Archive for January, 2010

Online class: Dealing with Nightmare Clients

By popular demand, I give you my 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 Friday, February 5! — 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: Fridays, February 5 – 26 (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 $134; nonmembers $159.
Register: On the EFA website.
Questions? Feel free to email me.

Add comment January 13th, 2010

New year, new goals

Feels like I’ve been writing holiday-themed articles for weeks and weeks. (Among my favorites: Survival Jobs You Never Thought You’d Be Thankful For and All I Want for Christmas Is a Layoff.)

With 2009 mercifully in the rearview mirror, I’ve joined the fresh-start bandwagon and have been furiously outlining my freelancing goals for the next 12 months. Not resolutions (habits you want to form or change), but goals (stuff you want to accomplish).

Reason I make this distinction is because while writing about how to stick to your New Year’s resolutions yesterday, I learned that humans are hard-wired to fail miserably if they try to change too many habits at once. So I’ve got one resolution for my freelance career this year: leave part of each Sunday open for work on my personal writing projects (books, essays, stories), something I’m doing with three other freelance writer pals for extra accountability.

As for the other stuff I hope to accomplish this year, I’m calling those goals. In the interest of sharing, I’ll list some of the biggest ones here:

  • Give this site a much-needed facelift
  • Finish proposal for book #3 by spring
  • Pursue more custom publishing work (trade publications and the like)
  • Sell an article or essay to the print edition of a certain beloved national paper

How about you? What do you hope to accomplish in this brave new year?

8 comments January 4th, 2010

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Who I am

Hi, my name's Michelle Goodman and I've been freelancing since 1992. I'm author of My So-Called Freelance Life and The Anti 9-to-5 Guide. Read my full bio here.

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