This will spare you untold agony. And it can shape your career for the better.

Let me explain.

We freelancers must occasionally endure a lot of crap that never besets our properly-employed bretheren.

Such as the client who doesn’t send the damn check. Clients who can’t make up their minds.

Clients who themselves can’t design a whit, but tell us to shave two pixels off the height of the navbar. The client who says “I can get it cheaper.”

Clients who want eleventeen pounds of work for six dollars. The client who doesn’t send the damn check.

Okay, so that is sometimes our lot. But we do not whine and whimper.

As the aging mobster Hyman Roth reminds Michael Corleone in Godfather II: “This . . . is the business we’ve chosen.”

In return, however, we are granted a saving grace.

We have, always within reach, the ultimate pressure-relief valve, a soul-satisfying way to preserve sanity, dignity and bank account.

The freelancer’s right to bail.™

This is your irrevocable right to beg off, turn down, or walk away from any client, any project, any situation that threatens to maim the wallet, taint the soul, or turn one into a shameless hooker.

Unlike the hapless salaried employee, who is obliged to eat whatever the boss ladles onto his plate, we are always free to say, “No thanks.”

“I’ll pass.”  “This isn’t a good fit.”  “You’d be better off with a different writer.”  “Find yourself a new sap.”

No, this is not about being a quitter, a scaredy-cat candy-ass who can’t take the heat. It’s not about being a prima donna who won’t soil her hands in a little skunk work now and then. It’s not about leaving a client hanging because “I’m just not, you know, sort of feeling it right now.”

(We are pros, after all. Incorrigible renegades, maybe. But still pros.)

The right to bail™ is about deciding, day by day, project by project, client by client, what we will do, and what we won’t do. Whom we will work with, and whom we will not. Based on whatever our mission is at the time.

I know. In “an economy like this” walking away from work sounds like the most foolish kind of heresy.

But understand:  You will not invoke this right often. You will not invoke this lightly.  (And you will never invoke this right in a fit of anger, or after way too many beers, he said from experience. Wait until morning.)

Indeed, the beauty is, you need never actually use this right at all.

For most of us, just knowing we are not permanently shackled to this client, or to this sinking ship of a project is enough to keep our spirits up, our heads on straight.

It’s comforting just to reach over and finger that ripcord on your vest, even if you never actually pull the damn thing.

Ah. And if you ever do invoke the right to bail™, the effect is usually profound.

Some clients will be incensed, insulted. (What? You refuse me?). That’s okay. Not every client is worth having.

Others will be brought up short. Your status rises. They will look at you anew. (Hey, maybe we can talk about this.)  That may lead to good things. These are your best clients.

Some clients, of course, won’t give a shit. Which is okay.  Not every client is worth having.

Sad to say, but some of the most satisfying moments I’ve had as a freelancer weren’t always the huge wins, but the times when I said, “No thanks.” When I asserted my sovereignty. (Like last week, for example.)

The jobs and clients you don’t take will shape your fortunes just as much as the jobs you do accept.

Yeah, and there’s this.

We’re the ones who usually hear the ‘no.’  (“No, we don’t need any help right now.  No, we like the freelancers we have.  No, we won’t pay that.  No, we’re not going ahead with that project.”)

So every once in a while, every now and then, it feels good to turn the tables.

Yeah, it’s childish. Yeah, it may not always be bean-counter logical.

But sometimes, it just freakin’ feels good to say, “No thanks.”

We need that, every now and then.

Keep this top of mind.

Especially on those days when you feel bullied about by some intimidating client.

Or when you have to endure the friend who endlessly raves about her swell new job at this cool company where everybody makes a lot of money and they all get dental and there’s free sushi in the company lunchroom.

Consider this: They can’t do what you are doing right now.

I’m not talking about being able to draw or write killer content, or wrangle PHP.  I’m talking about being able to carve out a living on their own, on their own terms.

The vast majority of the working population doesn’t have the desire, the huevos, or the smarts to pull it off.  They simply can’t do it. Most don’t even want to.

