Avoid Getting Paid for “Accepted Work Onlyâ€
As I search open freelance writing positions on a regular basis, the following statement (or something similar) is popping up more and more: you will get paid X dollars for accepted work only. When I see this I never apply for the job. It simply isn’t worth the hassle for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, when I begin working with a new client I like to know for sure that I will be paid. Asking for upfront payment is one way of making sure that this happens. With the type of job detailed above, not only are you not getting paid upfront but you may never receive a dime from the “client.†Instead, you are only receiving payment for accepted work.
The question is: how is the client going to decide what to accept and what to reject? This is subjective, and can end up burning you big time in the end. I have spoke with many freelancers who have put many hours into similar projects just to find that the client hates the work and will give them no chance to edit it. The end result is a lot of lost time and no money.
It is my practice to avoid jobs that have this type of clause. Since I always ask for upfront payment of some sort, these positions would not work out for me anyway. Not to mention the fact that I find them to be too big a risk.
Do any of you have experience with these types of jobs? If so, I would love to hear how things worked out for you. Feel free to share in the comments section so we can all learn from your experience.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Every time I have dealt with one of these people – which I no longer do – it has been a disaster. You put in the hours doing the research, usually with only some sort of vague instruction, and then they either hate the piece because it wasn’t what they had in mind, or you never head anything back from them. The ones you never hear back from tend to be scammers. The others just seem to have little clue as to how to hire a contractor. It can be very frustrating, and I don’t recommend the arrangement to anyone, no matter their level of experience (or lack of).
Wendy
July 8th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Wendy – Sounds like you have been in the same position as me in the past. I totally agree that this sort of arrangement usually ends in disaster for the writer. Thanks for sharing your experience!
July 8th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I had a really bad experience a long while back and now I know never to accept these kinds of projects again. The idea was that I would write an article on the provided topic and the client, who was subcontracting the work to me, “guaranteed” that it would hit the front page of Digg. Should the article reach the front page of Digg, we both would be paid handsomely.
Well, it never got past about 20 or 30 Diggs (about 5 or 6 of which came from my personal friends) and, thus, I never got paid. A waste of time and effort.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:32 am
I have recently taken on a large rewriting project of product descriptions for a client. He has paid me reasonably promptly before for much small quantities of work, however as I’m still fairly new in dealing financially with my writing services i’m wondering what others think about whether to ask for a deposit up front for the entire project, a deposit on small increments of work being completed or whether to await payment after the work has been emailed through.
Also if we take the latter as the chosen option what sort of time frame is reasonable in allowing the client to settle the invoice?
July 10th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Thanks for all the comments! It is obvious that these types of projects are popping up all over the place. From what I can see, I am not the only one staying away from these jobs…
July 10th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
[...] but also because he knows how to best run his business. In following this, he refuses to take on paid on accepted work projects. This is where the client will only pay if they “accept” the work you submit. [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I have an extremely stupid question. Feel free to laugh.
I’m a novice to free lancing with a few articles published on spec. When you all say client… please tell me how you get them.I mean the general steps. How much on spec work do you need to get clients? Thanks.