How One Freelance Business Mistake Cost Me $7,791
Early in my freelance editing career, a middle-aged woman who I’ll always remember as Lipstick Shirley baldly told me that I’d be getting paid with experience for the already-delivered copy, a press release for her client, an “up-and-coming boy band” (her nephews, most likely seeing as they went before they came insofar as I know).
Because I was a millennial with a master’s, a mortgage, and student loans at the dawn of a recession and not an 8th grader with a free Wordpress blog and a second-hand iPad, I was thoroughly chuffed at being offered “experience” as my payment.
What I learned from that $50 loss was to negotiate money up front, and I did. I always went in with my LOA on my chest…let’s work out the business part first and then get to the fun part…kind of like putting on a condom before sex.
In hindsight, that $50 loss was small potatoes compared to the client who over the course of our working relationship netted over $5,000 of unpaid dollars-worth of my time. I now think of it as my rough-and-dirty MBA. Here’s what happened (and how it will never happen again).
The Start of Something Terrible: The Contract That I AGREED to Sign
The client in question, we will call him “Mama’s Boy” (MB) because of the theme of his work (he was no boy…in fact, my client was an accomplished former businessman whose construction projects (such as the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville) had earned him millions in his heyday). MB was in his 70s when we met and what he lacked in computing skills (all of the skills, he lacked all of the skills), he made up for in business acumen.
I was a nascent business owner and, thanks in part to Lipstick Shirley, knew just enough to have a letter of agreement outlining the scope of work, the payment schedule, the timeline, and the termination clause. MB was a zillion steps ahead but agreed that a contract is important.
During our first meeting, MB outlined a litany of jobs for me. He needed for me to type the work from a hard, typed manuscript into a Word document (“that computer of yours”), copyedit the manuscript, edit the manuscript (which later, it was evident he did not want any editing beyond copy), write a query for the manuscript, land an agent for the manuscript, and help market, promote, and publish the manuscript. Basically, he wanted a one-woman publishing army…which was fine. I could do that. With a Master’s in Publishing from GWU (insert self-promotion here) and years of experience in a variety of arenas, I had the skills to do all of those things.
Here’s where I f-cocked up. MB proposed that we sign a contract that stipulated that I’d get 50% of whatever the book earned. His argument was that if I went with that agreement, an agreement he’d made many times with construction clients, thank you very much, I’d be much more invested in the book and that if it paid off well, it’d pay off well for both of us (logically…accurate). We put in a paltry $2,000 termination clause, which he assured me we’d never even need.
So, why did I sign the contract? First, I was an editor breaking into a new style of editing. I was moving away from blogs, technical documents, travel, and marketing copy and to expand my trade publishing wings. I really needed and wanted this client. I needed and wanted a nice feather in my cap. Unfortunately, in much the way feathers have a tendency to explode in Daffy Duck’s face on Looney Tunes, so too did my feather (these broken wings…).
Before I move on, I should add that I do not blame my client. He was being smart. He was making sure that he got paid without having to put any skin into the game. His risk was zero. If I was a bad editor, okay, no loss; find someone new. He surely knew that he could easily walk from the $2,000 termination clause and not pay a cent because let’s be honest…what was I really going to do? Trash talk him on the internet that he didn’t even know how to use? Sue over $2,000? Nope and nope. I’d have been le screwed and he’d have been le fine.
By the way, I’m not saying I could’ve guessed he’d ultimately stiff me for the termination clause compensation, but in reality, he signed that contract knowing he had no intention of paying that $2,000 without getting his big, fat, publishing* check first (*unicorn, I mean unicorn. Big, fat publishing checks are unicorns. There are only so many, and they are all reserved for Reese Whitherspoon’s next memoir.).
Editing on a Prayer (So Far from Halfway There)
Thus, with the promise of future riches if and only if his book was published, successful, and turned into a movie featuring Timothee Chalamet, I set to work.
Here’s where the contract bit me in the ass again. I had no money. I had a lot of work to do for MB and no money, which meant that this project kept getting put on the backburner for work that promised to pay promptly.
The logic that I’d be more motivated with skin in the game suddenly seemed absurd when you considered that I also had bills to pay. What’s more, I had not vetted the work before taking the project on. I was operating based on a very good pitch MB delivered when we met…in person, which is also smart as an in-person meeting automatically engenders connection (unlike e-mail or a phone call).
MB was very high maintenance. He called daily, sometimes multiple times a day, and wanted project updates (how dare I prioritize paid work). This contributed a great deal to my stress. I feel sure he foresaw the reality that I wouldn’t stay on top of his work unless he stayed on top of me. No doubt, this is an approach that served him well in his construction projects. To his credit, his approach worked. I developed anxiety every time my phone rang and prioritized his project over lofty pursuits like sleep to temporarily assuage his neediness. Well played, MB. Well played.