What you are doing right now, this afternoon, even if you’re flailing and wobbling a bit at the moment, they cannot do.

I’ve seen this more times than I can count. (And, yes, shoot me, I take something of a perverse satisfaction in this. But that is just between you and me, of course.)

Example.

Once, on a freelance gig for a unit of Ogilvy, mega-conglomerate agency in New York, I wrote copy for a Creative Director who had apparently been anointed a genius. He was quoted in Ad Age.  He wore red high-top sneakers. He terrorized his copywriters and designers. He supposedly oozed conceptual brilliance.  (Although, after 2 pm, what he was oozing was 80-proof tequila fumes, I think.) I actually liked the guy, even though he hacked at my copy with a machete.

One afternoon, he quit the agency in a huff, tired of the petty politics and creative constraints, he said. He was going freelance, to offer his brand of brilliance direct and unencumbered.  This was announced with great fanfare.

Three months later, he was quietly back in an agency job.  On staff.  On salary.  A company guy again.  He couldn’t do it.

Another example.

Whenever one of my tech-company clients would go through a downsizing, I got calls and emails from the staffers who had been sent away with some goodbye money.  “Free at last,” they’d say.  “I’m going to do consulting, build web apps, open an omelette shop, write for the trade press. Let’s talk.”  We would kick some ideas around, brainstorm some things.  They got excited. They tried some things.

And one by one, they always ended up back in corporate jobs.  They couldn’t do it.

Latest example.  (Skip on down if you get the gist aready.)

One of the smartest clients I ever worked for.  She was VP of Communications for a Fortune 500 company.  Ran national campaigns.  Orchestrated the Annual Report.  Sponsored PBS series.  A savvy writer.  A list of credentials up one arm and down the other.

She left to form her own communications business. We exchanged a bunch of emails on pricing ideas, web sites, business cards, the usual.  She was psyched.

Then there was a long lull.  Until she sent an email asking for help updating her resume.  There were some jobs she wanted to apply for.

Here’s the nub of it, I think.

What my VP friend and the others discovered was that they couldn’t really function unless plugged into the company machinery.  Where someone else brings in the business, a boss puts assignments on their desks, somebody else pay the bills, and there is a budget and a staff to send scurrying.  Without all that infrastructure, they’re uneasy, ineffective.

But you and me, all it takes is a Mac and phone.  Or a potters wheel, or a camera or two, or easel and brushes, or even a Bic pen and legal pad, and you can put food on the table.  And even do some damn good work now and then.

Don’t get me wrong. I like people with jobs just fine.  I respect what they do.  (And they often have to eat more crap than I could ever stomach.)

But they can’t do what you’re doing.

How do you look from the client’s side of the screen?

What is it like to work with you on a project?

Marketing people call that the customer experience.  It’s the term for what it feels like to shop at a particular shoe store. How delightful it is to play with your new iPad. That feeling you have after the last scene of the movie.  How irritating it is to use your software.

I’m coming to think, as a freelancer, the client experience you deliver is pretty much everything. Your dazzling creativity may or may not be the deciding factor.

Clients will work with you, or not, based on how you make them feel.

I know, I know, that sounds like a lot of huggy-kissy psycho-foof. “Kum-ba-ya” customer relations. But ask anyone, I am not known for endlessly pondering my feelings, or anyone else’s.  I’m very guy-like that way.

I would much prefer to think that my ingenious copy, my insightful solution to the problem is what matters most. But after re-examining my countless screw-ups, lost clients, missed opportunities and blown projects, I have to come to realize that the client experience is pretty much all there is.

Clients will work with you, or not, based on how you make them feel.

Man, if I could rewind a huge segment of my freelancing adventures, that is one thing I would erase and do over.

Make it so they always feel better after talking to you.

Dumb simple.  Deceptively dumb simple. And not at all easy to do.  But that’s about all there is to client handling. There is no number two.

