As some of you know, I started my freelance career as a writer. And one of the books that was really important to me in getting off on the right foot was Peter Bowerman’s The Well-Fed Writer.
If that name sounds familiar, it might be because I’ve mentioned his newsletter before.
Even though I now do layout, I still read Peter’s excellent Well-Fed ePub each month. His October 2007 issue started with a great article. So good, in fact, that I asked Peter if I could reprint it here. And since you’re about to read it, you can guess what his response was. 
So, over to Peter…
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I was working on a project recently for a financial services firm that involved several interviews with client personnel. It was my fourth project with this client, so I’d proven my value to them. I called one of my interviewees at the designated time, and he asked if he could call me back in five minutes. Sure. Thirty-five minutes later, he gets back to me. He was apologetic, I was understanding, AND I automatically, and with zero thought about it, added the 30 minutes “waiting time” to my final bill.
Later, I contemplated what it means to be a professional. It all starts with a mindset. Undoubtedly, there are clients out there who, if they’d kept their hired writer waiting for half an hour, would think, “It’s just a writer. I’ll get back to him/her when I’m done.” Translation: my time is more valuable than yours.
Now, while that attitude is, well, unfortunate, what’s far sadder is that many writers would not only accept that sort of treatment without a peep, but it wouldn’t even occur to them to charge the client extra. Unthinking acceptance vs. unthinking billing (me).
I know that my main client, by the fees he pays me, his repeat business, and yes, his respect for my time, considers me a fellow professional. If he knew I’d been kept waiting for 30 minutes for a set interview, he’d expect me to charge for it, and would likely think less of me if I didn’t. Seriously. And with that acknowledgement of my professional status comes trust: on this project, he didn’t even ask me for an estimate. He knows I’ll deliver a quality product at a fair price.
But, I pick my clients carefully. I work with only those people who will value my time as I do theirs, who value excellent writing, AND have the resources to pay for it. Yes, I realize, that not everyone, at every stage of their careers, has the luxury of being as discriminating. That said, whether you’re making $25 an hour (if you are, don’t tell me, unless you want a scolding) or $125+ an hour, you can absolutely decide to ONLY work for people who respect you and your time. Or, at the very least, if they don’t respect your time, they’re willing to pay for disrespecting it. Here’s to respect.
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As a designer, you may not spent much time, if any, interviewing people. But I trust you can still see the value in what Peter has written and can even think of some areas where you should be applying his advice.
I’ll be honest with you…I’m not always as good about this as I should be, although I’m getting better. But that “mindset” that Peter talks about is really key. Design (or copywriting) isn’t a hobby or something that we play with to keep ourselves occupied. It’s our profession and we need to treat it as such.
Perhaps that means that you mention in your client agreements that certain things will result in an extra charge. This might require you to think back on some of your projects and see where you were giving away your time when you should have been charging for it. And if you come up with items like that, work them into your agreements.
That’s another reason why I advocate a “buddy” system…finding another designer that you share victories and failures with. I’m fortunate to count another designer as a close friend. We share just about everything when it comes to the lessons we’re learning so that we both improve and get the respect we deserve as professionals.
Peter’s Well-Fed ePub is a free, monthly newsletter. You can subscribe and check out some of the back issues here. I highly recommend that you do. As I’ve stated in the earlier blog post, I think it’s important to know what copywriters know. And as freelancers, what we designers go through isn’t too different than what the writers are going through and that’s something Peter focuses on quite a bit.
