A Gig Is A Gig Is A Gig Is A Gig

A big part of starting this page was to encourage other writers or creators and give any advice I feel competent enough to give, so I wanted to talk about freelance work. It’s something I’ve been doing since I used to write college papers for beer money, which eventually led me to pursuing paid jobs working with companies, promoters, individual webpages, actual freelancing sites, etc etc. 

Full disclaimer: my experiences were not positive. I’m not saying don’t pursue that freelance work if it’s how you want to get yourself out there, and it certainly did help me...but there’s a reason I don’t do it anymore. Maybe through reading my observations, you can avoid the mistakes I made and have a more fulfilling experience. Also I won’t be naming any websites or individuals for super obvious reasons.

1. We’ll start with the no-brainer: Don’t work for somebody who won’t pay you. I see this a lot with smaller webpages: they get a modest following, “hire” hungry talent, and then these page owners work their writers to the bone for content to boost their page. Most of them will promise to pay eventually if you stick with them long enough, but ultimately they will clean house and start the process over again. And in the worst circumstances, they’ll most likely continue to use your work without crediting you, and you will have very little recourse when that happens. 
   
   I know writing can be considered a disposable medium with a lot of competition, but if a page can’t afford to compensate you for your work, they most likely don’t have the resources or following to give you the “exposure” they’re promising.
   
   

2. Pay attention to who owns your work when the job is complete. This comes up a lot when you work with freelancing websites or other companies, where if you choose to maintain the rights to your work, it can result in pay reductions, usually a percentage(if you even have the option to retain ownership).And this in itself didn’t really bother me; most of my jobs were small or based on topics I’d never need to reference ever again. But a big part of getting membership to these sites is submissions, and these companies want the rights to your submitted samples as well.
   
   One of the services I used implemented a ranking system which would determine what kind of jobs you would receive based on your rank which was based on your submission. And if you didn’t give up the rights to your submitted samples, you would be automatically ranked lower. That’s not a conspiracy- it was explicitly stated. Maybe me seeing that as distasteful is naive, but if they can find a way to monetize that material later down the line, they will.
   
   

3. Be mindful of unhealthy working relationships. One of the worst freelance experiences I had was a one-on-one working relationship: it was his promotional network, brand, and access, and I covered major releases. What differentiates this from the scenario I described in #1 is this was someone who knew me through someone who knew me, and he reached out to me specifically. We went on to work together for a little over a year. By all accounts, we got along amicably and there was a sense of mutual respect.
   
   However, as my responsibilities grew, the cracks started to appear. Off-color remarks clearly not intended as jokes, being more demanding and less flexible, and my compensation as it related to my increase in responsibilities was laughable. All of that on it’s own is kind of whatever at the time; I was young and didn’t overthink any of it. Eventually though, there was a blowout over a mistake I admittedly made. And even to this day, I can say with full confidence that nobody has ever talked to me like he did since. That’s when I realized I wasn’t working with a person who respected me or valued my work. I quit on the spot.
   
   He tried to patch things up afterwards, but you can’t walk shit like that back. Now I’m not saying you should bail whenever things get tense or you feel like you deserve more than you get, but you also shouldn’t tolerate behavior you wouldn’t accept in a conventional work environment. 

I might add to this post later if anything comes to mind, but I really think it is important for people to understand the value of their work, not just in a monetary sense. By all means, if you have the drive and you like the work, freelance writing can be a gateway to greater financial freedom, so go get fuckin paid. I just know some of the experiences I went through took a lot out of me and made it difficult to write for periods of time, so I’d like to do what I can to prevent those things from happening to other people.