There are a thousand permutations and variations and nuances to it. But the rule is simple:

Make it so they always feel better after talking to you.

Do that, and you will win 6.2 times as many clients as any other freelancer.

I first heard this idea years back, from a guy who was five-star master at this.

He ran a small ad agency here in Jersey.  A good client of mine.  One afternoon, we’re in his office chatting.  He was interrupted by client calls four or five times. Once, a big client called to bitch about a blown deadline.  Another called about a toothache of a rush project.  Another griped about her boss.  One even called to fire him, sort of.

But each time, by the end of the call, everything was cheerful, settled, assuaged. Sometimes it was a matter of being contrite. Sometimes just listening. Sometimes he confidently steered a client to a logical fix. Sometimes he simply commiserated. “Geez, I don’t know how you do it.”

It was difficult work. It took time and patience. But they always hung up laughing.

And, he made a lot more money than I did.  So I took notice.

“Aways leave them happier than you found them,” he said.  “Then they keep calling.”

(I realized, months later, that he had done the exact same thing to me. There were times, in the odd afternoon, I’d call him just because, well, it would be an uplifting five minutes or so.  Or, when he called me, and I’d see his name come up on the caller ID, I knew it would mean something good. Maybe som new work.  A rave review from a client.  Something good.  I always picked up.)

I cringe when I wonder what my clients thought when they saw my name come up on the caller ID.  “Oh crap, more bitching about the changes. Pestering me again for background material? Another delay?  More arguing about strategy?”

Another lesson.  Years back, my wife was told she needed some scary surgery. Our health insurer required us to see a bunch of other specialists, whom we visited one after the other.

Each time, we left the office confused, or dismayed, or feeling like clueless dumbasses.  Or, we’d drive home feeling like we had just heard the standard approved patient speech for diagnosis code 234.1.  We felt worse after every visit.

That is, until we saw Elliot Stein.

He didn’t spend any more time with us than the other guys. And he gave us essentially the same advice. (“Yeah, you need the surgery, and yes, it’s scary, and yes, you’ll feel like hell for a while after.)

But for the first time, we left his office feeling better. “Yes, we’re doing the right thing.  Hundreds of people have been through this. Let’s do it.”  We were committed, confident. A great weight had been lifted.

What did Elliot do differently? We felt like he gave a damn. The meeting was about us. Not about his credentials or the outcome statistics or that plastic model of the heart sh0wing the valves and chambers.  It was all about us and what we were worried about. Here was one guy, one doctor, on our side for once.

My wife still sees Elliot Stein to this day.  Are his credentials and qualifications any better than than other guys’?  I have no idea. All I know is, when she sees him, she always feels better after.  No matter what.

Those other docs?  Don’t even remember their names.  They get none of her business.

I know this sounds like so much airy nonsense. But it’s precisely why I choose Gelormini’s auto repair over the four other guys I could call. Why a hard-assed project manager calls one programmer versus another. (“That other coder makes me nervous.”)

So try this for one month.  The next thirty days.

(Okay, I know you won’t do this. Nobody does that 30-day trial stuff, including me.  It’s just for emphasis.)

What if, what if you worked it so every client, every prospect, every referral, every person who contacted you felt better after talking to you?  For real.

What if they felt more confident?  More convinced they had found the right guy.  Satisfied that they were doing the right thing?  Glad to find they could do this for less than they had planned?  What if they saw that there were at least nine ways to fix this, and all would be well?

Or what if, simply, you made them feel you were really glad they called?

What if they were excited to see your name come up in the email.  Or in the caller ID?

How much better would you be doing?

The conventional thinking goes like this:

“Once I get more experience with ‘x’ and build up the portfolio, I’ll be able to charge more.”

“As soon as a get a better feel for what clients like, I can get higher fees.”

“When I sharpen my design philosophy a little, I can bump up my prices.”

First you hone your abilities, then you get to charge more.

But in reality, it also works the other way ’round.

Crank up your rates, and your chops will rise to meet them.  You will get a lot better, very fast.

