Archive for October, 2009
Just in time for Halloween, I’m offering a new online class for rookie and veteran freelance writers on how to handle clients from hell.
“Dealing with Nightmare Clients” is a four-week online course — starting this Wednesday, October 21! – sponsored by the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA). Although I’ll be delivering the lessons right to your inbox, you can follow along from anywhere, at your own pace, even if your own pace means working through the lessons at 3 a.m. on a weekend.
In this class, I’ll discuss how to tame those beastly clients and editors who seem all too happy to stiff you, mess with your deadlines, and contact you at all hours of the night. Specifically, you’ll learn how to:
- Chase down MIA payments and ensure you don’t get stiffed in the future
- Handle runaway revisions and keep scope creep at bay
- Deal with clients who are always late with deliverables
- Set firmer boundaries with editors, project managers, and creative directors
- Bolster your contracts with clauses that can help prevent scope creep, deadline changes, and late payments
- Determine whether a troublesome client relationship is salvageable
Since we can all learn from one another’s trials and tribulations, I’ll devote the last session of the class to answering all your burning questions about any nightmare clients you’ve been dealing with. Additional details about the class:
When: Wednesdays, October 21 – November 11 (four online sessions).
Where: Your computer. Each lesson will arrive in your inbox (also accessible via Yahoo Groups on the web), which means you can follow along on your own time.
Cost: Editorial Freelancers Association members $135; nonmembers $160.
Register: On the EFA website.
Questions? Feel free to email me.
UPDATE: This class has been rescheduled for February 2010. Details here.
October 19th, 2009
Hey, Seattle and Portland! There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you: I’m doing a couple of book readings in the coming week for a nifty new Seal Press anthology called P.S. What I Didn’t Say: Unsent Letters to Our Female Friends. My contribution to the book? A story that manages to incorporate first love, family dysfunction, bigtime betrayal, and really, really bad hair.
(Yep, that’s my senior year high school photo. I pretty much kept Aqua Net in business.)
If you want to hear more about my Jersey days in the eighties – and how I rocked a mullet, feather earrings, and Jordache jeans that required a pair of pliers to zip up – now is your chance (excerpt here).
Other contributors to this hilarious collection of letters never sent to BFFs who’ve hurt, inspired, backstabbed, comforted, or up and died on us include Jane Hodges (the brilliant business journalist I hope to be when I grow up), Susan Johnston(freelance rockstar behind The Urban Muse), and Megan McMorris (editor of this unsent letter brigade as well as excellent anthologies like Woman’s Best Friend: Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives).
You can learn much more about this brand spanking new anthology here, and you can buy it here (or from your bookstore of choice). If you’d like to see Megan, Jane, me, and some of the other Pacific Northwest contributors read from and dish about this shiny new book, here are the dates:
- SEATTLE -
Date: Saturday, October 10
Time: 2 pm
Location: Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 South Main Street, Seattle
Who: Editor Megan McMorris and contributors Jane Hodges, Jen Karuza Schile, Anna Cox, and yours truly
- PORTLAND -
Date: Thursday, October 15
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Powell’s Hawthorne location, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland
Who: Editor Megan McMorris, contributors Sarah Bowen Shea, Jane Hodges, and again, yours truly
October 8th, 2009
Seattle area folks, want to learn the ins and outs of the freelance writing life, and soon? I thought so. Join me this Monday, October 5 for a little talk with a big name, Learn Your Way Around the Business End of Freelancing and Become a Pitch-Slapping Success, which I’ll be giving with my pal Diane Mapes. In this 2009 SPJ Fall Continuing Ed Series class, we’ll give freelancers of all stages our best tips on making your writing business legit and drumming up a steady stream of print and web assignments.
Stuff I’ll be talking about during the two-hour, practically free class:
• Managing the finances of freelancing (setting rates, paying taxes, avoiding food stamps)
• Covering your behind (insurance, licenses, whether you need to form an LLC)
• How — and where — the heck anyone finds freelance work in this blasted economy
As a bonus, the illustrious Ms. Mapes — whose credits include MSNBC.com, CNN.com, a humor column in the Seattle P-I, and a couple of hilarious books on dating, mating, and living single — will share her secrets for wooing editors and writing winning pitches.
The event deets:
Date: Monday, October 5, 2009
Time: 7 to 9 pm
Location: The Seattle Times’ auditorium, 1120 John St., Seattle 98109
Cost: Free to SPJ members; $10 for nonmembers
RSVP: Email Dana Neuts, SPJ regional director
Perk: Free parking, pizza, and bottled water for attendees!
October 4th, 2009
