September 4, 2005
Just thinking about a conversation I had with my wife. I was trying to finish a rough-draft of a CME for one of my regular clients. Too regular. They don't pay well enough, although plenty for columns that don't take more than 2 hours to write, but not nearly enough for this CME, which is 3000 words plus 20 questions and references and requires a lot of research and, if previous experience holds true, some re-writes to make reviewers happy. For $300. I commented to her that should they ask me to write one again I'll have the sense to say "no thanks." And that one of my goals for 2006 was to ditch or fire! a couple of my regular clients that I don't think pay enough. In order to do that, I would have to have better paying income coming in from other sources. Overall, 2005, my first full year of freelancing, has brought on 5 or 6 regular clients that all pay better than my previous clients. On the other hand, one of my 2004 regular clients that paid quite well had an editorial change and I haven't been able to convince the new editor to give me any assignments, his last response being a polite, "don't call us, we'll call you." And their sister publication also had an editorial change and although I've done work for them since, it looks like their freelance budget has been cut.

[this, unfortunately, is all too common for freelancers. Editors change jobs. Freelance budgets get cut. I was doing some nice-paying projects for a cancer center last year and they decided they wanted a fulltime science writer, was I interested in the job? No, I politely told them, but keep me in mind if you need freelance work. That just bites, but they apparently felt they preferred line-of-sight supervision, or something...]

So maybe I'll get to fire a couple clients and maybe I won't. I did a piece for somebody last year whose pay was shit and I just never pitched them again. I've been contacted for a couple writing gigs by people who pay shit and I just decided, hey, you're fulltime, you have to set limits on what you do or you're going to be making minimum wage. 2005 looks like it's going to be about where I expected to be financially, but in 2006 I want it to be a little bit better. And in 2007 even better than that. Firing poor paying clients and bringing on better paying clients is all part of the strategy.

Of course, maybe the fiction might start paying its own way a bit here, too.

Best,
Mark Terry