I know that sounds bass-ackwards. But I see this happen all the time. With me, and with every other freelancer I know. And I suspect it is always thus.

It starts in your head

Try this.

Let’s say you have been getting $1000 to create a custom WordPress theme.  Or to design an identity for a product line. Or to write some product copy. Whatever.

What if, tomorrow morning, you decreed that as of 9 am sharp, that fee is now double.  $2000.  Boom, just like that.

I know, I know.  There are 94 reasons why that’s crazy and stupid and you can’t possibly do that. Bear with me a minute.

Making that purely arbitrary, audacious, utterly impractical rate hike will do wonders for your head. Which will do wonders for your business.

You will start thinking:  Holy crap, what can I possibly do to make this worth twice as much?  Push the envelope a bit?  Try a few more iterations?  Learn more tricks?  Break some new ground? A little more research?  Focus intently on what this client wants? What his problem is?  Push two steps beyond the obvious?  Or maybe, maybe I can figure out a way to make working with me the most satisfying experience ever?

That’s the kind of thinking that gets you out of the minor leagues.

Making that mental rate hike also changes your mindset, your attitude. You sit down to work that day thinking, “Okay, now I’m a $800-a-day copywriter.  Or, I get $4000 for an identity.  How would a 4K designer hit this job?  This proposal?  What would Coudal Partners do here?”

Maybe you won’t get that rate right away, or every day. But something has changed in your head.  You’ve turned pro, moved up a notch.

A photographer friend remembers when she first got the guts to quote something like $1500 for a day’s shoot.

“That day, for the first time, I felt like a photographer.  Not some scared-ass pretender newbie scratching around for a job. No, I didn’t get that gig, or the next. But my work instantly improved. I walked into a shoot and man, I just knew how to nail these shots. Hell, I was a 1500-a-day shooter.”

Time to move on?

I know what you’re thinking.  Your clients would never pay double.  Or even 33% more.  They beat you up over the price as it is. They want everything for six dollars.

Chances are, you’ll realize it would be hard to raise your game with the clients you’re working with.  They are always short of money.  Or their business doesn’t live or die on what you do. You like working with start-up restaurants, but they have peppercorn budgets, and their website is, well, not everything to them. The struggling band loves your logo and cover art, but well, they can’t pay right now.

You want clients who need your creativity, your code, your copy like they need oxygen. They need a lot of it.

So maybe it’s not about getting your current clients to pay more (which never, ever works) but finding the guys who already pay more.

—

Adapted from ‘Talking Money’.  Coming soon from The Freelancery.

1.  We’re afraid we won’t get the assignment.  It will go to the cheaper guy.

2.  We’re afraid of being laughed at.  “How much?  For that?  Are you serious?  Wow, you are way out of line here.”

3.  We’re afraid the client will say yes to that big juicy fee, and holy crap we’ll actually have to deliver something that justifies all that money which will be hard because the client will be expecting to be blown away and we might not be able to pull that off which would be hugely humiliating especially if the client wants the money back.

There is a perverse karma in freelancing in that, sometimes, the most lucrative and most plentiful work can be the ugliest.

Or the work that makes your skull ache is precisely the work clients love you for.

A programmer friend of mine moans that he could spend six months a year collecting $10,000 checks for untangling hairballs of code for big enterprise applications. He’s supremely good at the work, but can’t stand the pain of doing it.

Meanwhile, he’s itching to program some kick-ass photo manipulation software for a startup. But that gig pays only in Cheetos. The small bags.

Me, I have a client who will pay me $2,400, over and over again, to write the same happy customer story, over and over again, all year long. Same word count, same format, same subheads each time. I have to duct-tape myself to the chair to get these done.

But the client loves them. And wants ever more.

It is thus for all freelancers at times.  For all artists.  Even for companies.

The work that pays the bills, feeds your young, and keeps you out of the cubicle ain’t always the most enchanting.

The ratio of glamor to slog work will ebb and flow with the economy and the sunspot cycles. And over time, you can finagle more and more of the assignments that get you jazzed.