Mind, I’m not saying that I don’t prioritize communication, but usually, I work with a specific timeline and pre-negotiated checkpoints.
But how much was this costing me? Well, think of it this way…if I hadn’t taken on this project, I could’ve taken on another project, so it’s worth noting that the typing alone cost nearly what the termination clause fee was.
Typing rates average $0.015 to $0.02 per word, and copyediting rates are $0.02 to $0.03. Thus, the average cost of typing a 105,200-word manuscript at $0.17 equals $1,841.
Copyediting at $.025 comes to $2,630.
Thus, we were already at a total of $4,471, and I hadn’t even gotten to querying, finding agents, and (eventually) formatting and self-publishing the manuscript for MB.
We’re Halfway There, and There Isn’t a Prayer
Because I’d already worked so closely with his manuscript, writing the query letter wasn’t a huge challenge. My going rate for query letters is $100, but that does not include the research I must do into the book or the agent(s) you want to query. It also doesn’t include the client background interview, which is a vital component of querying.
Thus, a really good query letter can cost anywhere from $300 to $500 depending on the starting point. For clients who I’m already working with, such as MB, it’s usually around $300, though, so we’ll say we’re now up to $4,471.
Next, I did legwork for MB. Not only did I set up a Gmail account for his book, but I also searched for agents and queried them. I didn’t document these hours, and they were woven into my other work. Between freelance articles, online teaching, and other paid activities, I would seek and query agents.
We had some good interest, but MB was impatient. He’d self-published through vanity presses before and knew others who had (I saw the books…no…just…no). Since I had a partial interest in this book (RE: my payday), I was adamant that we not self-publish through a vanity press (they’re the mail-order-brides of the publishing industry).
The client expected returns from agents in a matter of weeks. Some agents take six to eight weeks to respond. Those who do and who are actually interested will likely have edits (okay, definitely will have edits) that they want the client to make before they start shopping the work to an publisher.
We were not on the same page, Houston. We had a problem.
It’s Amazon When the Moment Arrives and You Finally See the Light
We had a few meetings (worth $100 each), but I was able to convince MB that if he wanted to publish now that Amazon was his best bet. I explained the royalty model for publishing traditionally and Amazon as well as the timeline for both.
Given his reluctance to edit the manuscript based on my recommendations, I didn’t know if he’d be willing to do so for an agent (lemme mansplain why my book as perfect, little secreteditor). Amazon was a good idea, too, because in addition to not asking for developmental edits, they were immediate. We could have the book published before lunch digested (theoretically anyway…and if lunch was corn).
Here’s what I did for the client:
Scouted locations for a good book cover photo
Took the high-res photo for the cover (I plan to frame it and hang it in my office next to my DIY MBA)
Created the cover art, chose the fonts, colors, etc.
Wrote the cover copy
Created front and back matter for the book
Formatted the book for publishing on Amazon in both print and digital formats
Typed descriptions, created metadata, and uploaded the works
Well, I guess college is ruined for everyone now.
The cover work would have realistically cost about $2,000 between the timeline for scouting the location, doing mock-ups of three different designs, and then the fee for the work-for-hire (i.e., rights to the cover image).
Book formatting costs $1,000. Thus, between this and a guestimate of $500 for meetings, e-mail account set-up, and finding agents, the total investment comes to $7,971.
Another One Bites the Dust
I ordered print copies for proofing and for MB to send to favored friends and potential contacts. At around this time, my husband died suddenly and unexpectedly after battling cancer for nearly a year.
As my world fell apart, I began jettisoning clients (but not MB who was a widower and would hopefully understand my need to put this project on the backburner while I sorted my life). He gave me some space and time but it wasn’t long before he was calling daily.
I suggested hiring professional marketers especially because he really wanted “traditional advertising” (he’d seen James Patterson’s ass on TV promoting his latest book). I reached out to a friend who does professional-level work. The $5,000+ price tag was too high for him, and he insisted we could and should do it ourselves.
I made it clear I could not prioritize his work in a marketing capacity given my new responsibilities as a single mother. My timeframe for returning his calls stretched longer. I believe he feared that I was pocketing funds from his book sales on Amazon because he, like many hopeful authors, envisioned upon publishing a book that cash would start billowing and fluttering around him ala Harry Potter’s Hogwarts letters. I dream big, too, princess.
But, that’s not what happened. It’s never what happens. None the less, he had his lawyer send a letter demanding the funds. At this point, I was so overburdened I no longer gave a single rip about what I could, would, and should get paid from this experience. I just wanted out.
The bulk of his earnings from Amazon (under $100) were largely due to copies either he or I had ordered. I did not bother to point that out. I sent his lawyer a statement from Amazon and told him I’d send him a check when Amazon issued their payments. I told him, too, that I wanted my termination fee, which he refused to pay. I couldn’t find my signed copy of the contract (which I did later find when I did my 2019 taxes…in 2021), so I just let it go.
