To Those Of You Who Use Freelancers, Please Don’t Take The Prefix, “FREE” Too literally.

The English language is funny in the way that words come and go. Some words have their time in the sun, then they simply disappear without a trace while others seem to stick around. One of these words, Freelancer has endured for nearly two hundred years and spawned a thriving community of millions of FREELANCERS.

About when exactly the term freelance was first coined is vague, however, most agree that it was popularized in 1819 in the novel, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. The term was used to describe a medieval mercenary that would offer their combat skills and weapons to the highest bidder:

“I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances, and he refused them... thanks to the bustling times, a man of action will always find employment."


Kind of has a nice ring to it don’t you think? Free-lancers, off to do battle riding under the colours of somebody else’s flag…and all for cash!!

A few years ago I decided, rightly or wrongly to leave the safety of the ‘formal advertising world “ and set out on a completely new path…that of a novelist. This, I have to say was not easy!! In fact, it was bloody hard and, only when the second novel had been on the shelves for nearly six months did I start to receive royalty cheques. 

Fortunately, now cheques do tend to roll in fairly regularly.

While I was going through the, ‘starting out phase’ I supplemented my income “freelancing,” by way of writing travel articles, vox pop pieces and the occasional TV commercial or a full-blown ad campaign. This was to make enough money to feed the cat.

Sadly the cat passed away a few months ago, we believe from acute malnutrition.

You see, there seems to be a weird relationship between freelancers and clients that I simply cannot come to grips with, and, it mainly revolves around the subject of how freelancers charge for their time.

Recently, I was told that freelancers should charge less because, wait for it, 'you're not a business'. (Interesting to note that in the USA alone, freelancers make up 7% of the workforce.) While most other freelancers out there will understand why I didn't feel the need to dignify this with a response, it did get me thinking about a few things that these kinds of clients would do well to consider:

1. Freelancers do not 'build' the cost of office coffee, parking spaces and printer cartridges into the cost of YOUR project. That means we can't hide poor work behind the Nespresso machine or those high-backed swivelly boardroom chairs. 

2. Freelancers do not arrive at work late, take 9 smoke breaks before noon, enjoy an extended lunch break, and then leave early because of that one day last month when they worked an extra hour. 

3. Freelancers do not take fake sick days/personal days/lazy days that ultimately costs you money because your project has been delayed. 

4. When freelancers get into bed at night, they get into bed with YOUR project. When they wake up, they wake up with YOUR project. And when they eat, or see their friends, or go to a movie, they're thinking about YOUR project. In fact, it's easier to work on YOUR project than attempting to do anything else that'll just be plagued by thoughts of YOUR project. 

5. Freelancers cannot shift accountability to project managers, team leaders or copy editors when a project is late, lacking in quality or just plain shit.

6. Freelancers cannot produce crap. If they do, they can't eat. (Please refer back to the section relating to cat)

7. Freelancers are good at what they do. Often, they're the best. That's how they've managed to become freelancers and still pay the bills

8. Freelancers aren't just going to 'get their salaries' regardless of how they've performed during the month. If they spend their days monkeying around, they get peanuts.

9. Freelancers seldom take leave and, if they do snatch a few days off they usually travel with their laptops. This is because they have really tough bosses (yup, that's you, the client!) who won't let them rest until the work is done.

Of course, there are plenty of businesses that offer great services and in turn, charge their clients' fair rates and consequently, clients respect that. 

So, why can't the same rules apply to the freelancer?

Just last week an old client of mine called to ask if I could “fix” a rather long format piece that was to go into their annual report. The piece supplied was simply appalling and, it didn't take a genius to work out that it had not been written by an English native speaker.

I reviewed it, decided that the whole thing had to be rewritten from scratch and quoted said client accordingly. My price of $2000 was, I thought extremely reasonable, as it would take at least three days of my time. The call I received back (and this was from a fairly senior executive at a publicly listed company) was a classic!

“ What gives you the right to charge these outrageous fees when you don’t even have an office! (I was a little put out by that as my rather comfortable couch doubles as a perfectly good office!) I had this document written by a chap in New Delhi and he charged us $65 so your quote is quite frankly a rip off”

Hmmm, “ So be it", I replied, "good luck with your search for finding somebody else, because I am not budging. I have a new kitten and I don’t want this feline to suffer the same fate as his predecessor! “

So, to any clients out there, who are thinking of using a freelancer, please remember, our entire livelihoods ride on our ability to do a damn fine job, even if we do it wearing our Pajamas!