But nobody escapes the skunk work entirely.  Ever.

You think legendary photographer Ansel Adams supported himself taking pictures of Yosemite? Nope. He paid the rent almost his entire career with everyday client work. (More about that in a second.)

Designer Paula Scher of Pentagram designs retail packaging for arch supports and foot powders sold in chain stores, in between her work for Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic.

Nobel novelist William Faulkner made more money concocting screenplays and treatments in Hollywood (work he grew to despise) than he made from his novels.

So what hope is there for us workaday stiffs?

The trick to staying sane, and staying off the Jack Daniels, is in how you approach your skunk work.

As a freelancer, you have options.

Kiss it off

If something way too ghastly lands on your desk, you can always turn it down, which you can’t do in staff job. It is therapeutic to do this periodically, to reaffirm your independence.

Naturally, this option only applies when there is food in the fridge and the electric company is paid.

Hone, refine, explore

Or you can adopt the attitude of a potter I talked with ages ago. He ran a pottery shop in one of these touristy country villages, where he worked all day at a potter’s wheel in his front window.

Although his store was filled with imaginative and exotic work (with huge price tags), what customers bought, by the ton, were a particular set of nested bowls and one swoopy-looking vase. He had to turn out racks and racks of these same pieces week after week.

I asked him if the repetition didn’t make him goofy.

“At first,” he said. “But what I do now is focus on perfecting and honing the process. Finding a way to create that ideal arc each time, in one unbroken draw of the clay. Learning to get the surface right with the least amount of re-work. Or seeing how working to music changes my rhythm and pace.

“Sometimes I’ll work three, four, five pieces with my eyes closed, just to see how precise I can get just by feel. Or I’ll find a way to put a little flourish on the lip with my thumbnail. I’m tinkering and exploring all day. Each piece is actually slightly different. Customers never notice. But I do.  I’m learning technique and attitudes I can use on my fun work.”

“And,” he said, “I remind myself I’m making a living with my hands on clay. Not talking on the phone in an insurance office. That would make me batshit crazy.”

Do it well anyway

In one of his classic books on photography, Ansel Adams describes a technique he calls “painting with light”, which involves moving a photo light around a scene during a long exposure. It’s tricky and requires a fair bit of experimentation.

What did he use as an example? A shot of a motel cocktail lounge from one of his commercial client jobs. He had used the technique to add highlights to the vinyl tufting on the bar. (A tacky-looking bar, at that.)

This passionate nature photographer is stuck shooting a throwaway brochure for some roadside motel, for a client who was probably griping about the price, and he’s still finessing the highlights on the imitation naugahyde.

Adams shot motels, too

Sure, maybe Adams was foolish to waste time tweaking a low-budget shot for a client who wouldn’t know the difference.  Maybe he should have just buzzed through the shoot, sent his bill, and headed out to Half Dome while the light was still good.

But I’m guessing he couldn’t help himself. I suspect it was his way of using the work to learn something, to practice something, to glean a little insight from a mundane task he had to do anyway.

Or maybe it was just Adams’s way of pleasing the soul, for a moment, just for himself, whether the client gave a damn or not.

Elevate the junk

Okay.  So maybe you’re stuck architecting the CMS for an online retailer of auto parts.  Or doing 397 product shots for a company that makes wing nuts, stove bolts, lock washers and other fasteners.

Is there a software thing in here somewhere?  Maybe a process you could develop to take the pain out of this?  Maybe something you could build and sell over and over again, as a side project?  A way to get this all done — brilliantly well — in 62% less time?

Or maybe a company keeps calling you to write the user instruction for cell phones, home security systems, or industrial power washers.

Is there a way to transform that shop-floor grunt work into something dramatically new and better?  Something that literally changes the value of the product? Something that gives users goose bumps? Ready Kathy Sierra.  Or 37 Signals.  Or Jakob Nielsen.

Why not find a way to change the game entirely?  Make it simpler, faster, not so sucky?

