelancers Union: You're much more likely to have a period of disability than you are to die. (Yet many of us have insurance to protect against the latter but not the former.) The good news for freelancers is that we're in a low-risk field and premiums are cheap. I've owned a policy from Country Financial for several years.

Errors and omissions insurance. Also known as professional liability or publishers/media liability, you may have to show proof of this if you do contract work for a larger company; depending on your business, it may make sense to have a policy anyway. Some basic info to start your research can be found at ChubbPro E&O and Publiability, which offers a program called WriteInsure that is targeted specifically at authors, self-publishers, bloggers, freelance writers, and small publishers.

Disclaimer: I'm not an insurance professional and I don't play one on TV. The above links and opinions are provided to get you thinking about and researching the topic as it applies to your business, not as specific recommendations. What you want, need and can afford ultimately need to strike a balance with your risk tolerance and life circumstances. But I will say this: When you consider that these are the types of insurance that an employer would purchase on your behalf if you were a full-time employee...isn't it in your best interest to take a serious look at how well you're protecting yourself?

A little housekeeping

2009-08-21T07:54:00.001-03:00

Through other channels, I've been informed by several folks that the comments link has been buggy and occasionally unusable. So, please accept my apologies if you've been among those experiencing a problem--your shared insights, stories and humor keep me going.

Based on the blogger.com help page, I have "reset the widget template"...hopefully that will help.

In the meantime, shoot an email to Jake (at) BoomvangCreative (dot) com if you're still having issues.

Have a productive, profitable day!

Monetizing Your Brain

2009-08-18T10:12:00.005-03:00

An old editor of mine used to keep a folder into which he'd toss ideas that were interesting but not quite broad enough to warrant coverage. Once he had a critical mass of related or semi-related tinder, the spark was lit.

That thought occurred to me this week as...

a discussion on Linked In's LinkEds & Writers group posed the question "how much should I charge for editing web sites?"
an article on Freelance-Zone dug into how the time-value of money affects freelancers, and
I picked up a copy of Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price.

For any business, pricing your product or service properly is absolutely critical to survival, let alone profitability. Your spreadsheet includes not just the hard costs and time to execute the project, but the overhead costs--everything from the furniture, office supplies and utilities to healthcare and insurance.

My experience is that creatives in general (and freelancers in particular) tend to shoot too low--whether it's due to lack of experience, poor business sense, or simply undercharging for doing something they enjoy. Obviously, it's difficult to always put a monetary figure on something you've produced through nothing other than the gray matter between your ears. But one thing is for certain: If you fail to price your skills right, your clients will surely fail to value them properly.

You may be a winner! Or...maybe not.

2009-08-12T16:53:00.007-03:00

I jinxed myself.

Last week over at the always thought-provoking Teenie Thoughts, copywriter/blog philosopher-in-residence Teenie lamented getting copy back that has been "hacked and twisted and uncarefully rewritten." Smartaleck that I am, I responded glibly that "I don't try to fight it anymore" when someone wants to change my words.

Which is all well and good until I was reminded today that "not fighting it" occasionally comes with its own peculiar punishment.

The backstory: A long-time, loyal client needed a one-time-insertion newspaper ad for a sweepstakes giveaway. The prize was terrific--worth several hundred dollars. The challenge, though, was that I couldn't write the copy I'd ordinarily recommend for a case like this, i.e., an unsubtle screamer that pounded home the message WIN A *BLANK* AT *BLANK* WORTH $XXX!!! This company's branding approach simply won't accommodate such crassness; and belaboring that point with my contact would only frustrate us both, since she knew it was a battle she couldn't win with her higher-ups.

I did my best to harden up the soft-sell approach, and off the ad went to design. Approved, and off it went to the printer.

In the back of my head, I was clinging to a hope that the ad might work despite itself, based on the strength of the offer (albeit buried deep in the copy, *sigh*) and the company's name. In the front of my head, I knew that was pathetically naive. So, when I contacted the client this morning to inquire about the results, I was unsurprised to find out the response rate was crummy.

There are a lot of painful aspects to me about this, not the least of which is that, given exactly the same scenario again, I'm not sure I'd be able do anything differently. Just call it a TKO before the bell even rang.

Eight wrongs don't make a right

2009-08-07T14:43:00.005-03:00

Came across this little beauty in the UK-based Times Online about the New York Times' error-riddled obituary of Walter Cronkite. The correction, one of history's longest and, as the Times Online notes, frankest, read as follows:

An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.

It was so bad that the paper's public editor felt obligated to write an op-ed, "How Did This Happen?" Well worth reading...particularly by the Times staffers.

But wait, there's more! From Gawker, which has apparently been beating on Alessandra Stanley for years: Play-By-Play: The Self-Loathing NYT's Ultimate Alessandra Stanley Flogging

Playing "Easy to Get"

2009-08-04T10:44:00.008-03:00

A not-insignificant portion of my freelance time is spent tracking people down. For corporate copywriting clients, that time is generally on their clock--no harm done, part of the frictional cost of doing business. When it's a resource I need for a magazine feature, however, any runaround comes at my expense--deadline and pay rate.

A few weeks back, I contacted a well-known political figure for an article in Speaker magazine, which named her as one of the nation's 25 top professional orators. She replied by email that she was too busy, and her assistant was equally unhelpful and unresponsive. I frankensteined together a profile from existing public documents; serviceable enough, but unsatisfying.

Contrast that with yesterday. I'd been assigned to write a profile about someone whose book currently resides on the New York Times bestseller list. Mentally, I prepared myself to endure a multi-week game of phone tag that would push me up against my deadline, and to perhaps never reach him at all.

Low and behold, I received a positive email response back in less than 2 hours. Within 3 hours, his assistant had sent me a list of 10 possible interview times to choose from. Woohoo! There are all manner of conclusions you can draw from this type of response, not the least of which being the difference in responsiveness one can expect from a businessperson compared to a politician. Most of all, it reminded me how powerful a personal statement it is to be easy to reach, fast to reply and eager to help.

I can't reveal his name or the name of his book at the moment, but will do so at a date closer to publication. I'm about halfway through the book, and very much looking forward to interviewing him later this week.

***

I'm still wrapping my head around what a surprising and fantastic trip we had through Atlantic Canada, and will write further in the coming weeks. But what I will say is that St. John's, Newfoundland, was the most genuine, most welcoming place I've ever been. (I was going to say "bar none," but they're kinda famous for the several dozen watering holes on George Street.)

Vacation, all I ever wanted

2009-07-16T07:47:00.005-03:00

I always find it curious when self-employed folk resist taking a vacation, as if the world would stop spinning in their absence. No, you don't get paid while you're gone. No, an important new business call might come in and there's no one there to answer it. It's the circle of life, Simba.

So, today we're off--sans kids and sans electronic connectivity--to Cape Breton and Newfoundland for 10 days of simply messing around in boats, on bicycles, and on beaches.

I'll look forward to catching up with all y'all upon our return on July 26. Be well and be good. But not too good.