I sent the most recent Word document to my client and took the manuscript off of Amazon so it would no longer have any affiliation through me (I’d also set up an Amazon account that a relation of MBs was supposed to transfer to MB’s name, social, bank etc. I didn’t want his personal information and thus didn’t facilitate it that way.
To my knowledge, my client never endeavored to republish the book. While because he violated the termination clause and thus nullified the contract, I had no legal obligation to send him any work I’d done, I did return the Word document. Because it was never described in the contract, I retained my intellectual property—the cover art and design and the copy formatted for digital and print publication. I reasoned if MB wanted these things, he’d be willing to pay fairly for them.
Final Fantasy (No, You Will NOT Get Paid)
I hate that this project worked out this way. Like I said, I can’t blame MB for going about things the way he chose to. He crafted an agreement so he wouldn’t be out any money if things went south. While I do believe he’d have made good on his part of the bargain if the book had published and been successful, I know, too that at the point we were at when the project terminated was just the beginning.
Book marketing is very challenging and time consuming. It is also an important part of publishing, perhaps even more important than the quality of the book itself. Because of my personal situation, I knew I was not in a position to even remotely entertain doing that kind of work for MB or for anyone until I got my life back together.
It took over a year from the time my relationship with MB ended to get to that point. And this is what my $7,791 quicky and dirty MBA taught me.
Every contract is worth walking away from. Any job you take is keeping you from another job opportunity.
Get paid throughout the process…especially on projects that have several layers. Get compensated a percentage up front plus the bulk or all of the monies at the end of each LOA before submitting content to the client. Do not agree to a royalty arrangement.
Create separate LOA for each layer of the process. (Ex: Create an LOA for typing and copyediting the MS and a separate LOA for querying agents, etc.)
Clearly establish a timeline for each project component.
Be more vocal when I’m not upholding my end of the bargain; I should’ve terminated the agreement when I realized I no longer had the time for the project.
The decision not to terminate my work with this client wasn’t just a matter of ego (after all, no editor wants to be a crappy editor for their clients); it was really a matter of investment. I’d started strong for MB and at the point that Sean got sick, I had been working with him for months. By the time Sean died, it was just over a year (note: a lot of this time was spent querying and deciding to self-publish the work on Amazon).
Because I’d already put $7,791 worth of my time and talent into MB’s book and hadn’t seen one red cent, I didn’t feel like I could walk away.
In this endeavor, I broke every single rule I learned.
I didn’t prioritize getting paid.
I wasn’t willing to walk away from the initial agreement because my company was new, and I felt that I “needed” the client. I wasn’t willing to walk away from his self-serving contract even though it means that I would only get paid if and only if the book succeeded. I know better; I know how much it takes for a book to make upwards of $10,000 in royalties; even on Amazon, it takes a lot of sales.
I also somehow believed the nonsense that I would put more into this project than I do any other just because “I had an equal interest” (this is ridiculous as I treat every book I handle like it’s my own beautiful, dysfunctional, mentally-ill prosaic offspring capable of making Oprah cry).
Lastly, I got greedy thinking that perhaps this book’s royalties would somehow pay more than whatever I charged as an editor. Of course, I hoped that it would not for me but for my client, but at the same time, it was a dumb thing to agree to (after all, who is to say that this client who I didn’t know from a bar of soap when I met him wouldn’t pull a Merlin as soon as he had what he wanted.).
I’m not saying it was my favorite life lesson (the one where I learned just how many Oreos I can eat before getting sick was much more exciting…at least during the first part), but it’s one that will serve me well.
Needless to say, I’m sorry for my sake and MB’s that I didn’t operate with more savvy. In hindsight, we’d have used separate contracts for each new component of the project. I’d have been justly compensated up to the point that I had to stop working for my client. He could have moved on with a marketer and publicist at his expense (because nobody else would be stupid enough to agree to a 50/50 (up the) back-end compensation model, which he swears he used to do with clients in his construction business), and hopefully his book would have succeeded beyond all of our wildest dreams.
Regardless of what he chose to do, that would have been his choice, and I would’ve no longer felt the weight of obligation pursuant to his book. I would’ve walked away with an income instead of a hotel ballroom MBA (the B is for Bullshit!), and I could’ve not felt the overwhelming added stress of feeling like I was letting my client down while I was also grieving my husband and trying to navigate single motherhood (so, I also have a minor in Human Grief Studies with a special focus in How to Make Things Harder Than They Already Are).
As this article is now capping three thousand words and will be divided into two or three parts for your sanity and my SEO optimization, I’ll leave it here. I’m sharing these lessons with you fellow freelancers, editors, and authors because I don’t want you to have to fork out your precious time and come out a loser the way that I did. Think of it as my gift to you.
Sign up for my brand-new baby Substack newsletter for more interesting stories, publishing news, and random fun nuggets perfect for any writer or editor’s inbox. Also, check out Creative Editing Services online for more writer resources.