Could you be the best designer/writer on the planet for user training?  And find a way to write that stuff so people actually applaud?

Could you somehow raise this crap work to high art? To something others will actually aspire too? Why the hell not, if there are clients who want it?

Who says intranet sites have to be dog-ugly?  Who says corporate profiles must always be dead-lame drivel?  Is writing white papers torture? Apparently not for this guy.

Subsidize your fun work

Okay. Maybe that’s all too Pollyanna.

Sometimes, skunk work is just that. There is no cinnamon-scented prize in there. Clients don’t always want new paradigms, or want you to elevate it to art, or change the game.  They want the thing done.  Just like last time.  Don’t screw with it.

And if they’re paying well, the smart thing to do is to shut up, do it, and take the money.

Think of it as subsidizing your fun work.  Or your side project.

Hold your nose and grind through a half-dozen dull-as-dirt case studies, and you can take a week off to work your book, your web project, or your animation video.

Do those 367 product shots, then buy a new camera.

This is not whoring or selling out.  This is what businesses and artists have always done.  The money the network makes from “The Biggest Loser” and “America Idol” pays for a whole lot of “Meet the Press” and experimenting with new pilots.

Cash cows pay for pet projects.  Always have, always will.

I’m guessing that when Picasso felt the pinch of cash flow, he dashed out a spate of easy-paying stuff, just to get the bank account up enough to let him paint what he wanted.

So when clients throw money at you for ugly work, put a bag over it and just do it.

You’ll have company.  And some coin to show for it.

There are only three possible reasons for saying ‘yes’ to a freelance assignment.

• You’re making a good pile of money.
• You’ll have a lot of fun doing it.
• You’ll be doing good for a bunch of people.

None of the above?

Pass.

If there’s a book that should be wedged into every freelancer’s toolbox, it’s this one:  The War of Art.

Steven Pressfield: Imparting a little starch and inspiration to creative freelancers

It’s by Steven Pressfield, novelist and screenwriter who wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, The Last of the Amazons, The Afghan Campaign,The Virtues of War, and most recently Killing Rommel. This guy produces.

In the War of Art he has much to say to us creatives and freelancers and entrepreneurial types who have stacks of daydream projects and works laying around undone.  Or even untouched.

Why we don’t do

How come we don’t ‘get around’ to writing that symphony, or building that web venture? We’re spending our days designing user manuals, which we detest, yet we still don’t sit down to do the scary hard work that could break us into the big time.  Why the hell not?

Or maybe we’ve lucked into the all-time juicy dream assignment from the best client ever.  And it’s laying there undone because we’re so freaking scared of blowing it, we don’t even start.  (Where I am this very day.)

How to get off your ass

Mr. Pressfield names the demon ‘Resistance’, that anti-force that keeps us from sitting down and doing our work.  And by ‘work’ he means that thing we were born to do, that calling that tugs at our soul. The thing we should be doing.

You should read this book

In the War of Art, he exposes the tricks and subterfuges that Resistance employs to make sure we keep dicking around and not doing.

And then he shows us the miraculous things will happen when we shut up, buck up and get to work.

The best part:  Mr. Pressfield writes as a guy who’s been personally slapped around by Resistance.  (See his story about the night in a cheap New York apartment on page 49.)

He doesn’t scold from a lofty perch like some overachiever gurus out there. Mr. Pressfield has done hand-to-hand battle with Resistance.  (And still does, apparently.) He comes back with muddy boots and a gashed chin to give us the intel.  It rings true.  I believe him.

I first read this book three years ago, and go through it afresh every few months for much-needed ‘starch and inspiration’ as he calls it.  I have bought at least seven of these to give away.  Above is a picture of my tattered and sweat-stained copy.  Buy your own here.

Three questions

Anyway.  By dumb luck, I recently had the chance to do a quick Q&A with Steven Pressfield on the War of Art, particularly as it applies to us freelancers.

Talk about stage fright. I re-wrote my questions nine times, afraid of sounding like a boob.

Mr. Pressfield was gracious and complete pro.  Here’s the exchange.

Q: One passage from WoA that often echoes in my head is The Definition of a Hack.  I agree with the thought entirely. Enduring and powerful work doesn’t come from trying to outguess the market, reviewers, the public. That’s not why you did Gates of Fire.

But the question that nags at me (and every other artist/designer/photographer freelancer I commiserate with) is ‘how do we remain authentic while still trying to satisfy clients?’

Some say “Work the way you want, and let the right people find you or not.”  Others say “As a pro, you should be skillful and disciplined enough to show up and solve any problem, whether the solution delights your soul, or not.”

Where do you land here?

PRESSFIELD: Walt, I come down for #2.  But that’s assuming that the artist/designer/photographer/freelancer we’re talking about is in business as a commercial enterprise and not doing “pure art.”

If you’re in business, you’re there to serve your client.  On the other hand, #1 has a lot of validity too. A photographer, say, has his own style – and that’s why clients come to him and not to other photographers.  They want his look, his emotion, what he and only he brings to the table.

So now that I think about it, I would say it’s a combo of #1 and #2.  Do you remember the actress Tina Louise, who was on Gilligan’s Island?  A real sexpot.  I had a boss once who hired her to do a commercial.  When the camera rolled, she kept giving him her sexy Tina Louise takes, which he kept trying to tone down.  Finally she just snapped.  “If you wanted Florence Henderson, you should have cast Florence Henderson!”

Q: I first read WoA as a writer, but I’m continually struck by how the principles apply in spades to the business world. Resistance shows up as endless tinkering with spreadsheets instead doing the hard stuff like trying to sell something, or actually building the damn product.

What reactions and feedback have you heard from the business and entrepreneurial worlds?  Is there War of Art for business in the works?

PRESSFIELD: You’re right on there, Walt.  I didn’t think WOA applied to entrepreneurs either when I wrote it.  But to my amazement, that group has written in the most and been the most enthusiastic.

I never knew Resistance applied to business but it sure does!  Donald Trump put WOA as #2 on his “summer reading list” for his business seminars; Robert Kiyosaki recommends it; and I’ve bunches of copies for David Allen (“Getting Things Done.”)

Maybe I should do a business version. Thanks!

Q: Where does blogging fit into your overall work day now?  (StevenPressfield.com) Is it a warm-up before the day’s hard slog?  A little cool-out jam session after the tough pages are done?  Maybe a distraction?  What has your experience been so far?

PRESSFIELD: Blogging has really devoured my time.  I’ve got to stop it.  It’s fun and I’m enthusiastic about the cause, but it’s real work, it’s full time stuff.  I intend to keep it up for a while, as the issues are “hot,” but by early next year I’ll have to really scale it back.  It requires too much time and effort.  It’s just as hard, I find, to write a good blog piece as to do real work.

As far as how it fits into the day, I’ll do a blog piece first, as you sussed out, as a warm-up.  It takes about two hours.  Then two hours of real writing.  Then I’m pooped.  But I’ve lost two hours of serious writing time, so that’s not so good.

Unfortunately these days, a writer if he wants to survive has to have some way of “getting the word out.”  You can’t count on your publisher at all and there are no more book reviews.  It’s like everything else in this tough economy.  The old days are over.  It’s tough out there!

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Post-game commentary:

-I was heartened to see that it took Steven Pressfield — world-class productive writer– two full hours to write a blog post.  Makes me feel better about pecking at this one for 90 minutes, even with 60% of it already written by Steve.

- It’s interesting to see that even established, pure-pro guys with a built-in audience still have to be out there pitching and networking and handshaking.  Your work can do some of the talking for you. But not all of it.  Steve does it well, and with class.

- Steven didn’t single me out for this Q&A just because I’m an A-list mover and shaker.  He does this as a matter of course, I think, to offer a leg up to other creatives out there struggling in the trenches every day.  Even Z-listers like me.

Here’s a stack of other Q&As Steve offered to freelancers and creatives. (Many of whom had way better questions than mine.)  This guy is generous, tireless.

Boxing the Octopus

Buon Viaggio

Craig Fergson Images

Cyberward

Echoes of a Forgotten Age

Grokdotcom

Inspiration Location

Karine’s Blog

Mobilizing Students Mission

Red Fish Circle

Running Down A Dream

The Dreaming Cafe

The Dreaming Cafe 2

The Great Work Blog

The New York Screenwriting Life

Thesy Surface in Los Angeles

Write It Down

Writer  Shelves

Oh, and if you ever need a savvy and refreshingly human advocate for your book project, I would recommend Callie Oettinger. She gets it.

This is a lesson I have to re-learn every once in a while:

If you’re working at the lower limit of your fee range, and the client is at the upper limits of their budget range, step away.  Better yet, run.

When it’s small potatoes for you, but a major deal for them, it will go south fast. You will lose money. They will be pissed off.  It will be a 360-degree stinker.

The dynamic is easy to understand. If you’re working for bare bones fee on a relatively small project, your goal is to get it done. Be swift, be efficient, be a pro. Then move on.

But their goal, of course, is to get every nickel’s worth of the astronomical fee they’re paying. They want project briefs, target dates, ironclad agreements. More tweaks, more choices. They will want to re-think and over-discuss everything. They will never be sure if it’s good enough.

You will do twice the work for half the fee. And they will still feel gypped. Bad juju all around.

Best work zone:  Top of your fee scale (where you’re delighted to be working, and eager to bust one over the fence). . . and the mid-range of the client’s usual budget. (Gee, he does really good stuff.  And reasonable, too.)

Is entrepreneurship somehow a more worthy calling than freelancing?

Some people think so. I disagree.

True, in some circles, the ‘entrepreneur’ carries many more status
points. The enterpreneur is the capitalist hero. He is Andrew Carnegie,
Michael Dell, and the guys who invented Google. The kids who sold
YouTube for a few billion.

The freelancer, in that view, is a migrant laborer.

Here is marketing guru Seth Godin in a blog post on funding:

“Most companies are not appropriate sites for VC
[venture capital] money. That’s because they’re freelance ventures, not
entrepreneurial ones. A freelance venture is one where you work to get
paid. An entrepreneurial one is where you can make money while you
sleep. . .”

And here is Paul Knapp in “How not to get rich” on membox.

“The worst business to be in is one where you sell your
time. Selling your time is a terrible way to get rich. Sure, you might
get a good income, and slowly build up some savings and financial
assets. But really, any business that relies on its owner selling their
[sic] time is just a job.”

Godin and Knapp are right. If you long for vast riches and status, go
build a company and sell it for a many millions.  You can earn money as
you sleep.  (Although I doubt that entrepreneurs get much sleep.)

As one-time entrepreneur Paul Graham puts it, you will have solved the money problem forever, in one fell swoop. You will have achieved the holy grail of entrepreneurdom.

But I’m not sure freelancers think that way. At least not this
freelancer, nor the freelancers that I mingle with.  We’re not so moved
to build and run a company.  It would involve putting up with way more crap than we could stand.

We do, however, like the idea of solving the lifetime money issue in
one master stroke. But we think of doing it the way J.K. Rowling, the
creator of Harry Potter, did it. We like the way Pablo Picasso did it.

Did Ansel Adams dream of setting up a chain of photo studios in strip malls?  I think he just wanted to take pictures.

Mark Twain made a ton of money writing books.  Then quickly lost most
of it on a start-up venture peddling a typesetting machine.  He had to
write and talk his way back to solvency.

However, it is smart to think about side projects, where you create
properties, libraries of work, tools, designs, concepts, or content
that can earn you money over and over again.  You don’t need a company
to put out a CD or write a book or design a portfolio of web page
templates.

Think of it as taking an entreprenuerial approach to your craft.  Like freelancing for yourself.